Educational Resources & Tech Tools 05/13/2016

• The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues

  • “The way we’re going to improve schools is not by supervising and evaluating individual teachers into better performance; it’s by creating a culture in which teams of teachers are helping one another get better.”

  • “When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur… not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens – and when it happens, it lasts.”

     

                John Wooden (Wooden and Jamison, 1997)

  • He lists the key factors in real PLCs (as opposed to the unfortunate “PLC lite” he sees in too many schools):

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Teacher teams organized to meet by grade level and course (for example, all the third-grade teachers, all the biology teachers);

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Absolute clarity about the nature of their work;

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Supports so teachers can succeed at what they’re being asked to do;

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Agreement on what exactly students are supposed to learn, and at what pace;

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Techniques for assessing student learning minute by minute and day by day;

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Common interim assessments crafted by the team;

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Team analysis of the results and follow-up with struggling students;

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Looking at the teaching practices that produced good results and emulating them;

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Supporting colleagues who are less effective teaching particular skills;

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Continuously improving teaching and learning.

  • Teachers in these schools virtually all report the highest levels of satisfaction in their careers, the greatest self-efficacy…
  • If you just put teachers together in a room and tell them to collaborate, there’s no evidence that that’s going to improve student achievement at all.”
  • “The way we’re going to improve schools is not by supervising and evaluating individual teachers into better performance,” he says; “it’s by creating a culture in which teams of teachers are helping one another get better.”
  • First, teams have to be looking together at the results of well-crafted common assessments. Second, conversations must be based on evidence – for example, “If we’ve given a test and I have 40 percent of my kids unable to demonstrate proficiency on a particular skill and you had 100 percent of your kids demonstrate proficiency, and these are heterogeneously grouped classes, the evidence speaks for itself.” Finally, team leaders need to be trained in leading discussions and presenting feedback in ways that aren’t hurtful.

  • the best PD won’t come from off-site leadership workshops, he believes, but from doing the work in teacher teams and getting feedback.

     

  • if only about six percent of teachers aren’t meeting basic standards, what about the other 94 percent? To answer this question, we need to acknowledge three basic realities in schools:

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Teaching is complex work. “The impossibility of reaching perfection is in the very nature of creative, professional work,” she says.

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->Current evaluation systems are underperforming.

  • evaluations might be able to describe a teacher’s work, but they seldom improve it.
  • [I]t’s time to shift from an emphasis on high-stakes accountability for individual teachers to an emphasis on schoolwide communities of professional inquiry in which educators learn from one another.”
  • Create an environment that’s safe and challenging. Teachers must be able to express themselves and take risks, constantly seeking new and better approaches. Danielson suggests encouraging teacher teams to identify and share “high-quality mistakes” – approaches that didn’t work out but from which valuable lessons emerged. Principals might do the same.
  • Principals need to affirm the key role of learning from colleagues and model openness about their own imperfections and struggles.
  • Principals should encourage teachers to visit a specific number of colleagues’ classrooms, not to give feedback, but to learn. The principal might offer to cover teachers’ classes during these visits.
  • Common planning time for key groups, clear expectations for what teams should accomplish, and skilled facilitation can produce remarkable results,
  • Many colleagues are ready to take on the role of mentor, instructional coach, department chair, or team leader. It’s the principal’s job to spot talent, delegate responsibility, and provide training and support. Some key skills: active listening, summarizing a discussion, acknowledging and building on others’ ideas, problem-solving, and problem identification. Principals also need to know when outside expertise is required.

• Google Drive Add-ons for Teachers

  Explanations of add-ons for the purposes of evaluation.

  tags: Google Drive Add-ons GAFE assessment rubric

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.