Teacher Performance Assessment

1. Teacher Performance Assessment Understanding the Process and the Product Professional Development Spring, 2012

2. The Architecture of Accomplished Teaching: What is underneath the surface? Set new high and worthwhile goals that are appropriate for these students at this time. Reflect on student learning, the effectiveness of the instructional design, particular concerns, and issues Evaluate student learning in light of the goals and the Instruction. Implement instruction designed to attain those goals Set high, worthwhile goals appropriate for these students at this time, in this setting. Your Students - Who are they? Where are they now? What do they need and in what order do they need it? Where should I begin? NBPTS Standards Five Core Propositions

3. Teaching Effectiveness • Of all the factors that affect student learning, the effectiveness of the teacher is the most important. • Effective teachers are able to clearly define student learning outcomes and provide a clear road map on how to reach those outcomes. • The traditional approach to teaching and learning asks: • What do I want them to learn? • How will I teach it? • How will I assess it?

4. The Backward Design Approach • Begins with: What do they know already? • Next asks: What do I want them to learn? • Then focuses on: How will I know they learned it (how will I assess learning)? • Then finally: How best do I teach it (active engagement)? • The approach uses what is known as “educative assessment” where the assessment is used to educate the students on what they know/don’t know, and educate the teacher on what he or she taught well/ or needs to reteach.

5. Teacher Performance Assessment Instrument • The TPA employs the idea of educative assessment. • The TPA: • Is discipline specific • Integrates assessment throughout • Is student centered • Requires the teacher candidate to provide analytic feedback and support to students • Overall, allows the teacher candidate to present the complex process of teaching and the assessment of learning through multiple measures.

6. TPA Capstone Assessment • This project allows you, the teacher candidate, to demonstrate your ability to: • Plan instruction and assessment (TPA Task 1) • Engage students and support their learning (TPA Task 2) • Assess student learning (TPA Task 3) • Reflect on the teaching/learning process (TPA Task 4) • Demonstrate your ability to use academic language to enhance student learning (Embedded Task)

7. TPAC Design Framework The following framework shows what a pre-service teaching candidate demonstrates he/she knows and is able to do in the TPAC assessment. 7

8. Review of Task 1:Planning Instruction & Assessment • Who are the students and what learning supports will they need for this learning segment (context)? • What are the students going to learn in this content area (content)? • How is this learning segment appropriate for these students? Why am I teaching this (relevence)? • How will I assess students to demonstrate learning has taken place? • How will these assessments help me understand students’ progress toward the stated objectives (analysis)? • What are the best instructional strategies to use to meet this end (pedagogy)? • Are my instructional strategies actively engaging?

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10. Review of Task 2: Engaging Students & Supporting Learning • How will I facilitate students’ developing understanding of the content? • How will I help students actively engage with the content? • How will I continually monitor their understanding? • How will I use their responses to guide further learning? • The above questions demonstrate the major difference between this approach and “traditional” teaching.

11. Reflective Process • During student teaching you are being asked to reflect daily on how your teaching is going. • This reflective process takes place during Task 2. • Before moving on to Task 3, we will review this daily reflective process. • Information you collect during this reflective process should be used to change instruction as it is occurring. • These changes should be documented during Task 2 to assist you in supporting your reflective analysis later on.

12. Reflection Model • Reflection - a fixing of the thoughts on something; careful consideration. • Daily reflection should be focused on some aspect of teaching and learning, which can include classroom management issues. • The bullets below are simply prompts to focus your reflection. Consider the following areas as you select a significant event on which to focus your reflective writing: • Student factors (student’s abilities and levels of competency) • Teacher factors (teacher’s level of competence in lesson delivery and classroom management) • Teaching practices (methodologies, materials, resources, and facilitating learning) • Classroom dynamics (activities that minimized or maximized disruptive behavior, facilitating learning)

13. REFLECTION Begin with:What? What happened? • What is working? • What is not? • For whom (were the needs of all learners met)? • Why do you think? • What is it related to (content, classroom management, students, teacher, methods, materials, or any combination thereof)? Move to:So What? What does it mean? • Mentally prioritize what you wrote above. • In your opinion what appears to be important enough to impact student learning? • Is it a short term or long term issue? Finish with: Now what? What do I do now? • How does what happened inform what I plan to do in the next lesson? • Be able to discuss specific research/theory that support/do not support what happened. • What will now guide your selection of the teaching strategies and materials you will use to help your students develop skills necessary to meet the learning objectives. • How does this reflection inform your next lesson? Document changes made.

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15. Review of Task 3: Assessing Student Learning • Students will be assessed based on the learning goals described in Task One? The type of assessments used were determined during the planning process. • How will I analyze student work to clearly demonstrate that I understand what my students could and could not do. • How will I use this information to plan for future instruction for these students? • How will I provide students with quality feedback that will guide their future learning?

17. EXERCISE:What is your big picture idea? • Come up with a big picture idea (3-5 lessons or hours of instruction). Now, ask yourself these questions. • Is it based on your content standards? • Is it based on what you know your cooperating teacher is expecting you to teach? • Are there any contextual factors in your classroom that will prohibit you teaching this learning segment? • Are there any contextual factors in your classroom that will enhance your ability to teach this learning segment? • Do you know this content well?

18. Share your big picture idea with someone who will be teaching the same content area at the same level (or close). • Is your idea too big? Too small? Just right? • Discussion

19. Designing the Learning Objectives • Design 2 learning segment objectives. These will probably not be your actual ones, but working through this process will give you a template to use when you are ready. • Make sure your learning segment objectives are directly related to the big picture. • Make sure your learning segment objectives are based on your pre-assessment? • Make sure they are clearly defined (situation, task, criterion). • Share your learning objectives. • Discussion.

20. Assessment • What types of formative assessment could you use during the learning segment? • What types of information will the assessments give you regarding student learning? • Are your assessments directly related to your big picture and your learning objectives? • How will you analyze the data? • Tomorrow’s professional development will focus on the planning for assessment, and assessment sections of the TPA.