TKES Evaluation Process. Mid-Year Conference Documentation

Many of you are more than "highly qualified" to teach for subject matter.  It is more likely that you are "off the charts" qualified.  During the mid-year conference, I mentioned to my Evaluator (who has almost no knowledge of my subject matter) that I can use about 10-20% of what I actually know in my classroom all year.  I wasn't being obstinate or prideful, just stating the obvious.  I also mentioned the multiple national conferences I've been invited to and presented at, requests for adjudicating national scholarships, and how I'm mentoring 4 people right now.  I included examples of how my classroom is a collage of past, present, and future concepts and activities bundled into the current day, with students' content, process, environment, and product all differentiated to meet the standard.  Additionally, I pointed out how the instruction strategies are tailored to each lesson to maximize time and effectiveness.

I listed these things so that he would feel comfortable in giving me a "4" in at least one of the first four standards (Professional Knowledge, Instructional Planning, Instructional Strategies, Differentiated Instruction).  He didn't.

When it came time for me to sign off on the mid-year conference in the TKES platform, I noticed how little he had referenced to our conversation.  He only referenced just enough to give me a "3."  We don't have any power to change anything, but we can make comments on the platform.  Here is what I put in the comment field.  It won't change anything, but it made me feel better.

It seems under Performance Standard 1 several things were omitted.  I noted, and supplied data, that I continually demonstrate extensive (more than I could possibly use in class for the year) content and pedagogical knowledge, that I enrich the curriculum through personal creation for the program, and that I guide others in enriching the curriculum.  I continually seek ways to serve as a role model as mentioned in the conference, that I am currently serving as a mentor to 4 (four) teachers.  In addition, I continually serve as a mentor/teacher leader through the curriculum-enriching involvement of materials, resources, and interaction of my continually updated website - of which 382 people reviewed, in December 2018 alone. 

In regard to Performance Standard 2, I have noted that I continually seek and use multiple data points, real world resources which interact with prior knowledge and prepare fore knowledge to plan for and meet the appropriate differentiated needs of my students.  The students are held accountable continually through daily activities and grades, weekly performance assessments, and regular public performances. 

In regard to Performance Standard 3, my students are continually, every class period, all class period, are required to use meta-cognition to track their learning and their skills through assessments to measure their progress in the standards.  They are required, and prompted by direct instruction, to use higher-order thinking skills (the very nature of the class/subject requires this), and not only is this knowledge applied in current and relevant ways, it put on display for the community stakeholders on a regular basis.  All of this is backed by data.  I serve as a mentor to 4 teachers in this regard as well.  

In regard to Performance Standard 4, I continually use appropriate differentiated instruction through content, process, product, and environment.  This is done continually by student, by instrumentation, by chair order, by class period, by skill level.  All of this is backed by data and evidenced not only through continuous formative assessments but also through weekly summative assessments.

Not only do I continually demonstrate expertise in assessment strategies in regard to Performance Standard 5, but I continually develop and promote and lead others (through my 4 mentorships) strategies to help others devise instruments and assessments that are not only valid and appropriate, but immediately and effectively demonstrate not only the student's current skill level (from the students' stand point), but also immediately and effectively informs the teacher as to the students' ability.  This is all backed by data. 

TKES Evaluation, teaching out-of-field areas

FYI: (I checked with the PAGE legal team)
The TKES evaluation system CAN be used for your evaluation - even if you are being (completely) evaluated in an out-of-field area.  So, if you're a chorus teacher and you have to teach drama, but don't have the ELA certificate yet, your annual TKES evaluation can be in your drama class; they don't have to visit your chorus classes at all.  Same if you're a band director teaching a writing class.  Essentially, GA law requires that teachers be evaluated through TKES no matter what they're teaching, even if they're required, and don't have a choice, to teach out of field.

Immediately I think about Standard 1: Professional Knowledge.  That could be a real problem if mishandled by an administrator.  I had an assistant principal say once about TKES, "You could bludgeon someone with this thing if you wanted to..."  I agree more now than I did then.

"Teaching is from the heart!"

After seeing the title of this post, I would be curious of your immediate reaction....  You probably went one of two ways....  "That's right!" or "That's absurd!"

(I hope you make it to the end of this post.)
I heard this statement recently at a conference.  Not only was this statement one of the central tenants, and the implied driving force behind a person wanting to be a teacher and their ability to be effective, but also something I read recently that went to a great number of people, "Teaching is a work of heart."  Two times in one week I've been told that (to be a great teacher, reach children, change the world, etc.) you have to teach from the heart, have a heart of compassion, want to love the children, love them into learning.  Heart is the driving force, the ultimate determining factor of your reason to be in the profession, the guide for your qualifications.  (I would posit that is actually why I became a teacher.)

I would agree with a colleague that has stated, "You teach children, not a curriculum."  I would agree that your motivations for being a teacher might determine your effectiveness in helping your students learn the subject matter.  "If you don't love your subject matter, you're not going to make it as a teacher."  If you loved your curriculum but didn't like children, you're going to have a problem "teaching" because teaching involves a teacher and a student, not a teacher and a curriculum.  This could go on and on, but you get the idea.

What does this have to do with TKES (and the teaching Profession)?  To me, everything.  As you review the TKES evaluation process, the Evaluator's observations, your lesson plans, the 10 TAPS standards, the 72 TAPS elements--for some reason or another, the Government/Legislators did not include anything about our heart, our feelings, our motivations, our caring.  Nothing.  Never have, never will.  Teaching from the heart will not make you an effective teacher, and you could get obliterated by TKES.

It is irresponsible for conference speakers, leaders, and anyone who has a microphone in front of educators to have a throw back to the early 20th century and pull on the "heart strings" of the audience to imply that is what they need, and that is what will make them successful in teaching: just "care" enough.  Tell that to a first year teacher (I have been a mentor for years) and you will see them at the end of each day leaving the school in tears.  (Another reason 50% leave in <5 years.)  Heart has (almost) nothing to do with it!  You have to be prepared, equipped for all aspects of the classroom.

I have previously summed up what I have seen in teacher education over time (40 years) from ever changing Government expectations from highly motivated to highly certified to highly qualified to highly effective.  "Which do you want to be?"  I posed to my audience.

Don't get me wrong.  I believe you must love your subject matter to be an effective teacher.  I believe you must love working with students to guide them to greater learning.  I believe you must love this profession to stay in it, irrespective of the huge imperfections and shifting legislative landscape.  I believe you must have great empathy and concern for each child to reach them where they are so that you can help them meet their needs.  But, I also believe that you must have real tools at your disposal to use, frequently, to be flexible and facilitate the learning process so that your students can learn as much as they can, as quickly as they can, as permanently as they can.  I want my students to be propelled into the future.

Yes, have a huge heart; pray for discernment each day; teach from the innermost of your being with all of the energy and excitement you can muster; walk in to your classroom each day with enormous compassion; "reach for the stars," "dream big dreams."  But also search for and acquire as many of the time-tested, research-based tools that you can possibly get to help your students learn as much as they possibly can, as quickly as they can--you owe them that.  During research on my doctoral study, I was astonished (shocked, alarmed) to find there were so many research-based, effective teaching techniques that have been discovered--that I had not known about.  Why hadn't I been exposed to them?  We were still working (only) out of the "teach from the heart" mentality; TKES is not going to allow that.  To the goal of disseminating quality teaching ideas, I continue to post pamphlets, handbooks, and resources to help you out.  Review and use "75 Instructional Strategies" or "Learning is a process, not an event" or "The Perfect Lesson Plan" or "How to pass all 10 TAPS Standards in one lesson" or "Some ideas for new teachers" or "Instructional Strategies That Work" under "Handbooks and Other Resources" posted at the top of this blog.  Need more?  Review "Links for Teachers."

Respectfully,
Glenn

Focus Walk Observation Checklist

This document could be a useful tool when observing other teachers to organize feedback (I could e-mail you a better copy if you would like).  However, I cannot over emphasize that it would be even better if there were a pre-observation conversation with the teacher about the lesson so that the observer would know what they are looking for &/or observing.  

By way of example, I observed a teacher during the opening segment of the lesson and even though all the students had their notebooks out and were quiet (which may imply engagement), only about 1/2 of the students were writing down in their notebooks what she was reviewing.  Was this because 1/2 of the students actually did the work yesterday and didn't need to write it down again and 1/2 did not do the work the previous day?  I had no way of knowing during the observation (I went back and talked to the teacher later).

Quality feedback requires a pre-conference, observation, and a post-conference.

TKES Documentation--what can be said....?

The two white ones on the left were my original pieces of evidence for each of the 10 Standards and 72 Elements; in many cases, there was more than one piece of evidence for each item.  The middle notebook, "Curriculum Notebook" is our school's place for our lesson plans, data samples, samples of grades, charts, etc.  The brown/gray notebook is our "Communication" notebook for parent contact, student contact, e-mails, behavior log, etc.  The new yellow folder is the result of Georgia doing away with the SLOs (see earlier blog posts) after barely implementing them; it contains professional learning sessions, reflections of those sessions, how to implement that professional learning, etc.

It is "funny" that all of this was encompassed in my original two white notebooks.  What is also funny is that none of these documents are "fluff" in any way; they all document what I do, why I do what I do, what I plan on doing, why I'm qualified to do what I do, etc.

Teaching has changed over the years....

Read this: Practical ideas to implement and demonstrate the 10 Standards

Notebooks are worthwhile to organize your documentation (I've posted about that previously).  We have a school-wide Resource Notebook (communication, meetings, etc.), Curriculum Notebook (lesson plans, assessments, etc.), and a Professional Development folder (that now gives me a total of 4 notebooks and 1 folder).  But, as a reminder, you can't document your way to a 4 rating.  We use e-mail, web sites, and Remind among other means to aid in communicating with parents.  The detailed ideas listed below for the Standards are slightly edited from a colleague of mine (she gave me permission).  Read it slowly, apply it lavishly.  You should revise your lesson plan to include all of the elements listed under Standard 2 below.  Hope this information helps.  

Standard 1: Professional Knowledge

This standard focuses on your content knowledge, pedagogical skills and the extent to which you facilitate relevant learning experiences. Professional Knowledge can be gleaned from your lesson plans, but is primarily observable through instruction.

Standard 2: Instructional Planning

This standard is all about INTENTIONAL planning. The emphasis is on planning standards-based lessons, incorporating strategies to engage students and using data to address students’ differentiated learning needs.

You should have your curriculum resource notebook available for your evaluator to see your plans and student data.  Current (as well as previous lesson plans) should be in your curriculum resource notebook.

Lesson Plans should include:

• Standard(s)/Topic(s) and Essential Question(s)
• Vocabulary
• Opening, work session, and closing.
• Instructional strategies to engage students in active learning
• Reference what data is being used and how it is being used to address students’ differentiated learning needs.
• Plans to differentiate instruction and/or assessment based on students’ needs.
• Assessment strategies (informal, formative, summative)
• Consider how you are planning for higher order questions as well – these have to be intentionally planned. It helps to be specific because that is when they are used the most and relevant to the instruction.

Standard 3: Instructional Strategies

Student engagement & active learning are the keys to this standard and should be observable during the observation. Also, lesson plans should indicate that you are using a variety of instructional strategies to engage students and facilitate active learning.

Standard 4:  Differentiated Instruction

This standard focuses on the extent to which you incorporate remediation and acceleration (based on data) to address students' learning needs and readiness. Your lesson plans should include how you are differentiating as well as the data used and how it was used to differentiate. Remember: Differentiation can be by content, process, product, or learning environment. 

Standard 5: Assessment Strategies

This standard focuses on the extent to which you are assessing students -- diagnostic, informal, formal, formative, summative and whether the assessments are appropriate for the content and student population. During the observation, ongoing informal assessment is observable through questioning and other means through which you determine if students are understanding the material. Your assessment strategies should also be listed in your lesson plans.

Standard 6: Assessment Uses

This area supports differentiated instructional practices and specifically, how you are using assessment data to meet students' learning needs. The Evaluator will look at how you gather, analyze, and use data to inform instructional decisions. This standard also incorporates providing timely and constructive feedback to parents and students.

Standard 7: Positive Learning Environment

The keys to Standard 7 are rituals, routines, and procedures, which are the foundation of a well-managed, safe and orderly learning environment. In addition to rituals and routines, this standard is observable through positive interactions and mutual respect between teacher(s) and students as well as among students.

  

Standard 8: Academically Challenging Environment

This standard looks at the extent to which the learning environment is student centered, students are being challenged (for their level of readiness) and are self-directed, productive learners, all of which are observed during the observation.

Standard 9: Professionalism

This standard focuses on the extent to which you are following established local, state, and federal practices, participating in professional learning, working well with your colleagues, meeting deadlines and generally performing your duties as expected. This standard is observable through your participation in professional learning, collaborative planning, and activities beyond the classroom. Good sources of documentation would be to make sure the collaboration and meeting forms are being completed and placed in your resource binder and that you are participating in professional growth opportunities to support student learning.

Standard 10: Communication

The standard focuses on how you communicate with parents, students, colleagues and other stakeholders to support student learning.  Information to parents should go out once a week and email should be checked daily. All other communication like phone calls should be organized in your communication binder. Communication is observable through the documentation in addition to ongoing observation of  your fact-to-face interactions with students, parents and colleagues, etc.

Legislative voting record to create TKES and SLO

TKES (and the Student Learning Objective multi-measure assessment--SLO) was created through HB 244 which passed in 2013 and became law in 2014.  You can find the actual bill HERE, but also you can find the voting record for each of the House of Representatives and Senators half way down the page under the link for "Votes."  As a point of information, the link shows---Senators: Yes, 52; No, 0.  House: Yes, 151; No, 21.

http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display/20132014/HB/244

TKES: DOK

Depth of knowledge verbs that are helpful:

• Analyze: Break material into its constituent parts and determine how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose.
• Compare: Identify and describe points of similarity.
• Contrast: Bring out the points of difference.
• Critique: Detect consistencies and inconsistencies between a product and relevant external criteria; detect the appropriateness of a procedure or for a given problem.
• Evaluate: Make judgments based on criteria and standards; determine the significance, value, quality, or relevance of; give the good points and the bad ones; identify and describe advantages and limitations.

(Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement, Inc.)

Updated advice for new visitors

There is a significant amount of hands-on advice in earlier post that I have written in this blog. I recommend that if you are new to this blog, you take a few moments to read some of the earlier posts from 2014.  Many people have viewed the blogs related to: 

• Suggestions for Documenting TKES Standard ___
• the TLE Platform, 
• TKES/TAPS Observations DOK: What to Say
• Teacher Assessment on Performance Standards & Documenting Performance
• Summative Assessment
• Examples of Documenting Evidence

Documentation Ideas for Standard 4

Differentiates the instructional content, process, product, and learning environment to meet individual developmental needs

• Section Summary Report of your grade book to show differentiated content and product results indicating that the tests could result in a differentiated in product.
• Lesson plan showing differentiation of content, process, product, and/or environment.
• Pictures showing differentiated learning environment.

Provides remediation, enrichment, and acceleration to further student understanding of material

• Materials of All State, District, and local honor requirements for students to participate
• Lesson plan specifically showing remediation, acceleration, and enrichment for students 
• Example of documents used to provide students’ challenges, support learning, address learning differences, differentiation, and provide remediation and acceleration to further students’ understanding of material.
• Pictures of students participating in extending/enrichment activities.

Uses flexible grouping strategies to encourage appropriate peer interaction and to accommodate learning needs/goals

• Section Summary Report of your grade book to show where students can be grouped, assist each other, and graded on summative assessment
• Lesson plans indicating how, why, and the data used to determine flexible grouping.  (Using data to determine grouping is important!)

Uses diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment data to inform instructional modifications for individual students

• Section Summary Report of your grade book to show how formative and summative assessment data were used to guide changes to instructional strategies, unit plans, next content, or next assessment.
• (Formative assessments are the teacher's greatest aid in guiding current/in-process and future instruction.  There is an enormous section in my doctoral study regarding this; not because I wanted to write so much on it, but rather because that is what researchers/literature shows.)
• Highlight diagnostic (standardized test results), formative (homework or observational notes), and/or summative data from your grade book or roll and make a notation on how, when, and why that was used to make modifications for individual and groups of students.

Demonstrates high learning expectations for all students commensurate with their developmental levels

• Examples of Signs and Vocabulary that lists the terms and symbols for concepts that are expected for students to learn and demonstrate.

Measuring student growth using student learning objectives

From: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?ProjectID=369
(If you haven't signed up for e-mails from ies.ed.gov, you should!)

Student learning objectives (SLOs)—classroom-specific growth targets chosen by individual teachers and approved by principals—are becoming popular as alternative measures of student growth because they can be used to evaluate teachers in any grade or subject.  Although very little of the literature on SLOs addresses their statistical properties, key findings show that:

• SLOs have the potential to better distinguish teachers based on performance than traditional evaluation metrics do, but no studies have looked at SLO reliability.  Most of the limited evidence on the statistical properties of SLOs is on the proportion of teachers achieving SLO objectives. Whether that differentiation represents true differences in teacher performance or random statistical noise is unknown.
• Little is known about whether SLOs can yield ratings that correlate with other measures of teacher performance. Only three studies have explored the relationship between SLO ratings and standardized assessment-based (value-a dded) growth measures. These studies found small but positive correlations. More research is needed as states and districts roll out SLOs as teacher evaluation measures and instructional planning tools.
• Until some of the research gaps are filled, districts that intend to use SLOs may want to roll them out for instructional planning before using them in high-stakes teacher evaluations. Several studies found teacher concerns about fairness in SLO implementation. This is no surprise, because SLOs are difficult to make valid and reliable. They are by definition customized to individual teachers and based on the professional judgments of teachers and principals. Making SLOs an important component of high-stakes evaluation could undermine their validity, because it means that teachers are in essence grading themselves.
• Studies of teacher experiences with SLOs indicate that SLOs can require substantial training and technology infrastructure and that they can be time-consuming for teachers and evaluators alike.

Teacher Pay for Performance Results

New: from the Institute of Education Sciences

To obtain hard copy of many IES products as well as hard copy and electronic versions of hundreds of other U.S. Department of Education products please visit http://www.edpubs.org or call 1-877-433-7827 (877-4-EDPUBS).

New from NCEE: Teacher Incentive Fund Implementation and Impacts of Pay-for-Performance After Two Years

Today, NCEE released the second of four evaluation reports that studies Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grants that were awarded in 2010 to support performance-based compensation systems for teachers and principals in high-need schools. The report provides basic implementation information for all 2010 TIF grantees, and more in-depth implementation and impact information for the subset of 10 districts that agreed to participate in a random assignment study. The main findings among all TIF districts with 2010 awards are: * Ninety percent of all TIF districts in 2012–2013 reported implementing at least 3 of the 4 required components for teachers, and only about one-half (52 percent) reported implementing all four. This was a slight improvement from the first year of implementation. * Near the end of the second year of implementation, 65 percent of TIF districts reported that sustainability of the program was a major challenge. In contrast, no more than one-third of districts reported that other activities related to their program were a major challenge. For the subset of 10 districts that agreed to participate in a random assignment study, key findings on the effect of pay-for-performance on educators include the following: * Few evaluation districts structured pay-for-performance bonuses to align well with TIF guidance in the grant competition notice. * Educators’ understanding of key program components improved from the first to the second year, but many teachers still did not understand that they were eligible for a bonus. They also continued to underestimate how much they could earn from performance bonuses. * Offering educators pay-for-performance had small, positive impacts on their students’ reading achievement; impacts on students’ math achievement were not statistically significant but similar in magnitude. To read the report, visit http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20154020/index.asp To learn more about the study research design and the impact evaluation of TIF, visithttp://ies.ed.gov/ncee/projects/evaluation/tq_incentive.asp.