I recently heard a great analogy about the CLASS tool and I had to share it. I can’t take credit for the idea. Affiliate Trainer, Teresa Bockes, originated the concept, and I loved it the minute I heard it: CLASS is like a house. Let’s build a house step-by-step to learn more about this metaphor.

The Foundation

You can’t begin building a house until you have a solid foundation. Without sturdy groundwork, your walls will crumble and your roof will never be raised. Likewise, you can’t have a productive and effective relationship with the children in your classroom until you’ve formed an emotional connection with them. In the words of veteran teacher, Rita Pierson, “Kids don't learn from people they don't like.”

The first CLASS domain you learn about in observation training is Emotional Support (ES). It’s the groundwork for your relationship with a child. You welcome children by name with warm, calming voices (Positive Climate), ensure that they feel safe in the new classroom environment (Teacher Sensitivity), and follow children’s lead during storytime (Regard for Student Perspectives).

When it comes to building a house, many people tend to think that once the foundation has been poured, you can forget about it. But that’s not true! Always check back with yourself that you are still being respectful, addressing problems, and allowing for autonomy within the classroom. Any cracks in the foundation can cause structural issues later on.

The Structure

Ok, so now you have a good, solid foundation on which to build the rest of your house. It’s time to construct the walls that support the weight of your roof. Similarly, you can’t expect children to make drastic academic gains without appropriate behavior expectations, clear routines, and effective facilitation techniques and materials.

Let’s build the walls of Classroom Organization (CO). Are you able to redirect misbehavior if it comes up (Behavior Management)? Do your students know the routines and transitions (Productivity)? Have you hooked your student’s interest with hands-on opportunities (Instructional Learning Formats)? When all these pieces are in place, the classroom becomes—in the words of the CLASS Manual—a “well-oiled machine.” Now your students are ready for some serious learning.

The Roof

Your foundation and walls complete! Your house has really started to take form, so, it’s time for the last part of construction—the roof. Classrooms can function when teachers and students have a strong relationship, and when children know the rules and routines. But the Instructional Support (IS) domain is where the “height” of learning takes place (excuse the pun).

It’s at this point in your “construction” that you’re asking more from children’s cognitive skills. You’re asking open-ended questions (Language Modeling), brainstorming, problem-solving (Concept Development), and prompting them to explain their thinking (Quality of Feedback).

The Construction Process

One way CLASS differs from construction is that you don’t necessarily have to build your CLASS house one piece at a time or in a specific order. I’ve heard that there is an underlying belief system that "I have to improve ES and CO before I can even begin to work on IS."

Research shows that you can see improvements in ES and CO while focusing on improving IS. When teachers were coached to improve Instructional Support (the roof) "The number of prompts spent on IS was positively associated with gains in all three domains—i.e., more IS prompts → greater CLASS score gains" (Pianta, 2014).

And as in any construction project, when unexpected hurdles arise, you might need to slow down and re-prioritize your goals. Improving Instructional Support scores is a common goal, but it’s crucial to recognize that each part of the “CLASS house”—Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support—all work together. So, while all three domains are interconnected, you can put the roof on while building the foundations and the walls. You can have a roof while building the foundation.