MRL Spotlight

David Livingston

MRL highlights the work of our associates and their work in the field. This Spotlight will focus on David Livingston.

Not long after David Livingston moved to Colorado in 1972, he began his doctoral work at the University of Colorado-Denver. There he met Dr. Marzano, who was teaching at the university, and the two stayed in touch over the next 30+ years while David worked for Denver's Cherry Creek School District as a teacher, elementary principal, and Executive Director of Elementary Education. After retiring from Cherry Creek, David worked with Bob at McREL as a Balanced Leadership trainer and when MRL was founded in 2008, David agreed to become an associate.

Supporting Educational Leaders

His wide experience as a teacher, administrator, and district leader has given David a unique perspective on leadership in education. David recently co-authored the book Effective Supervision: Supporting the Art and Science of Teaching, which presents a model of supervision that outlines "what people in leadership roles can and should do to support and supervise the people in their schools," explains David. He believes that supervision and support go hand in hand, and describes how the strategies in the book help district administrators, school principals, and teachers in leadership roles support the professional growth of teachers they supervise.

Instructional Rounds

David places special emphasis on the role that teachers can play in helping each other develop greater pedagogical skill. Instructional rounds, a professional development strategy designed to increase the collective pedagogical expertise of an entire school, are a regular part of David's trainings. Because he wants teachers to understand firsthand the power of these focused, non-evaluative observations, he explains the process briefly and then invites teachers to participate in an instructional rounds experience. Through a non-evaluative lens, participants observe master teachers in their school or district to improve their own teaching practices. After each observation, David leads teachers in a short debriefing before entering the next classroom. David normally guides teachers through this cycle in several different classrooms before facilitating an extended discussion where participants talk about how their observations have reinforced their current practices, prompted them to enhance or elaborate on strategies they already use, or inspired them to try new instructional strategies.

Instructional rounds are an excellent way for teachers to identify effective teaching strategies, and David has seen impressive growth in schools as teachers realize the value of observing one another. "Twenty and thirty year veteran teachers have told me that 'The last time I watched someone teach this way was when I was a student teacher,'" he says, "The teaching profession hasn't often offered that sort of learning experience." Administrators also benefit from participating in instructional rounds. David describes one principal who commented, "I'm learning things about teaching that I had forgotten or that I was completely unaware of. This is a great way to keep expanding my knowledge of good teaching and pedagogy." David finds that as groups of teachers begin to experience instructional rounds in their school, word spreads about the non-evaluative nature of the observations and their significant impact on participants' practice. "Once people have been on instructional rounds," he says, "they realize that it's about their own growth, not about evaluating the teachers they observe."

Current Work

David is currently working with educational leaders and teachers in New Jersey, Colorado, Texas, and Tennessee, among others. He enjoys developing long-term relationships with schools and districts as they organize their systems around a common language of instruction, a common protocol for supervision and evaluation, and a common set of teacher and student evidence that allows teachers to reflect on their own practice.

In working with schools and districts, David emphasizes the importance of what they're already working on and helps teachers and leaders integrate that work with Dr. Marzano's Art and Science of Teaching model. David often works with teachers to customize the teacher and student evidence in Dr. Marzano's Observational Protocol to reflect current initiatives or effective practices already in place in their schools. He says, "We're tailoring the protocol to each school's unique situation, prior work, and needs." He helps teachers examine additions or changes they'd like to make to the protocol through a research-based lens. "Teachers can normally tell when something is indefensible or misaligned, and if that is the case, we don't add it," David says.

Future Work

As David continues to help districts implement effective models of teaching and supervision, he realizes that the paradigm shifts involved in such work require incremental growth and constant support. His goals are to help teachers break down the walls of their classrooms in a positive way and to assist administrators and leaders as they support teacher professional growth and reflection.


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