Chase Smith

Staff Writer

The Pineville Independent School District has adopted a new walk-through observation system to help give immediate feedback to teachers.

In the past, the observation of each classroom teacher had bene written by principals on paper.

According to Gary Perkins, an educational consultant, this new state-of-the-art system known as eWalk provided by a Canadian company.

The school system was actually able to customize its own web-based template of eWalk based upon district and school needs. This new instrument allows classroom observers to immediately email feedback to each teacher about observations in the classroom.

“This new system allows teachers to see a picture of their classroom through the observers eyes,” said Perkins. The observer can tell if the teacher has a tendency to accidentally look at certain parts of the room, while teaching and ignoring another area of the class.

This instrument also plays a roll to see if all the students are engaged in the lesson, said Perkins.

eWalk is currently in place now in the Pineville school system. Perkins added, “this system is very reasonably priced compared to what we were using before. The customer service team for eWalk is very helpful and allows us to change the template anytime to fit our needs.”

Perkins says eWalk focuses on three different areas which are “what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess the learning going on in the classroom.”

“This is a great addition for getting the message across,” said board member Ann Combs.

Chase Smith is a staff writer for the Middlesboro Daily News. She can be contacted at ksmith@heartlandpublications.com. She can also be contacted at 606.248.1010 ext. 204.