Inquiry and Advocacy Building a Community of Professionals

1. Inquiry and Advocacy Building a Community of Professionals Arkansas Teacher Training Summer 2015

2. Good Morning! • Please login to your BloomBoard account • apps.bloomboard.com • If you are new to BloomBoard this year and don’t have a BloomBoard account, please see us!

3. Our Purpose Today Beginning with the self-assessment, all the way through goal setting and achievement of those goals, teachers must know how to tell their stories, maintain openness to feedback and continuous learning, and advocate for their own growth. In this one-day training designed for teachers, we will build the skills and knowledge needed to balance advocacy and inquiry through evaluation and professional learning.

4. Session Outcomes (pg. 2) • Close read the TESS rubric to define what effective teaching looks like in Arkansas • Use various data sources to identify areas of professional strength and opportunities for improvement • Set goals including student-centered success criteria around high leverage opportunities for improvement • Initiate personalized and relevant professional learning experiences • Tell your story by monitoring goal progress, actively participating in observation activities, and planning a professional portfolio • Explore how to engage in formal and informal professional leadership opportunities

5. Today’s Agenda (pg. 2) • Opening • Deconstructing TESS Framework • Deconstructing Indicators • Aligning Resources to Deepen Knowledge • Completing the PGP • Setting the Right Goals and Examining the TESS Prompts • Reflecting and Tracking Progress • Being an Active Participant in the Observation Process • Reviewing Data Sources • Selecting Artifacts • Telling Your Story • Advocating for Supports • Closing

6. Deconstructing the TESS Framework Opening Reflection (pg. 3): Why do we have these common criteria for success?

7. What’s the point?

8. Understanding a Component • You can name key skills a teacher is building and enhancing to move through the proficiency levels of this indicator. • You can name student behaviors demonstrated across the proficiency levels of this component. • You can name the evidence an observer would look for in your [classroom, planning process, instruction] specific to this indicator.

9. Prioritizing Components You have 5 minutes to…. Access the Framework through AE&R. Review the Components. Use the red stickers to mark three components that you don’t feel like you understand very well. Use the green stickers to mark three component that you do feel like you understand well.

10. For Your Component… • What key skills is a teacher building and enhancing to move through the proficiency levels of this component? • What student behaviors aredemonstrated across the proficiency levels of this component? • What evidence would an observer look for in your [classroom, planning process, instruction] specific to this component? .

11. Wrap Up (pg. 3) Now that we have closely examined a few components, why is it important to know these components well? As a result, what will you be able to do better this year?

12. Completing Your PGP Opening Reflection (pg. 5): • What values are inherent in the PGP process? • How does AE&R help you fulfill your responsibilities in this process? Navigate to the AE&R page if you are not there already.

13. PGP Step 1: Self-ratings (20 min.) • If you have finished your self-ratings and snapshot : • Revisit your snapshot and adjust as needed • Go into the Marketplace and find a resource that would support your growth on the component of your choice. • If you have not finished your self-ratings or snapshot: • Go into AE&R • Work through the rubric and add ratings • Create a snapshot

14. PGP Step 2: Goals • What data might you look at to think through your priorities this year? • Evaluation data, student data, school site plan • Tip: Use the note cards to jot down any high-level strengths and areas for growth

15. Choosing the Right Goal Specific strategy (ex: close reading) aligned to student needs “Need to know” new initiative Received a “low” score and want to improve Low hanging fruit: close to moving up a level Easy to quantify and track (ex: effective transitions)

16. Writing Effective Goals • Focused on the what • What action do you want to achieve in the classroom? • Explains the why • What impact will this have on your students? • Should be succinct, focused, and action-oriented

17. Evaluate These Goals • Which goal is most effectively written? • How could you revise the others?

18. TESS Prompts

19. Excerpt: Diane Sweeney (pg. 7) • How would Kristi fill out her goal sticky? • Fill in Kristi’s responses to the first two TESS prompts: • What specifics will help you know you’ve reached your goal? • What data will you use to measure progress? • Any other take-aways from the article?

20. Peer Goal Review (10 min) • If you do not have a goal set: • Write your goal in BloomBoard • Align your goal to one or more component • Answer the first two TESS (Specific and Measurable) prompts • If you do have a goal set: • Check that it is still relevant based on your reflection • In triads: peer review goals to tune up the language and refine TESS prompts • Extra time: find a resource and explain why that resource seemed relevant to your goal

21. PGP Step 3: Support 95 Percent of teachers in Arkansas set sticky note goals in 2014 - 2015 25 Percent of teachers in Arkansas used the Marketplace in 2014 - 2015 “What types of resources and supports do you need to achieve your goal?”

22. Beyond the PGP… Goals Progress Posts

23. Closing Reflection What part of the PGP process is more clear to you now than when we started? Using a Fist to Five Continuum, where is your expertise with the PGP process?

24. Be an Active Participant (pg. 9) Questioning one’s own position Advocating for a position Learning Organization Where do you and your evaluator each fall on the spectrum of inquiry to advocacy?

25. Engage in the Evaluation Process (pg. 10) • Review data sources • Upload artifacts • Tell your story • Advocate for support

26. Review Data Sources In Formal Observations: • Classroom Observation • Review Collected Evidence • Ratings • Summary: Feedback and Next Steps In Mid/End-Year Review: • Aggregated Evidence & Ratings (AE&R)

27. Yes, we know…

28. Uploading Artifacts in Observations • Artifacts provide context for the observer. They “tell the story” of the lesson. • What artifacts might you want to upload after the lesson under Additional Artifacts? • How do you decide which artifacts are most important to upload? • Tagging evidence provides the “why” for observers

29. Artifacts for Mid/End-of-Year Review • Additional Artifacts (portfolio) • Automatically shared when you upload • Tag to rubric or goals • Automatically transfer to ePortfolio • ePortfolio • Private until shared in an observation or meeting template • Can be used if a Additional Artifacts step has not been created by your observer

30. Advocacy: Tell Your Story In Formal Observations: • Develop talking points to share. • Use the Pre/Post-Observation Conference Form strategically In Mid- and End-of-Year Review: • Develop talking points to share. • Add a progress post to your goal.

31. Inquiry What does this look like from your angle? Can you give me an example so I can understand your thinking more clearly? I may need to expand my thinking; tell me how you see it. Am I missing anything?

32. Advocate for Support • What type of support will help you grow? • Are there are resources that will help support your growth?

33. Navigating in Observations • Option 1: Review goals. Look at your current ratings/evidence in the AE&R tool. • Select and upload 2-3 artifacts in support of your growth. • Practice adding a post to your goal. • Option 2: Revisit a formal observation from last year. Reflect on the following: • What is a strength of the lesson and what is an area of growth? • What talking points would you have developed to prepare for a discussion with your observer? • What artifacts would you add, looking back? • What supports would you have advocated for?

34. Closing Reflection (pg. 9) What is one thing that you want to do differently in the observation process this year to better balance inquiry and advocacy? What is one BloomBoard feature that you want to revisit or review before your 2015-2016 observation cycle?

35. Identify Your Leadership Pathway How do you demonstrate leadership at your site, in ways big or small?

36. Time Intensive Peer to Peer In a staff meeting, share how to find resources in the BloomBoard Resource Library and recommend it to colleague. Informal Formal Recommend a resource to colleague in the BloomBoard platform. Sharing with Ms. Smith in the hallway that you found a great resource on BloomBoard for questioning Little Time

37. Time Intensive Small Group As a PLC leader, you find resources on BloomBoard for each Shared Growth Goal PLC and recommend that resource to the group. You meet with each PLC to share the PLC process and introduce the resource they’ll be examining. Informal Formal In your department meeting, you demonstrate for the group how to add artifacts to the Artifacts for Review folder after a colleague asks, “Are we supposed to be collecting evidence for our mid-year review?” Little Time

38. Time Intensive Large Group During a staff meeting, you demonstrate how to add posts to your goals. Informal Formal During a discussion in a staff meeting, you share your success with a questioning technique you found in the Resource Library. Little Time

39. Time Intensive What could teacher leadership look like?(pg. 11) Brainstorm possible teacher leadership opportunities that leverage BloomBoard and support teacher professional growth for your school/district. Place them on the quadrant below. For each opportunity, discuss how you would enroll fellow teachers in taking on these leadership opportunities and address possible barriers. Informal Formal Little Time

40. 3.2.1 3: Things You Learned 2: Things You Want to Do Differently Next Year 1: Thing You Want to Learn More About

41. BloomBoard Support • Email support@bloomboard.com • Call (888) 418-1595 • Find articles and videos on support.bloomboard.com • Mini-series of videos on the PGP • Adding goal progress posts • Using Aggregated Evidence and Ratings • Sharing in BloomBoard

42. Recommend Your Observer Know an observer or evaluator who uses BloomBoard in a way that aligns with our training today? We’d love to highlight what they do well in the Bright Ideas section of our Help Center. Email your recommendation: Laura@bloomboard.com