Supervision and Evaluation – What’s New?!?

1. Supervision and Evaluation –What’s New?!? Dr. Jerry Goldberg http://teacherweb.com/ma/teachers21/jerrygoldberg

2. Pre-Assessment John Hattie – Visible Learning for Teachers What has the highest impact on student achievement?

3. Welcome/Pre-Assessment/Readings • Trust – Building a Culture of Trust • DESE Standards and Indicators of Effective Teacher Practice • Unpacking the Standards and Using the RUBRICS • Weston rubrics • Putting it to work • Questions – Answers – Next Steps AGENDA

4. Pre-Assessment - Answers • Today, we will discuss several of the “high” impact contributors to student achievement. • See page for the answers.

5. TRUST….an essential ingredient in the supervisory process What is the nature of your conversations about student learning in your school? How does this impact the culture and climate in your school? • Interpersonal dimensions: • Personal relationship building • Effective listening • Open and honest communication • Authenticity • Caring for the welfare of others • Cognitive dimensions: • There is a real and complex knowledge base about teaching • Performance is best characterized by patterns of behavior rather than discrete easily defined moments or activities • My supervisory work is aimed at expanding our repertoires and stimulating our thinking because we all have room to grow and learn • If I see something that I am uncomfortable with or don’t understand, I will share my concerns or questions directly with you ( you won’t have to guess what is on my mind)

6. ??? Success ??? • How do you measure your success -above and beyond raising student performance levels? • How do you want others to measure your success?

7. Relational Trust - Bryk & SchneiderThe climate that affects adults Now, tell your colleagues something that you struggle with in your job. Again, be factual – don’t be reluctant to share! Tell your colleagues something that you do very well in your job. Don’t be shy – be factual! • Teachers in this school trust each other • It’s okay in this school to discuss feelings, worries, and frustrations with other teachers • Teachers respect other teachers who take the lead in school improvement efforts • Teachers at the school respect those colleagues who are expert at their craft • Teachers feel respected by other teachers

8. Teacher-Principal Items • Teachers in this school are evaluated fairly • Staff are supported and encouraged in this school • The principal lets staff members know what is expected of them • Too often, decisions made by staff committees are ignored or reversed by building administrators • The principal does a good job of getting resources for this school • The administration and teaching staff collaborate toward making the school run effectively • I feel comfortable voicing my concerns in this school Trust in Schools, Bryk and Scheider, 2002

9. Overarching Questions • As leaders, how can we influence teacher quality? • As leaders, how can we work together to improve supervision and evaluation?

10. Charlotte Danielson… • Levels of performance describe how a teacher's practice progresses from inexperienced and inexpert to experienced and expert. With respect to the standards of practice, it's not that teachers either do them or don't do them—it's that they do them well or poorly. The levels of performance describe that continuum.

11. New Ratings

12. Definitions of Ratings • Exemplaryshall mean that the educator’s performance consistently and significantly exceeds the requirements of a standard or overall and the educator can model the experience. • Proficientshall mean that the educator’s performance fully and consistently meets the requirements of a standard or overall. • Needs improvement shall mean that the educator’s performance on a standard or overall is below the requirements of a standard or overall, but is not considered to be unsatisfactory at this time. Improvement is necessary and expected. • Unsatisfactoryshall mean that the educator’s performance on a standard or overall has not significantly improved following a rating of needs improvement, or the educator’s performance is consistently below the requirements of a standard or overall and is considered inadequate, or both.

13. Exemplary vs Proficient Skiing

14. Effective Teaching = Student Learning We all agree that the ultimate measure of effective teaching is student learning.. The challenge is, how do we measure student learning in all its dimensions?

15. Essential Building Blocks of Effective Supervision and Evaluation • COMMON LANGUAGEand a concept system for talking about teaching • PERFORMANCE STANDARDS: Criteria for effective teaching that are published and understood by all • TIMELINESS AND FAIRNESS: Timely feedback that is fair, i.e., all claims are based on evidence. • SYSTEMATIC SUPPORT OF SUPERVISORS (SOS)…one pair of eyes and ears will often not yield the richness of thinking required in complex cases

18. Fundamentals of Walk Throughs • Short focused yet informal observation • Possible areas for reflection • Curriculum as well as instructional focus • Follow-up occurs only on occasion and not after every visit • Informal and collaborative • Required in the new DESE Standards and Indicators of Effective Teaching Practice

19. MBWA Research Results – the WHY • Increased teacher satisfaction and a higher frequency of flow experiences. • Improved teacher self-efficacy • Improved teacher attitudes towards Professional Development • Improved teacher attitudes towards formal evaluation process • Increased teacher perception of efficacy of staff and school • Improved classroom instruction • Improved teacher perception of principal effectiveness • Improved student discipline • Improved teacher-perceived effectiveness of the school • Increased student learning across socioeconomic and cultural lines

20. MBWA Research ResultsDowney, Steffy, English, Frase, & Poston Increased teacher satisfaction and a higher frequency of flow experiences. What is flow in this context?

21. FLOW Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience • The most satisfying and motivating experience a person can have • Deep, intense involvement • Fully absorbed in activity • “Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.” • Challenges but doesn’t overwhelm one’s skills • Feelings of competence and satisfaction • A feeling of using one’s skills to the utmost

22. MBWA Research Results Increased teacher satisfaction and a higher frequency of flow experiences Improved teacher self-efficacy

23. Downey’s Five-Step Walk-Through Observation Structure • Student Orientation to Work • Curricular Decision Points • Instructional Decision Points • “Walk-the-Walls”: Curricular and Instructional Decision Points • Safety and Health Issues Downey et al. The Three-Minute Classroom Walk-Through, 2004.

24. Practicing Walk Throughs Applying Downey’s 5 Steps… What can you observe during a brief walk- through?

25. Advantages of Frequent Walk-Throughs - Downey, Steffy, English, Frase & Poston • Greater validity to what is observed • Often lowers teacher apprehension over time, making formal observations more effective • The more you know about how people are functioning & making decisions, the more you know about the school’s operation • The more you observe the more you learn and the greater repertoire of strategies you can share with other staff • Can identify common areas that would be valuable for group staff development (entire staff, grade level group, department) • Can observe effectiveness of staff development endeavors in the classroom • Helps identify possible individuals who might become marginal if not provided with assistance quickly • Provides perspective Which are most important for your school’s current needs?

26. Can Walk-throughs be Supervisory as well as Evaluative? YES! The answer is: • An example: • The principal requires that all teachers post the agenda and the student objective (in “kid” language) for each lesson. • Mr. Jones does not post either as determined by 3 walk-through visits by the principal. • What might you do?

27. Avoid turning walk-throughs into another meaningless fad! "Wow! If we learn from our mistakes, I ought to be a genius by now."

28. What to avoid…

30. caution: use your emotional intelligence

32. caution: • - monitor frequency • - draw conclusions • carefully

34. caution: • - nurture PLC culture • - take care with • feedback • - explicitly link walk • throughs to • group learning

36. caution: • - adjust actions • based on current • stage

37. Commit yourself to the process! Think about how you will begin - do not just visit every classroom every day without building a foundation for Walk-Throughs that Count!

38. Remember… “The real methodology for system change begins and ends with ongoing, authentic conversations about important questions.” Tony Wagner

39. Calibration • Do we all see the same thing at the same level? • What are the “look fors”? • What are appropriate measures of evidence? • How much does each piece of evidence count toward the rating? • What counts more or less? • What are the artifacts and do they count? • How timely must the response be? • How do we help teachers set SMART goals?

40. Calibration • Because the levels of performance describe a teacher's skill in the various aspects of teaching, it's essential that observers be able to distinguish one level from the next. This, in turn, makes it more likely that any two trained observers will agree with each other. This is first a matter of clarity of language; the language used in the different levels should permit focused training for observers so their levels of agreement and accuracy are high. • Charlotte Danielson

41. ASK Standard I: Curriculum, Planning, and Assessment. The teacher promotes the learning and growth of all students by providing high-quality and coherent instruction, designing and administering authentic and meaningful student assessments, analyzing student performance and growth data, using this data to improve instruction, providing students with constructive feedback on an ongoing basis, and continuously refining learning objectives. • To what degree are students learning important Understandings, Facts, and Skills and how do we know (assessment)?

42. ASK Standard II: Teaching All Students. The teacher promotes the learning and growth of all students through instructional practices that establish high expectations, create a safe and effective classroom environment, and demonstrate cultural proficiency. • To what degree are students sufficiently engaged in and invested in learning? (the purpose of pedagogy (aka TEACHING all students) is to build and nurture investment in learning).

43. ASK Standard III: Family and Community Engagement. The teacher promotes the learning and growth of all students through effective partnerships with families, caregivers, community members, and organizations. • What is the quality of the relationships we have with parents/guardians?

44. ASK Standard IV: Professional Culture. The teacher promotes the learning and growth of all students through ethical, culturally proficient, skilled, and collaborative practice. • What is the state of trust, collaboration, and psychological safety at our school ?

45. Some rubrics use the language of frequency; teachers do a certain thing "never," "occasionally," "frequently," or "always." This language suggests that an evaluator can observe the same teacher multiple times; it's not suitable for a single observation of teaching. For rubrics to apply to individual lessons, the language in the different levels of performance must be qualitatively, not quantitatively, different. For instance, in the example cited, learning tasks at the proficient level are "designed to challenge student thinking" whereas those at the basic level "require only minimal thinking by students." These are qualitative differences. Charlotte Danielson

46. Watch and Write • What should we consider before sending to the teacher our reactions to the classroom visit? • What might a teacher learn from our comments? • How can I follow-up, if necessary? • CEIJ - Claims, Evidence, Interpretation, Judgment – what role does each play in what we convey? • Let’s compose a response to the teacher in the video… high school math

47. The Macro

48. The Micro • High leverage elements

49. 3 Categories of Evidence will be used in every district’s educator evaluation system: • Multiple measures of student learning, growth and achievement, including • progress toward learning targets • MCAS growth measures in comparison to comparable schools, based on appropriate school-level demographics, where applicable, and • measures of learning comparable across grade or subject district-wide • Judgments based on observation and artifacts of professional practice, using a DESE-approved observation system • Collection of additional evidence relevant to one or more Standards, documenting fulfillment of other areas of professional responsibilities and growth as well as contributions to the school community and the professional culture.

50. Big Idea • Teacher effectiveness must be linked to student learning • Moving our “sensors” so that data about learning as well as teaching can be collected