SEL in EDU
SEL in EDU
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105: Strength-based Instructional Rounds with Vicki Wilson
53 minutes Posted Oct 9, 2026 at 12:00 pm.
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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.