18
Six steps to performance‐based teacher evaluaƟon
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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)
Dr. Richard Voltz
Associate Director
of Professional
Development
