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

2s, 2s, 2s....

Please pardon the informality, but in my neck of the woods, they are passing out 2s like candy at Halloween.  I am under the impression that I am to be observed again soon, this time with the emphasis on Section 10: Communication.  I looked through my book to see what I had, when it was used, and the current relevance of my material.  I decided to keep what I had, but  update several areas.  I now have 51 pieces of evidence for Standard 10.  The type of evidence varies based on the Element.

I believe that there are administrators who are judging the teachers without ever asking for, or searching for, evidence; it appears some administrators are going to only judge what they see in the classroom.  I decided to update the material for Section 10 this week, update my table of contents, print out the new TOC, add it to the notebook, and upload it into the TLE Platform.  In addition, I e-mailed my evaluator to let him/her know that I had new evidence located in my notebook and s/he could review the summarized TOC when they came in.  I received a reply of, "Thank you."

It is my understanding that some evaluators will never ask for evidence and never look into the Documentation section of the TLE Platform.  This willful omission and oversight could cause a problem for teachers.

I believe that many of the teachers who received 2s probably did not have evidence/documentation ready or nearby or did not notify their administrator, but I do not know that for a fact.  Perhaps teachers are taking this lightly and thinking that they are "highly qualified" and will do just fine.  It is my recommendation that you keep your evidence current, applicable, and uploaded into The Platform.  If nothing else, it will serve as dated and timed evidence if you ever have to rebut a low score.

In my current estimation (and the way I feel), it is not about highly qualified or even highly effective anymore; it's about highly documented.

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.

Pre-Evaluation: Polite yet official

As I am working through this TKES/TAPS process to reach my TEM score through the SLO assessments and SUI (surveys of instructional practice), it is somewhat comforting to know that my score impacts the LKES evaluation.  Translated: my annual evaluation impacts my administrators and schools evaluation; the better my score, the better their score.  It is in their best interest that I do well.

During my pre-evaluation conference, I got the sense that the administrators in charge seemed genuinely concerned that they want me to pass; that was a comforting thought.  For the first time, I felt like someone was working with & for me as opposed against me.  My coordinator said that she would e-mail my evaluator and upload the information into the GaDOE TLE website - aka, The Platform.  After she uploaded her account of my pre-evaluation, e-mailed my evaluator, and he replied, I received a notice that I needed to sign off on the pre-evaluation conference.

I went into The Platform and reviewed the section.  In the conference, I expressed things like, "I'm not sure how you would interpret this, but in my setting, this is what I do....," "The interpretation of the word 'orderly' in my room looks like....." She said things like, "You could put a copy in your lesson plan binder" and "You differentiate all the time by the very nature of your performance tasks."

However, in The Platform, I noticed that there were words like, "Dr. Cason had some concerns about data....," "I advised that this data....," and "I advised him to keep a copy in his lesson plan binder....," "We discussed that 'orderly' does not mean 'quiet'," and "We discussed students as self-directed learners and what that looks like...." [emphasis added].  I've been around long enough to know that the warm, fuzzy-discussion-turned-cold-worded advisement is a clue.  They're watching their back; I better watch mine.  I hope to help you too....

The point: while the pre-evaluation conference was informative and polite, the documentation loaded into The Platform was very official language.

I noticed that at the end, you are supposed to sign off and agree with what was posted.  Below the button was something to the effect that once you agreed to it, you would not be allowed to edit it any more.  I didn't sign off on it.  I was concerned about the wording, so I created a reply in a document.  It was a long, 4-paragraph reply addressing each area noted in The Platform.  I copy and pasted the reply into the form, then clicked accept or agree or submit.....