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.
