How do I build the habit of visiting classrooms every day?
Like any habit, it comes down to three things: a cue that triggers the behavior, a routine you follow, and a reward that makes you want to do it again.
Most principals have well-established habits that fill their days — checking email first thing, responding to the morning rush of questions, handling whatever crisis walks through the door. Classroom visits have to compete with those ingrained patterns, and willpower alone won't win that contest for long.
The practical keys are scheduling (put visit blocks on your calendar as recurring appointments), sequencing (visit entire teams in order so you don't skip the hard ones), and experiencing the reward (the conversations and insights that come from being in classrooms are genuinely energizing once you get past the initial discomfort).
Most leaders who commit to this practice report that after two to three weeks of consistency, it starts to feel natural. The challenge is protecting those first few weeks from the forces that have always kept you out of classrooms.
I devote an entire chapter to the science of habit formation and how to apply it to classroom visits in Now We're Talking!, Day 10.
From the Book
Now We’re Talking! 21 Days to High-Performance Instructional Leadership
About the Author
Justin Baeder, PhD
Justin Baeder, PhD is Director of The Principal Center, where he helps senior leaders in K–12 organizations build capacity for instructional leadership. A former principal in Seattle Public Schools, he is the creator of the Instructional Leadership Challenge, which has helped more than 10,000 school leaders in 50 countries around the world:
- Confidently get into classrooms every day
- Have feedback conversations that change teacher practice
- Discover their best opportunities for school improvement
Dr. Baeder directs the Instructional Leadership Association, the premiere professional membership for school leaders, and is the author of three Solution Tree books on instructional leadership:
- Now We’re Talking! 21 Days to High-Performance Instructional Leadership
- Mapping Professional Practice: How to Develop Instructional Frameworks to Support Teacher Growth (with Heather Bell-Williams)
- Cultivate and Activate: Building Teacher Capacity for Instructional Leadership (with Keith Fickel)
Justin is the host of Principal Center Radio, a long-running audio podcast featuring more than 400 education thought leaders and more than 500 books, as well as The Teaching Show and The Eduleadership Show. A prolific education commentator, he has more than 250,000 followers and 30,000,000 annual impressions on social media, and is frequently consulted by major media outlets on issues of education research, policy, and practice.
As a consultant, trainer, and speaker, Dr. Baeder has worked onsite with groups across the US, Canada, and Central America, and virtually with groups across the Middle East, Australia, and around the world. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, and regularly provides administrator professional development on classroom walkthroughs, teacher evaluation, and instructional leadership.
He holds a PhD in Educational Leadership & Policy Studies from the University of Washington and an MEd in Curriculum & Instruction from Seattle University, and is a graduate of the Danforth Program for Educational Leadership at UW.