104: Strength-based Instructional Rounds with Vicki Wilson

Most teachers spend a career never seeing a colleague teach. Vicki Wilson, a former Michigan principal and author of "Lead with Instructional Rounds," set out to change that. In this episode, she and Krista unpack a deliberately non-evaluative, strength-based version of instructional rounds: short ten-minute visits, doors left open, and conversations that name what is working rather than what is wrong. Vicki shares how she traded her evaluator hat for a facilitator hat, why she starts every round with agreements and an "admiration, not comparison" mindset, and how validating note cards tied to real impact build both self-efficacy and collective teacher efficacy. She tells the story of a young-fives teacher who watched a fourth-grade math lesson and reinvented it for four-year-olds, proof of what happens when educators finally get to learn from each other across grades and content. If your school feels siloed, this conversation is a concrete map from isolation to collaboration. Connect with Vicki via LinkedIn and her website .