Teacher Evaluation

Module 6, Unit 4, Activity 3

As my Teach Now cohort and I get ready to enter the phase of our program which includes student teaching, emphasis will begin to be placed on assessment and mentoring.  I have been teaching for a number of years now so am of course used to my school’s evaluation system already, but it’s also nice to be able to think about getting new, more regular feedback.

The subject of teacher evaluations has been running through my mind since Module 6 when we looked at high-stakes assessment and teacher evaluations. For this assignment I interviewed others on teacher assessments and learned that teacher assessments in the Netherlands can vary greatly from those in the US, for example. At my school, we typically have one teacher evaluation per year consisting of an in-class evaluation.  It is treated as more of a formality - we know well in advance when the observation will be; there is a relatively short letter given at some point afterwards (in my experience it has been either satisfactory or praise for my work - I imagine that a teacher needing more improvement may well have more feedback sessions but that hasn’t been in my experience so far).

Two other methods of evaluation were discussed in class as well. The first is Ohio State’s new teacher evaluation system (http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Teaching/Educator-Evaluation-System/Ohio-s-Teacher-Evaluation-System). The Ohio system puts equal weight on in-class teacher observations, as well as on student results. In their old system, these were the only two criteria. In the new system they are able to incorporate one more method such as peer review or student review into the evaluation for feedback. Unfortunately, this last item counts for little of the whole evaluation (15%), but I am glad it is in there. There are many teachers who may achieve more in “soft” skills and value to students than hard academic results, such as those who really connect personally with students, provide very positive faculty and student energy, etc. These teachers are valuable but can be overlooked when assessing numbers alone.

The Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) strives to do this, in that the goal of the system is to look at the value the teacher adds to the student body as a whole without basing this on state standards (http://tn.gov/education/topic/tvaas). I believe this type of system is one where I would prefer to be evaluated as a teacher, given that my school (and most schools, for that matter) have special circumstances that make it unique and I would like to be evaluated with my skills and attributes in mind rather than test scores.

For the current module we watched a film about Teacher Evaluation preparation (http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Teaching/Educator-Evaluation-System/Ohio-s-Teacher-Evaluation-System). This helped shed light on the way evaluations happen at other schools. There are a few things I like about the method in this video:

• The post observation meeting is done on the same day as the evaluation. This is great, because it allows an engaged discussion on the actual lesson and specific points.
• Feedback sessions happen four times per year. Granted, this may actually be a little too frequent - but what I like is that they happen more than once per year so you can show improvement or at least have more than one chance to show your stuff.

For the next months of mentoring I will also try to adapt the pre-evaluation system that I watched in the film, but would like to do so more openly. I found that the film’s pre-meeting was like a precursor to a test; what I feel will be more effective is to discuss my plans and really allow for experimentation in my lesson - to tell my evaluator what I would like to experiment in doing and ask her specific observation questions, including those related to specific students, learning challenges, classroom management issues, and anything else challenging me. In other words, I would like to help direct my evaluations with challenges I know I am facing, so there is constructive help and mentoring in my work, not just “testing.” More of the stuff we hope to implement for our students, too!

High Stakes Assessment

The way that assessments are used can vary per school, state, and country in terms of the implications within their results. In some cases, assessments and their results can say “everything” about a school.  Where I am from, in the US, I regularly hear stories from friends and family who are teachers about the way standardized tests have monopolized their teaching. This is far from the way things happen in the Netherlands, where I teach.

According to one of the Teach Now resources (https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=1) on comparative international testing, “PISA results are reported by average scale score (from 0 to 1,000) as well as by the percentage of students reaching particular proficiency levels.”  In the Netherlands, high schools are categorized by education proficiency levels, and a student has to qualify in order to get in to that high school. There are standardized tests given at the primary level, but just this year they stopped being an official indicator of anything. In other words, they are used only as an additional guideline to the advice given by the primary school teacher to determine the high school level. Once a student reaches high school, the only “official” standardized test comes at the end of school, before graduation.

High-Stakes Assessments: Dutch vs International Baccalaureate

To provide some context, I will compare and contrast assessments in my own school (ISH) with those of Het 4e Gymnasium in Amsterdam where I know a teacher and have interviewed her about assessments. The 4e Gymnasium (4G) is one of the highest-level Dutch public high schools. My school, ISH, is an international school whose standards and curriculum are guided by the International Baccalaureate (IB).

At both schools, there are no single high-stakes assessments administered at any point during a students’ high school career, with the exception of one end exam that students take before they graduate. At 4G, this is a central end exam from the Dutch government which all students take nationwide for the diploma offered at this high school category. At ISH, the exam is created by the school for its own students, but using IB-approved questions and test materials. In both cases, a passing grade is required in order to complete studies.

The rest of high school: assessments

At 4G, each year consists of four curriculum blocks. A block is required to contain at least two major assessments, but may contain more. Major assessments are all averaged to determine the students’ year grades per subject.  To determine whether a student passes the year, or advances to the next year level, decision making is done by a committee of all the students’ teachers as well as their class mentor. A student with all passing grades automatically advances. One or more very low level failing grades will automatically indicate being left back or having to go to a lower level high school, but at 4G this is rare. More often there are committee discussions about students who fall into a grey area and may need extra work or discussions to assess whether they can continue.

At ISH, each subject is taught in units, and there are anywhere from 4 to 10 units per year. Exams and assessments are offered per unit, with IB calling for between 1-4 different criteria assessed per unit. Also here, student passing and failing per year level is determined mostly by committee, but with a minimum adherence to standards according to IB guidelines. The standards seem to be more strictly used as guiding principles than at 4G, but there is still a big grey area where pass or fails are concerned. Each student does have three very important subjects for his or her chosen school path though, and these need to be passed before a student can complete a year level or get an IB diploma.

Assessments and teachers records

Neither 4G nor ISH attaches teacher evaluations to student outcomes in any official capacity. In fact, the 4G teacher was quite surprised at the question and surprised to hear that there are schools which do this. At 4G there is a policy that is more than one-third of a class fails any given assessment, a complaint may be registered with a demand for re-testing. If accepted, the teacher must create a new test. However, this will only change the student’s record, not the teacher’s.

At ISH, teachers are only evaluated qualitatively once per year through classroom observation. There is no indication of assessments or student outcomes on their record whatsoever, and this includes pass/fails.

Who is accountable for test results?

At both schools, accountability for the passing and failing of students during the entire program (as indicated by the final high school exams) rests 100% on the school, and is therefore a shared responsibility for all faculty. In principle, is a school has low pass records, it is less likely to be a popular school to be chosen. There are no postcode-zoned high schools, schools are chosen and applied for.

In conclusion, testing and assessments appears to be more of a group effort in the Netherlands than what it appears to be at other schools, according to what I have read my Teach Now peers reporting. Because the IB system is international and ISH’s assessment standards are the same across Europe, it should be safe to assume that the international school system, at least in Europe, is similarly geared towards flexible assessments within guidelines, rather than many high-stakes assessments.

Resources:

(n.d.). Retrieved June 24, 2015, from https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=1

Reflection: How to Approach Standards

This past week my Teach Now cohort worked on various assignments relating to school standards. I’d like to reflect on a few of the things I’ve learned and the value in some of these activities.

First, I will say that I found the way we approached this unit to be constructive and valuable to me personally. In 2008 I received my Masters in Education and at that time we worked on a unit relating to standards. We spent a good deal of time researching standards, reading about them, and discussing theory. What effectively happened was we got in numerous class discussion about the value of standards and the struggles we as teachers were having in meeting them. There was a high degree of frustration and I went away from that unit feeling like standards were a “necessary evil.”

On the contrary, this unit concentrated on three activities that approached standards constructively, looking at several ways of working with standards to really get the most out of them and extract their value. These activities included:

1. Unpacking a standard: We went in-depth with getting to the heart of a standard. Everything down to dissecting the words used helps me as a teacher get a real feel for the meat of a standard.

For example, the standard I chose was related to eighth grade mathematics based on the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum. It includes being able to understand the origins of math and being able to describe their cultural origins. This in itself is something that can be baffling for students and teachers alike. However, the “Unpacking” activity had us pulling out the verbs and really getting to the core of the one “big idea” meant by the standard, in order to really make sense of it and work with it.

2. Backwards Mapping: We have often been taught to look at things step by step: we read from left to right, each word one by one. Likewise, this is how we plan lessons a lot of the time too: from one textbook page to the next. Backwards mapping really sets a goal and makes sure everything maps back to it.

This was my favorite of the three activities. It also appeals to me personally in that we look first to understand the “Big Idea.” In my house the words “End in Mind” are used commonly, popularized from Steven Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Starting with the Big Idea follows along this theory, that understanding the end keeps the process going.

3. SMART objectives: This activity really focuses on student outcomes. It is a nice step after backward mapping, because it gets real goals set within the activities. While goals are already a normal thing, creating SMART objectives makes sure they are really targeted on the right outcomes.

One thing I found interesting about this activity is that, when I was working alongside a friend who works in the business world, he mentioned that SMART is used as a framework in his company for goal setting. They do it to make sure everyone is on the same page with goals and what they mean. When a standard says “understanding,” that is not very specific. Making it “smart” means everyone is on the same page.

In conclusion, this unit brought me some value, particularly in my relationship with standards. It added a positive way to approach standards and really get to the core of why they are there, while doing my best to work with them.

Standards and Backwards Mapping

The subject and level I am teaching is eight grade mathematics at the International School of Hilversum in The Netherlands.

The last Teach Now activity, Activity 1, included a standard for one branch of mathematics as written by the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) for the Middle Years Program (MYP). The standard is written as follows:

Students are expected to have an understanding of number concepts and to develop the skills of calculation and estimation. Students should understand that the use of numbers to express patterns and to describe real-life situations goes back to humankind’s earliest beginnings, and that mathematics has multicultural roots. 
(Mathematics subject guide, IBO MYP)

To backward-map this standard, we start with the standard itself. I want my students to learn calculating and number concepts, but they need to do this in a global, cross-cultural context. They should not only understand numbers, but understand where they come from and be able to express this.  As the lessons and activities for this unit are created, backwards mapping will ensure that these end goals are met. In other words, every single activity planned is going to end up mapping back to the end goal.

I am starting this activity with the first unit of a school year in hopes that it becomes my regular planning procedure for the following units in the curriculum. This standard will be the first of several used in a unit that covers previous knowlegde and introduction to new concepts. It will probably take about five lessons to introduce, discuss, formatively assess and finally summatively assess the students.

Estimation is a valuable and necessary tool/skill that’s used in virtually all branches of math. Students need to become accustom to the idea of rounding off a non-integer numeral and replacing the value with a shorter one in order to keep calculations manageable. This skill is also relevant when using irrational numbers since a natural terminus to the decimal doesn’t exist. In that case the irrational number can be replaced by fractional rounding to give estimation.

One proficiency the students will have at the end of the unit is rounding off to the nearest whole number. They will learn whether or not a number being rounded needs to be rounded up in value to make it slightly larger or rounded down to make it slightly smaller. They will learn about rounding decimals as well as to which decimal place a number should be. They will also learn how to round larger numbers in order to perform multiplication between multiple digit digits. Finally, the students will learn how to round to a significant number to help in estimation of larger numbers as well.

Learning assessments will include

- An investigation to find patterns in reoccurring decimals when they are converted to fractions. In the assessment they will come to realize that even though a decimal number has no terminus, it can still be rational if it’s repeating itself consistently;

- A written exam testing knowledge and understanding of the theory in an applied way through questions and answers;

- A written assignment using estimation and rounding off in real life situations and explaining the relevance to the technique in context.

Learning experiences for the students will include detailed class discussions and informal question and answer sessions. This is where we will take part in activities such as the Around the World Game for extra cultural and global context.

Individual learning experiences are constructed using online reference tools such as iMaths, coolmaths.com, and khanacademy.org, whereby the goal of reaching certain levels of proficiency can be set within formative assessments.

Students will use their calculators for understanding world currency exchanges and finding equivalencies between them. They will find the best exchanges for currencies in their top five travel destinations in order to determine where they would get the best ‘value’ on holiday.

Applying Classroom Rules and Procedures

It’s important to me as a teacher to have my students understand what’s expected of them in my classroom. This is not only in relation to the assignment, but also to the way they are expected to behave within the classroom.

Just as good work is usually rewarded with good grades, I strive to provide positive reinforcement to students who are adhering to the rules and procedures in the class. By the same token, it is also important to take action in some way when students are not following those rules and procedures.

It has been my experience so far as a teacher that students appreciate when expectations are clear and so are consequences. I start the year with posting a few guidelines in class to help reinforce the way I run the class. I’d like to discuss a few of these examples and some strategies that may be employed.

Positive Reinforcement

  

It is noted in the Art and Science of Teaching (p. 133) that certain research points to a loss in motivation when students are offer too great rewards for simply fulfilling expectations. I have experienced this both as a teacher as well as a sports coach and a parent, where offering a great reward that is disconnected from the activity tends to put the focus on the reward rather than the desire to follow the rules. As a result, I focus on positive reinforcement with natural consequences. In other words, I try to reward students with a pat on the back, a smile, or another reward connected to their behavior.

It sounds incredibly simple, but one of the most effective strategies I have found for positive reinforcement is simply telling the students what is appreciated. I try to also connect the consequences. As a simple example, when I am teaching a mathemetics unit I sometimes do a flipped classroom method and have students work independently so I can coach them. When one student helps another student, I make sure I let them know how it’s appreciated, as well as why. For example – “Hey Femke, I really appreciated how you helped Markus in class today. Sometimes I am not able to get to everyone who is struggling and your stepping in really helped me. Make sure everyone is understanding the lesson”

At the same time, I encourage students like Markus to thank their peers as well.

To take things a step further, I also like to reward ongoing adherence to classroom procedures by informing parents and/or class mentors. I feel that when a student is consistently doing a good job in my class, I want that to help carry weight in other areas of their academics or personal life. I will regularly write to a student with a parent or mentor in the cc and let them know what they are doing in class that is really working, and how they are positively contributing.

Another reason for doing this is I’ve noticed we as teachers do this a lot for problems, but not as much for those who are helping create a positive environment in class.

Further, I believe that involving parents in good behaviors serves to help parental involvement, stimulate motivation, and bring parents in to the loop of understanding what is going on with their children in class. Surprisingly, I often find that some of my good behavior students are struggling a little at home. It is incredibly helpful for their parents to hear about how it is going for their children in class.

When Rules and Procedures are Not Being Met

My first line of strategy for kids who are not adhering to rules is to try to get an understanding of the whole picture. Is this a one-off? A recurring problem? Something that relates to a greater academic or social issue?

 Part of what helps me do this is communication with other teachers. We have regular year level meetings where the teachers of a particular grade all coordinate not only on curriculum, but also on each individual student. We try to understand the big picture socially as well as what is happening within individual families, when needed, to gain understanding into students’ behaviours. We also try to coordinate discipline strategies.

The Art and Science of Teaching refers to this strategy as being “proactive”, which summarizes at least part of what I try to do with this: anticipate what is going on, where potential disruptions may be, and nip the situation in the bud when possible. This may entail speaking to a student in advance as mentioned in the book, but more often it is seating particular students in other configurations and particularly engaging certain students in the lesson.

When behavior disruptions do occur in class, I often tailor my response to the individual students. Most often the disruption is talking when there is either a lesson or another student is talking. Ideally, I engage the ‘offending’ student one on one, either by eye contact and a look, or by continuing the lesson but walking quietly over to that student and speaking to the rest of the class while right next to that student, often with my hand on his or her desk.

In many situations a one-on-one approach works due to my dynamic with the students. I keep a very friendly, playful classroom. We get work done, but the atmosphere is fun and friendly. With behavior disruptions I am very strict with non verbal signals and show a side that doesn’t come out often. Due to this, a very stern look that says “I mean business” can often convey to a student that he or she has crossed the line.

Outside of the Classroom Actions

Typically I do not like to send students out of the classroom and to the principal or for a “time out” as a disciplinary action (this said, as a side note: I do believe everyone can use/deserves a time out from time to time. But not as a disciplinary action! I use this more when things are tense between students, or when a student is getting emotionally charged, and I let him or her use a couple of minutes to relax and take a breather).

However, there are times when disciplinary actions like this are called for. I usually call this the last line of defense, but would use it as a first line of disciplinary actions in a few cases, namely if there were a situation where the student became violent, threatening, or posed any danger to fellow students. In that case I would immediately send the student to our vice principal’s office and more people would get involved.

When there is no threat or danger, I send students out of the room only when I have tried individual intervention methods and these do not work.  Before sending a student out of the room, I will attempt a non-disruptive whisper to the student, or a slip of paper when appropriate, saying “this is your last warning.” They know what this means and 9 times out of 10, it curtails the behavior.

My strategy is a last warning centers upon students understanding what that means. I have already made students aware of this method from the beginning, and they know what to expect from a last warning. In my classroom, we try to create an atmosphere of respect and understanding, and I offer that to them to. A last warning means they are crossing the line into territory that can’t be addressed in the classroom anymore. Beyond that point, others become involved. The steps that would then typically happen include involving the vice principal, their class mentor, and in some cases their parents.

In conclusion, a strong classroom management style needs both the teacher and students to be on board and have an understanding with each other. It entails not only the teacher deciding and communicating what they want in the classroom, but for the students to buy in to the strategy, understand it, and have a clear idea of what is too far. I find that 90% of this can be done simply and non-verbally when the students know what the rules are. A chart posted in the classroom and regular discussion about this can really help.

Creating High Performance Learning Environments

As teachers, many of us are regularly looking to challenge traditional teaching methods. Simply put, the classic teacher at the front, students seated to attention method of teaching just does not work well anymore and students do not respond.

There are many new ways of engaging students in classrooms to dliver materials. I watched and analyzed three videos with different methods and will discuss these with you below. I’d love to hear your thoughts on each one in the comments.

The Three Methods:

Video 1:

Roller Coaster Physics

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-stem-strategies

Academic Expectations:

This teacher seems to be very engaged in her students’ learning. However, contrary to what we will watch in the next video, she seems to correlate individual students’ academic expectations with their individual skills and capacities. For example, she has the groups working on the projects determine the roles they will each play within their groups. This helps students naturally select the organizers, the administrative or detailed students, the creative/ideas-people, etc. In the end they all learn the physics concepts and are held to the same standards for these, but they then are expected to learn more on an individual basis and she uses the activity as a formative assessment tool to understand the students’ levels and needs better.

Behavior Expectations:

Again, this lesson planning leaves expectations to the individuals. There are group activities and reflections where certain rules are clear: students are expected to listen to each other and to respect each other. They are also expected to actively participate. How they do this is open and there is room for them to fill in the activity the way they would like.

Norms and Procedures:

Most striking is the way the teacher uses problem solving and creativity procedurally to stimulate high performance. Students are expected to create a budget and buy their materials for each project. They have to justify materials use and decisions they make, and will therefore have to work as a group for decisions.

There is a feedback loop that encourages sharing and best practices.

Video 2:

3^rd Grade Chinese Math

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7LseF6Db5g&noredirect=1

Academic expectations:

In contrast with the preceding video, the academic expectations set by the teacher in this video seem to rest entirely on the group learning and not at all on the individual. The teacher teaches by consistent repletion and the group goes very quickly. It is clear that her focus is on the entire class learning and being able to repeat the lessons. It is expected that students participate in front o the entire class and not as a group.

Behavior Expectations:

It is striking in this video that behavior expectations seem to be for the entire group and individual variations from the norm are acceptable. Here and there, a student seems to wander off, speak out of turn, etc. At one point the teacher does shush a student, but is typically focused on the overall group dynamics and not individual behaviors.

Norms and Procedures:

This lesson uses memory techniques including repetition to enforce learning. What may enforce learning here is the fact that students are expected to participate a great deal in front of the class. This creates pressure and can add to competition. Whether this is great psychologicaly is another story! But for the purpose of student performance, this would likely stimulate many students to participate and create an atmosphere where high achievement is valued.

Video 3:

Whole Brain Teaching

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iXTtR7lfWU&feature=youtu.be

Academic expectations:

This video uniquely combines some aspects of the learning activities in the first two. The teacher is highly engaged in her students’ learning, and as such expects their high engagement as well. The teaching goes quickly and seems to have clear and high learning objectives. Students repeat what is expected of them both verbally as well as physically, engaging more of them and encouraging real retention.

Behavior expectations:

The behavior expectations are the most clear of any of the classroom settings in the three videos. Every student can repeat and act out everything, from values to interaction norms to respect for others, and seem to do so at each lesson.

Norms and Procedures:

Students work either as a whole group, alone, or in pairs. In each scenario they participate out loud, verbally and physically, thereby engaging their whole brains.

The lessons stimulate a high student performance by making learning fun and sort of forcing, in a fun and engaging way, a focus on the activities at hand. It does not leave a great deal of room for distraction or other activities beyond the task at hand.

Setting high performance expectations among my students

I teach both mathematics and drama in a middle school in the Netherlands. It’s an international school, so my students are mixed backgrounds and vary in the amount of English they master.

We follow the International Baccalaureate Curriculum, and as such our academic standards are very high. The method I relate to the most is the one exhibited in Video 1. This is partially because we focus on differentiated learning and instruction, and also because personally I look at real life problem solving with my students and try to incorporate that into my lessons.

Our academic standards are rigorous and I make an effort to communicate these expectations at the beginning of each lesson and project by communicating the learning objectives very clearly. In the blog post that corresponds to the first video on Roller Coaster Physics (found here: http://pilotrobertmace.edu.glogster.com/roller-coaster-lab/), the lessons outlined are quite similar to the expectations I set in my classroom.  This is not only the way we operate in mathematics, but also in drama.

To use drama as an example, I teach a unit on “Theater of the Oppressed” to my tenth grade students where I teach the students a form of non-violent, respectful communication to resolve conflict. The theater is a framework for learning behavior and non-verbal communication, which is then extended into verbal communication through other activities. One of the key deliverables is a journal they need to create. I also have them come up with real-life situations where someone is being oppressed, both in their own lives as well as on a global level, in order to have them associate their thoughts from the unit on real-life skills and problem solving.

Before the unit begins, I list out the deliverables and a rubric for assessment. There is a high degree of possibility for individual variation each time, but the expectations are very clear as to what needs to happen by the end of the unit. I allow them to take their own roads to reach the end point, but they understand where that end point lies throughout the process.

Thanks for joining me on this analysis and following my blog. As I said, please let me know your thoughts in the comments, I’d love to hear whether you agree or disagree.