Leadership Matters - October 2013

Six steps to performance‐based teacher evaluaƟon 

Step 2: Get Buy-In On the Process . When designing this new evaluation process within a school district it is crucial to have teachers involved from the beginning in the selection, training, and implementation of all the evaluation steps and processes. Training teacher leaders with teacher evaluators is critical to the ultimate success of the implementation of performance-based teacher evaluation. Step 3: Change the Focus of who is being observed. Most teacher evaluators script and critique the performance of the teacher. It is suggested that teacher evaluator’s script what students are learning as a result of what the teacher is doing. Evaluators should make sure they can see the faces and eyes of the students when they are in the classrooms. Evaluators should script what students are learning, what their minds are on, how they are asking and answering questions, how they are participating in individual and whole class assessments, and how

Performance-Based Teacher Evaluation is very complicated and is a totally different paradigm than traditional “one-and-done” teacher evaluation. “One-and- done” is the old compliance way of conducting teacher evaluation. Once an evaluation date was set, the teacher and evaluator would meet in a pre-conference to discuss the class and students to be taught, the evaluator would observe and

Dr. Richard Voltz Associate Director of Professional Development

write up the evaluation and then tell the teacher what they did well and what they could improve. The teacher endured the process and then went about doing their independent contractor work. This new system takes a much bigger

they are leading their own learning. Almost all of the Danielson critical attribute descriptors start with the word “students” in the distinguished column. To gather evidence on what students are doing the evaluator has to observe students. Step 4: Observe More . As noted previously in this article, evaluation law only requires one informal and one formal observation for a tenured teacher. To be fundamentally fair

commitment of time and energy by both the teacher evaluator and the teacher. Even though the law requires only one informal and one formal observation for tenured teachers and one informal and two formal evaluations for non-tenured teachers, much more is required to give the teacher fundamental due process due to the stakes of the summative evaluation. The following six steps are suggested for teacher evaluators to enhance the experience for the

to the teacher in this new high stakes evaluation process the evaluator needs to make multiple observations, both informal and formal. More informal observations are needed to make sure that the teacher has embedded the student-centered tenants into his/her everyday teaching. More formal observations are needed to give the teacher additional opportunities to improve their teaching. It is not fair to the teacher if the evaluator finds a critical mistake during one observation and uses the evidence to rate the teacher low. One bad observation out of one observation is 100% bad. One bad observation out of 10 observations is 10 percent. These are totally different scenarios and will lead to trust between the evaluator and the teacher. Step 5: Reflection Is The Key . It does little good (Continued on page 19)

teacher and ultimately lead to better instruction and student growth. These steps are an integral part of making teacher evaluation a professional development experience and not a compliance experience. Step 1: Concentrate on the Correct Domain/ Component . According to Danielson, Domain 3 Instruction is the heart of the frameworks and 3c Engaged Students in Learning is the heart of the heart of the frameworks. If the teacher evaluator will concentrate on 3c Engaged Learning when observing teaching, the evaluator will be able to see how the other 21 components all support student engagement. Student engagement defined by Danielson is the student “intellectually involved” in the learning. It is learning, not doing. It is minds on, not hands on.

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