Steps to prepare for your observation

As I become more aware of my responsibilities for the TKES evaluation, I am trying to become more efficient (to reduce my stress!).  For my next evaluation, I followed this process:

1. I decided to make my lesson plans according to the TKES Lesson Plan design I created last year (see sample here) and make sure all drop down fields were accurate and up to date.
2. I typed up what will go on the SmartBoard for the students to know what we are doing in class that day.  I copied and pasted the student version to a new page in the same word processing document.
3. I slowly read through all 72 TAPS elements, and  as I saw an Element that may apply to my lesson that day, I inserted the outline number of the Element (say, 2.6 or 4.5) into the SmartBoard outline that I will give to the Evaluator.  
4. After reading all Elements, I have two documents that I  give to the Evaluator: a formal TKES lesson plan, and a student version of the lesson with the Elements identified.
5. I still have my TAPS notebooks with evidence in the cabinet as well as just the outlines of my evidence in my lesson plan notebook in case the Evaluator wants to see them.

What I noticed is that even some of my reminders to the students about upcoming activities or after school events can be tagged with an Element.  An after school practice, rehearsal, or event can count as 4.2, 4.3, &/or 4.6.  Reminding them about upcoming tests or units could count as 2.6, 3.2, &/or 4.6.

Sample portion of student version of lesson given to Evaluator

Give yourself a grade (1-5) on your progress today! [6.7] 6th grade: Brass: Lip Slurs [1.4, 1.6, 3.2, 4.1, 4.5, 4.6, 5.3, 6.1, 6.3, 6.6, 8.3, 8.5, 8.7]; Bells: Octave/Chromatic [1.4, 1.6, 3.2, 4.1, 4.6, 6.1, 6.3, 6.6, 8.3, 8.5, 8.7]; Flutes: Aperture control [1.4, 1.6, 3.2, 4.1, 4.5, 8.3, 8.5, 8.7]; Clarinets and Saxophones: register slurs to determine embouchure, tongue placement, amount of mouthpiece, reed quality, air stream, hand position [MMSBB.2.b, MMSBB.3.a] [1.2, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 3.2, 4.1, 4.5, 4.6, 6.1, 6.3, 6.6, 8.3, 8.5, 8.7]

These steps are also outlined in "How to pass all 10 TAPS in one lesson" and "District Walkthrough"  here.

Read This: Your TAPS Evaluation Score is up to You--Not Your Evaluator!

It is becoming apparent that my early predictions a year ago of defending your job by collecting, organizing, and updating evidence in notebooks (called paranoid back then) is becoming reality and possibly a necessity.

Your Evaluator may only look for as much evidence as they want to, take time to, or have time to - and then give you a score.  The score may not be a huge concern to them (even if it is a 2 or 1) because the score is not directly related to their certificate.  The teacher's evaluation score is up to the teacher, not the Evaluator.  Let me explain.

At the mid-year evaluation a friend of mine received a 2 on TAPS #6.  The Evaluator looked at two students' grades in the electronic grade book and out of 9 summative grades, those two students had either turned in none or one.  The Evaluator concluded that the teacher was not assessing well and summarily gave the teacher a 2.

The REAL story is that our of 30 or so students in the class, the Evaluator picked the two students who are ill-behaved, in ISS (in school suspension), frequently absent, and/or are two of the most troubled students in the school.  The Evaluator did not look at the entire class' grades, average, or completion status (which s/he was able to do), only the two "problem children."  Now, to me, that is either trying to be a "gotcha," a vendetta of some sort, ill-trained, or incompetence on the part of the Evaluator.  As people say, "That ain't right."  The TKES/TAPS process has been presented as a "totality of the evidence," but the evidence has to be reviewed first.

As a result, the teacher, in his/her defense (and anxiety) had to spend quite some time point out to the Evaluator other students in the same class.  The project turn-in rate and grades were quite high in fact.  Seeing the data, the Evaluator changed the 2 to a 3.

If you have ever been in a position where you had to regularly defend your job, you know the stress it creates, the morale it devastates, and the decrease in your effectiveness.  It creates a terrible work environment - especially mentally.  That teacher looked defeated.

However, in my mid-year conference, my Evaluator indicated that s/he had reviewed some of the evidence I had uploaded into The Platform (I think I have scanned and uploaded about 300 items).  That sounded good to my ears.  To me, that is an indication that s/he is trying to review the totality of the evidence, is doing his/her due diligence, and if there is a question, we can refer to it during the conference in The Platform.

I urge the effective teachers of this state to collect past and present evidence for the TAPS elements, organize it in some fashion that can be easily accessed, and take the evidence to meetings.  If you need suggestions on how to collect evidence, organize it, present it in notebooks, or uploading it into The Platform online, please see earlier blog posts of mine--also review my blog "How to pass all 10 TAPS in one lesson."  If you are going to the GMEA convention in January, stop by the poster presentation session or the Friday evening concert and let's talk.  We'll talk TKES.

Zero TKES/TAPS Stress Now...

I must say, that after realizing how I could document and pass all 10 standards on a day where I was not even teaching has been very liberating.  I am not going to upload any more documents into The Platform.  I am not going to save copies of any more grade reports or data samples.  I am not going to update my notebooks.  I am not going to worry about any more evidence.

If you have not seen the blog post, handbook, or PowerPoint on what I did, I recommend you take a few minutes to view it--it will save you time.

I incorporated the lesson plan from my doctoral study (Doctoral Study Lesson Plan) with the TAPS Standards and Elements and made notations in my lesson for the Evaluator on how I was meeting each Standard that day.  I think it is comprehensive and convincing.  A friend of mine, who hopes to be a principal soon, said that s/he would use it to help prepare his/her teachers for TKES.

The handbook and PowerPoint can both be found on my website on this page: GC-District Walkthrough-PPT.  I prefer the PowerPoint for viewing...

Respectfully,
Glenn

Effectively Organizing the TLE Platform

I am very good at doing things twice: first the cumbersome way and then a better way; I've discovered that long-term "learning style" again through uploading documents into The Platform.  My initial uploads seemed precise to me, and then after reviewing them, they were overly complicated and unclear (and probably would irritate the Evaluator).  I offer this procedure:

1.  When you upload a document, you have to specify which Performance Standard with which it will be associated before you are allowed to upload the document.  In the description section on the left, I put the section and element number and the descriptor, "Section 2.3: Plans instruction effectively for content mastery, pacing, and transitions."  Under that, I put the exact titles from my table of contents from my notebook (copy and paste).  It looks like this:

Section 2.3: Plans instruction effectively for content mastery, pacing, and transitions.

Lesson Plans (dated 8/30/13) showing sequential process for section assessment

Lesson Plans (dated 9/9/13) showing integration of curriculum to long-term goals

Example of all Essential Questions for the year for each lesson with mastery items underlined

Essay: §3.4.2 Understanding the Content and Mastering the Skills Through Research-Based Instructional Strategies

Then, click the check box for Standard 2 from the right side of the window, and then click, "Done."  This will create a section on the right that has a tab, "Attach File."  Like other "attach" tabs, it will open a "choose file" where you can select the document, then click, "OK" and it uploads.  You can upload electronic documents from your computer or scanned files.  Use electronic documents if you have them.  I had many samples of handouts I created for class as well as TKES essays - that had identifying titles - and loaded those into The Platform.  The titles of the documents load into The Platform.  

This is where it gets a little odd: I have scanned many documents (300+) into my computer to upload into The Platform.  Each scan automatically gave it a scan number (Scan0235).  I did not rename each file - that would take too long.  To help organize The Platform, I attached the scanned documents in scanned order with the associated Element descriptor in order of the scanned documents.  Meaning: if the Evaluator wanted to see the, "Example of all Essential Questions for the year for each lesson with mastery items underlined," s/he would look at the third scanned document under Section 2.3.

I have documents in my computer in folders such as, "Teaching Techniques," "Handouts," "GC-Publications," and "GC-TKES."

2.  What do you do with all of those scanned documents?  I occurred to me that I file them somewhere for safe keeping.  So, I created a folder, "GC-TKES/TLE Upload Documents/TO DO."  These files were scanned in order from my notebook, so as I use my table of contents from my Word document, I can put them in the right section of The Platform.  I did not scan all of my documents; only the clear, precise ones that showed excellent evidence.

3.  What do you do with the scanned files after you upload them?  They are still located in your, "TO DO" subfolder.  I decided to create a subfolder entitled: "GC-TKES/TLE Upload Documents/Section 1" then one labeled, "Section 2," etc.  That way, if I need to go back and double check a scan/file, I can find it easily.  I know now which scans have been uploaded into what section and what scans I still have to upload.  It looks like this:

GC-TKES

TLE Upload Documents

Section 1

Section 2

etc...

TO DO

Table of Contents

You may recall that I decided to enter my entire table of contents (TOC) into each Standard to show the totality of my evidence.  (You would be correct in inferring that I have a, "preponderance of the evidence" philosophy with this new system.)  I will reload the TOC as my evidence notebook changes.

Observation Preparation

A colleague of mine was observed the other day.  The Evaluator did not see the lesson plans for the day, which were printed and in a notebook a few feet away.  When the observation was over, the Evaluator requested a copy of the lesson plans (i.e., "evidence," "proof") so that s/he could load them in to The Platform online.

Because we have not gone through this process before, I am still very skeptical and leery of The System.  It has been made clear to us (through meetings & document from the Ga DOE) that if the Evaluator does not see something, then we can submit evidence within 24 hours and it will be uploaded into The Platform.  To me, that automatically implies (a year from now when someone is reviewing your file) that you didn't do something in real time, were told to submit proof so that you could received a good score, you prepared some sort of document, sent it to the Evaluator, and s/he uploaded it to The Platform so that they could backward-document your performance on that element.  I don't think that will look good....

Now, thinking ahead a couple of years...  If I were an Administrator and were to look at a file in The Platform and saw that someone had multiple documents loaded into The Platform for many of the elements, that would be "a red flag" to me that many of the elements were not being demonstrated in real time--the teacher had to keep providing proof that they were doing their job!  Even if the evidence was appropriate, it would be a red flag.  I have been in the legal field as an Administrator, and after reading a bazillion resumes (pardon the slang), I have noticed that some patterns tend to reveal how people really are--not how they say they are.

I suggest to you that all the evidence you have collected and your lesson plans be located in close proximity to the Evaluator's location, AND that the materials be labeled clearly.  We have been told that the Evaluator has the opportunity to review evidence while they are still in the classroom and if they see the documentation, then they do not have to ask for it later, and it will not have to be loaded into The Platform.  Translation: if they observe the behavior in real time &/or see it in your notebook while they are in the room, then they don't have to upload it into The Platform.  This should keep The Platform clean and simple (i.e., you are a good teacher in real time.)

To that end, here is what I sent to my Evaluator today:

Information for my observation/evaluation: all paperwork/evidence for your review is located in the tall wood cabinet to the left of the main door near the "panic buttons."  On the shelf are: daily lesson plans, TAPS evidence for standards 1-10, and extremely detailed lesson plans for 6th grade as they relate/correlate with the Georgia Performance Standards and the Nation Standards.  Notebooks with evidence have table of contents with brief definitions so that you can discern the purpose of that evidence.

I intend that when he enters my room, I will either formally (verbally) or informally (through gestures) ensure that he has located the lesson plans, the TAPS notebooks (Volume 1 & 2), and my National Standards correlation.

TKES/TAPS Teacher information for evaluation

I decided that I would have copies of the TAPS (Teacher Assessment on Performance Standards) information at my area in preparation for the first observation.  I copied the standards and each element for Standard 3 & 7 and then underlined the parts I wanted to ensure I mentioned during the observation.  While I would normally say or have the students demonstrate 90% of this anyway, I want to hit 100%.

To that end, I had a copy of the Depth of Knowledge section from my lesson plans with questions for levels 1, 2, 3, & 4 highlighted (so that I could see the easily), then overlaid a copy of Standards 3 & 7 with the specific elements underlined.  It looks like this:

This is the lesson plan format I created last year to prepare for TKES.  Each line/element is a drop down field where I can create a TKES/TAPS complete and compatible lesson plan for a class in <1 minute.  You can see it here, but you can also see it at my online portfolio (here) or in my Keys to Successful Teacher Assessment (here),

Pre-Evaluation...lunch

Today at lunch, my Evaluator stopped by and gave a colleague and me ideas as to the TAPS areas he would be observing sometime next week for his first observation.  He mentioned that he would be looking for certain elements for instructional strategies and positive learning environments (Standard 3 and 7).  My colleague quickly asked if each of the elements of each standard had to be observed for us to pass.  He calmly, and confidently, reiterated that the elements were not a checklist.  He added two points that calm my nerves somewhat:
1) he was quite familiar with the rubric, what to look for, and how everything worked because he had used the full blown TKES evaluation system last year, and a trial run the year before, and
2) he said that if you're a good teacher, instructional strategies and classroom environment should be a given; if not, you're probably not a very good teacher.  Internally, I agreed.

The point: I have a bit more confidence in the process and that my Evaluator is indeed not looking for a "gotcha."  However, I'll be more sure when it is actually over....

In any case, I still am adding to my TKES/TAPS notebook (pictured in an earlier post, and suggestions on how to implement on on a separate page [Handbook for Successful TKES Evaluation]).  Near the Evaluator/observation area, I have a 2-inch notebook with my lesson plans, 2, 4-inch notebooks with my evidence cataloged by section and identified by individual table of contents, and a 2-inch binder with my detailed lesson plans as they relate to each and every section of material in my textbook and national standards; all integrated and cross referenced.  The Evaluator indicated that we would need to show him where our lesson plans were; I put a sign by his observation area.

At one time, I was planning on replacing documents in my notebook with newer versions, but after reading more of the TAPS rubric, I decided that would be a bad idea.  The reason?  The wording for Level IV begins with, "The teacher continually demonstrates...," "The teacher continually seeks and uses....," "The teacher continually facilitates....," etc.  To me that means not only on a daily/weekly basis, but also on a yearly basis.  I decided not to replace evidence in my notebook, but rather add to so that I could demonstrate "continually."