Professional learning · Leaders, Coaches, Teachers · 75 minutes
Instructional Rounds for Digital Learning
Leadership teams run a full rounds protocol on five written classroom vignettes, noting only what students do with technology and AI, then find patterns and name the next level of work for teachers, coaches, and themselves.
Walkthroughs often end in a verdict ("great tech use!") that tells a teacher nothing and tells a campus even less. Instructional rounds work differently: a team agrees on a problem of practice, gathers descriptive evidence of what students are actually doing, looks for patterns across classrooms, and names the next level of work for the whole system, not for one teacher. In this session, teams practice the protocol on five written vignettes from a fictional middle school whose problem of practice is about students reasoning together with technology and AI. They set their notes beside the campus walkthrough app's summary to see what each kind of data can and can't tell them. Unlike building a look-for rubric, rounds are about learning to see and deciding together what the campus does next.
In this packet
- Handout A: Coyote Run Middle School: Problem of Practice and Five Classrooms (reading)
- Handout B: Describe, Don't Judge Sort (card sort)
- Handout C: Patterns and Next Level of Work (organizer)
- Facilitator key (last page)
TCEA ELE indicators
- L2.1 I know how to support and evaluate effective technology integration practices.
- L2.3 I am aware of research-based approaches to technology-enhanced pedagogy and their applications.
- L2.2 I can guide the implementation of digital curriculum and instructional technology initiatives.
- L3.1 I know how to use digital data tools to drive school improvement efforts.
- T4.2 I can create opportunities for student collaboration and peer learning.
Full facilitator guide: mglearn.github.io/eles/activities/digital-learning-rounds.html
Handout A for Instructional Rounds for Digital Learning
Coyote Run Middle School: Problem of Practice and Five Classrooms
Coyote Run is fictional. Post each vignette as a separate "classroom." Write only what students and the teacher say and do.
1Problem of practice. Coyote Run Middle School has one device per student and access to a district-approved AI chatbot. Teachers report that students complete digital tasks quickly, but when students use AI or online sources, they rarely question the information, check it, or build on each other's thinking. Our question: When students use technology and AI, how often and in what ways do they reason together and verify information?
2Walkthrough app summary, fall semester (fictional). Visits logged: 48. "Technology in use": checked in 41 visits. "Student engagement": rated High in 36 visits. "AI tool observed": checked in 9 visits. Comment field most often left blank. The app has no field for what students were doing with the technology.
3Vignette 1 · Grade 6 reading (the facilitator models on this one). The teacher projects a chatbot's summary of the class novel's first chapter and asks, "What did it get right, and what did it leave out?" Students write on mini whiteboards for two minutes, then compare with a partner. Six students raise hands to say the summary skips the younger sister. One student asks, "Why did it change her name to Anna?" The teacher writes the question on the board and says they'll come back to it. Pairs add one missing detail each to a class list.
4Vignette 2 · Grade 7 science. Each student has a laptop and a digital worksheet on ecosystems with 10 questions. Most students type a question into a search engine or the AI chatbot and paste an answer into the worksheet. Two students talk about lunch. One student asks a neighbor, "What did you put for number 4?" and copies it. The teacher circulates and checks the completion bar on her own screen. At the end, 24 of 27 worksheets are submitted. No student is heard discussing an answer's source.
5Vignette 3 · Grade 8 U.S. history. Groups of three share one laptop. Roles are posted: Searcher, Skeptic, Scribe. The task is to decide whether a viral photo labeled "students protesting in 1968" is what it claims. One group splits the work so each person searches alone and they don't speak for six minutes. Another group argues: the Skeptic says, "That site sells posters. Why would we trust it?" and the Searcher opens a museum archive. The teacher asks each group, "How do you know?" and waits for an answer. Two groups change their verdict after finding the original caption.
6Vignette 4 · Grade 7 English. Students each asked the AI chatbot for three counterarguments to their essay thesis, then work in pairs to rank the six counterarguments from strongest to weakest and explain the top choice. One pair debates whether a counterargument is "real or just something the AI made up to sound smart." One student in another pair says, "I'll just use all of them," and pastes them into his draft; his partner says nothing. At the bottom of each document is a line: "AI use: I used the chatbot for counterarguments. I kept ___ and changed ___." About half the students have filled it in.
7Vignette 5 · Grade 6 math. No devices for the first 30 minutes. Groups solve a ratio problem on chart paper, then do a gallery walk leaving sticky-note questions on other groups' work ("Why did you double here?"). In the last 10 minutes, each group uses a tablet to record a 30-second explanation of its strategy for a class family page. One student who uses a speech-generating device records her group's explanation; a groupmate holds the tablet. Groups rewatch their video and two re-record after noticing they skipped a step.
Handout B for Instructional Rounds for Digital Learning
Describe, Don't Judge Sort
Sort each observation note. Rewrite every Evaluative note as something an observer could have actually seen or heard.
Descriptive
Evaluative
Interpretive
Handout B for Instructional Rounds for Digital Learning
Describe, Don't Judge Sort: cards to sort
Cut apart the strips. Sort each one onto the mat and be ready to explain why.
Three of five groups changed their answer after one member asked where a source came from.
Great use of technology!
Students seemed confused by the AI's answer.
A student said, "The chatbot says 1972 but the museum page says 1968."
The teacher should have stopped students from using AI.
Students typed questions into the chatbot and pasted answers into the worksheet without talking.
Students were highly engaged.
The pairs who ranked counterarguments probably understand argument better.
Only the Searcher touched the laptop in two of the groups.
This was a weak lesson.
Students may not know how to check an AI's claim.
The teacher asked "How do you know?" four times and waited at least five seconds each time.
Handout C for Instructional Rounds for Digital Learning
Patterns and Next Level of Work
Cluster your sticky notes into patterns across classrooms. Name the evidence, then the next level of work for the system.
| Pattern across classrooms | Evidence (vignette + note) | What the walkthrough app data shows or misses | What students need next | Next level of work: teachers / coaches / leaders |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Facilitator only for Instructional Rounds for Digital Learning
Answer key and notes
Handout B: Describe, Don't Judge Sort
| Item | Sort | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Three of five groups changed their answer after one member asked where a source came from. | Descriptive | Countable, observable, tied to student action. |
| Great use of technology! | Evaluative | A verdict with no evidence; the teacher can't act on it. |
| Students seemed confused by the AI's answer. | Interpretive | A reasonable inference to test in the pattern step: what did students say or do? |
| A student said, "The chatbot says 1972 but the museum page says 1968." | Descriptive | A direct quote is the strongest descriptive evidence. |
| The teacher should have stopped students from using AI. | Evaluative | A judgment and a prescription for one teacher; rounds look for system patterns. |
| Students typed questions into the chatbot and pasted answers into the worksheet without talking. | Descriptive | Describes what students did, without judging it. |
| Students were highly engaged. | Evaluative | "Engaged" is a rating. What were they doing: talking, typing, arguing, waiting? |
| The pairs who ranked counterarguments probably understand argument better. | Interpretive | A hypothesis worth checking against student work, not something observed. |
| Only the Searcher touched the laptop in two of the groups. | Descriptive | Observable and relevant to collaboration. |
| This was a weak lesson. | Evaluative | A verdict. Rewrite as what students did and didn't do. |
| Students may not know how to check an AI's claim. | Interpretive | A possible cause behind a pattern; test it across classrooms. |
| The teacher asked "How do you know?" four times and waited at least five seconds each time. | Descriptive | Describes a teacher move precisely enough to be replicated. |