The results are in: observations are not improving teaching and learning. Pertinently, the Gates Foundation’s recently completed effort to improve student outcomes through enhancing the teacher evaluation process failed to achieve substantive improvement. The way observations are currently designed serve as an obstacle to teacher risk-taking. Teachers fear negative evaluations when their pedagogy is rated, and they lack faith in being supported by supervisors because a trusting relationship between them and their observer has not been built.

Trust-Based Observations: Maximizing Teaching and Learning Growth is a schema changing evaluation model that understands people perform at their best when they feel safe and supported. It begins with twelve, 20 minute observations per week followed by collegial conversations driven by reflective questions, sharing observed teaching strengths, and the building of safe and trusting relationships with teachers. Add the elimination of rating pedagogical skills and replace it with rating mindset, and teachers trust. When teachers fully embrace risk-taking and innovation, it leads to remarkable teaching transformations and improved student learning. 

Craig Randall’s experience as a school counselor, coach, teacher, and principal, at schools in the US and overseas, set him up perfectly to develop a model of teacher observation focused on building trusting relationships that spark teaching and learning growth. As the founder of Trust Based Enterprises, www.trustbased.com, Craig is driven to guide school leaders to successfully adopt and use Trust-Based Observations, on a path towards leading an unprecedented transformation to the way observations are done.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: Observation Problems and Solutions
Chapter 1. So What’s the Problem?
What Can Be Done
Chapter 2. The Solution: Trust Based Observations
Build Safe, Trusting Relationships
Tweak Evaluation
Additional Solutions
Part Two: The TBO System and Making it Work
Chapter 3. The System Basics: Continuous, Frequent, Unannounced, and Short Observations
Why Unannounced?
Why a Continuous Cycle?
Why 20 Minutes?
Why Observe All Teachers Equally?
Troubleshooting
Chapter 4. Building System Success: Creating Time and Getting Organized
Creating and Prioritizing Time
Organization Tools
Part Three: The Observation
Chapter 5. Trust Based Observations Form: Origins and Development
Chapter 6. Starting an Observation
Chapter 7. Evidence of…
Early Thoughts to Guide Successful Observations
Evidence of
Learning Target (LT)
Risk Taking/Innovative Practice
Teacher/Student Rapport and Relationship
Classroom and Student Behavior Management
Cooperative Learning
Working Memory: 10-2 Reflection and Processing Time
Questioning/Higher Order Thinking
Formative Assessment/Knowing What Each Student Has Learned to Guide Next Steps
Descriptive Progress Feedback
Specific Differentiation
Learning Principles Used
Student Interview: (Is Learning Clear to All?)
Teaching Intangibles
Scripting
Additional Pedagogy
Questions
Suggestions
Chapter 8. Questions
Chapter 9. Web Links: Trust Based Observations as a Resource Tool
Part 4: The Reflective Conversation
Chapter 10. Reflective Conversation System Basics
Prioritize Reflective Conversations
Organization
Respect
The Conversation
Chapter 11. Building Trusting Relationships
Vulnerability
Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
Actions that Build Trust
Mindsets or Actions that Inhibit Trust
Chapter 12. Listening and Asking the Questions
Listening
The Questions
Chapter 13. Sharing Evidence of
Troubleshooting Additional Observer Questions on Sharing Evidence
Chapter 14. Offering Suggestions
When to Offer Suggestions
Preparation
What and How Much to Suggest
Words Matter: How to Offer Suggestions
Explaining What Continuing Support Looks Like and Entails
Troubleshooting Challenges to Offers of Suggestions
Chapter 15. Specials: Course Connections Accountability
Part Five: The Teacher Evaluation Process and Professional Development
Chapter 16. Self-Assessment: Trust Based Observation Form Rubric
TBO Pedagogy Rubric
Action Research Big Goal
Chapter 17. Evaluation in Trust Based Observations
TBO Evaluation
Preparing for the Summative Evaluation Meeting
The Meeting
Chapter 18. Action Improvement Plans and Difficult Conversations
Action Improvement Plans
Difficult Conversations
Chapter 19. TBO and Professional Development
Question of the Year PD
PDC and Action Research Big Goals
More on PDC’s
Further PD Tips, Suggestions, Guidelines
Part Six: Bringing It All Together
Chapter 20. Building TBO Success
Implementation
Blending
Change
Sustaining Success
Bibliography
About the Author

Classroom observation can lead to telling teachers to do what I did, to advocating different ways of teaching, and to complying with accountability edicts. Trust-Based Observations starts where it matters, establishing trust, building on strengths, focusing on the impact of teachers on the learning lives of students, showing how to have open conversations about learning, and demonstrating collective teacher efficacy in action.
— John Hattie, PhD, emeritus laureate professor, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia; chair of the board of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership

TBO represents one of the biggest gains to improving teaching and learning that exists. Craig Randall’s Trust-Based Observations shows us what a culture of trust is and provides many ideas for putting TBO into practice. If you want improvement, read TBO and use its ideas.
— Michael Fullan, Professor Emeritus, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto, Author of Leading in a Culture of Change

Craig Randall’s book has many deeply insightful and compelling ideas. And indeed research shows that when students trust that educators believe in them and their development, their learning can be significantly enhanced.
— Carol Dweck, author of "Mindset", and the Lewis and Virginia Eaton professor of psychology at Stanford University

Craig Randall’s much needed book is a must read for every school leader involved directly or indirectly in performing teacher observations. Trust-Based Observations succeeds because it stresses heart before head. It shows that by putting relationships and people first, trust is built. With trust present, observations are now used to bring out the best in teachers because they feel safe to take risks and know they will be supported as they strive to improve.
— Jon Gordon, best-selling author of "The Power of Positive Leadership" and "The Energy Bus"

In any field, practitioners need honest, well-intentioned, and trustworthy feedback in order to succeed and improve. If the feedback process is compromised by suspicion and anxiety, it quickly becomes useless, even counterproductive. In this thoughtful and empathetic book, Craig Randall details how teacher observation has gone awry and how to put it back on track. He offers a sensible, empirically grounded technique, as well as indispensable advice on how to build trusting relationships among educators.
— Ulrich Boser, author of "Learn Better" and "The Leap: The Science of Trust and Why It Matters"

Trust-Based Observations is an overdue rethink of how to support the most important asset in schools and in the lives of students: their teachers. This book honors the art and science of teaching and the complexity of creating learning environments where all students can find success and challenge.
— Glenn Whitman, director of The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning, and author of "Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education"

Most teachers view administrator observations as inauthentic for capturing what happens in classroom instruction. Most administrators want the observation process to be supportive and not an obligatory hoop to jump through. Craig Randall’s book is a game changer. Honed by deep experiences, Trust-Based Observations, combines empathy and growth mindset to create a powerful system for professional collaboration that enables teacher growth and an empowered professional community. This book opens a new and liberating world for positive and productive classroom visits.
— John McCarthy, author of "So All Can Learn"

Trust-Based Observations should be on the shelf of every administrator. It offers brisk, engaging writing and makes a compelling case for why we should radically rethink teacher observations. The book is never preachy and is full of practical resources that principals and school leaders can use immediately. I have experienced Craig Randalls trust-based method personally when he was my principal and can honestly say that the observation process was empowering, greatly impacting my subsequent work as a coach. This is a must-have for leaders that want to improve morale, feedback, and trust.
— Alexis Wiggins, director of Cohort of Educators for Essential Learning and author of "The Best Class You Never Taught"

Written from the perspective of an educator who has a wealth of experience working in educational institutions internationally, this book provides an interesting contribution to the thinking and practice surrounding the use of observation in educational contexts. In Trust-Based Observations, Craig Randall puts forward a compelling case for engaging with observation as a supportive tool for teacher learning and provides a framework for educators to apply this.
— Matthew OLeary, author of "Classroom Observation: A Guide to the Effective Observation of Teaching and Learning" and "Reclaiming Lesson Observation: Supporting Excellence in Teacher Learning"