Highly Effective Teacher Research

1. Highly Effective Teacher Research What we’ve learned about what it means to be effective

2. What is an effective teacher? • Think about a teacher you had as a student or a teacher you have worked with that you believe was extraordinarily effective.

3. How have we historically talked about teacher effectiveness? • Teacher knowledge (content, pedagogy, advanced degrees) • Teacher beliefs (Insights, Perceiver, Interviews) • Artifacts (lesson plans, bulletin boards, assessments, student work) • Evaluations

4. Connecting Effectiveness with Evaluation

5. What most people would like to learn from teacher evaluations? 2008 Synthesis of Evaluations (Goe, Bell, Little) • High Expectations for Students • Positive Outcomes for Students • Planning and Assessing Learning • Classroom Environment • Collaborate with Teachers, Administrators, and Parents

6. What are the real outcomes from teacher evaluations? 2009 The Widget Effect – The New Teacher Project • 94 percent of teachers receive one of the top two ratings • Less than 1% of teachers out of 40,000 received less than satisfactory rating

7. Rethinking Teacher Evaluation 2010 Research of Chicago Public Schools Pilot of Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching • overall, principals and trained experts use the rating scale consistently. (Principals received 50 hrs of training) • principals had no trouble identifying unsatisfactory teaching practices (unsatisfactory rating went from 0.3% to 8%) • principals tended to inflated their ratings across all ten observable components

8. What is happening on the national landscape around teacher effectiveness? • Unprecedented Federal Dollars • recruiting and retaining effective teachers • building data systems to track student achievement and teacher effectiveness • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation • Research Measures of Teacher Effectiveness • Milken Family Foundation • Teacher Advancement Program

9. Our Research

10. Highly Effective Teacher Research • Selection of Participants • What we did—Research Design • What we found—Research Findings • What it means—Theorizing about the findings • Implications for practice

11. HET Selection Process Teacher-Level Value-Added Reports were used for the selection of teachers • Teacher had to produce value-added scores of at least 3 S.E.s above expected in math and nearly 3 S.E.s above expected in reading. • Teachers had to show positive gains with all student subgroups. • Report from previous year, if available, had to be solid.

12. What we did: Appreciative Inquiry Appreciative Inquiry methods were used to induce reflection, to trigger conversation and to frame the inquiry perspective we were taking. • Teachers interviewed each other to get at the factors that account for large student gains. • Teachers shared what they learned in small groups to find commonalities in their experiences. • Each teacher group produced a list of critical factors from which common themes were identified. • Teachers each produced 2 hours of writing about how two themes played out in their classrooms.

13. Large-Scale Study Findings Teachers, regardless of the subject area or grade level they taught, cited these four themes as reasons for their effectiveness: • Instruction that works for every student (Productivity/Competitiveness) • Classroom environment (Structures that support learning/Control) • Student-centered focus (Relationships/Collaboration) • Professional growth, Adaptability and Change(Instructional improvement/Creativity)

14. Competing Values Framework (Quinn) Flexibility & Openness • Child-Centered Focus • Relationships • Support • Collaboration • Responsive teaching • Student ownership of learning • Relevance • Professional Growth, Adaptability and Change • Passion • Adaptability • Flexibility • Creativity • Parental communication • Instructional improvement • Human Relations Model: Human commitment (Collaboration) • Cohesion • Morale • Value of human resources • training • Open Systems Model: Expansion, adaptation (Creativity) • Adaptability • Readiness • Resource Acquisition • External Support Internal Focus External Focus • Internal Process Model: Consolidation, continuity (Control) • Stability • Control • Information mgmt. • Communication • Rational Goal Model: Maximization of output (Competitiveness) • Productivity • Efficiency • Planning • Goal Setting • Classroom Environment • Rules • Structures • Control • Routines • Classroom management • Instruction that works for every student • High Expectations • Productivity • Persistence • High quality student work • Rigor • Differentiation • Competitiveness Structure & Control

15. Positive and Negative Zones

16. Other things we heard along the way • Most HET’s reported that this was the first time they were recognized as being good teachers. • Most HET’s tell us that they had to hide the fact that they were identified as highly effective. • Most HET’s tell us that they have never seen their grade-level value-added information or had a focused data-based conversation about improvement. • One size-fits-all PD is a waste of time.

17. What does this mean for teachers? • There are real differences in the effectiveness of classroom teachers that are not apparent in evaluations. • There is “noise” in any metric that tries to capture teaching effectiveness. • Highly Effective Teachers talk about their work in surprisingly consistent ways. • Effective teachers think about their classrooms in complex ways. • The culture and structure of schools is not very conducive to improvement.

18. Next Steps • Test out the framework • Develop and pilot a survey to test out these ideas. • Does it fit HETs? • How do less effective teachers map out? • Do deeper dives with HETs to get at the high leverage behaviors that connect competing values • Paper available at www.battelleforkids.org

19. Table Group Questions • Do the qualities you remember in your best teachers fit this framework? • What can be done to help educators get comfortable with the notion that there are differing degrees of effectiveness? • What does it mean to move from novice to craftsperson to master?

20. www.BattelleforKids.org