Day Three: Discuss One "Observation" Area That You Would Like to Improve on For Your Teacher Evaluation
Evaluation. It used to be fairly easy; the administrator would make an appointment (maybe) to discuss what I would be teaching, and what I would like to have him see. I would sometimes be asked what class I would prefer. At the appointed day and time, he would come in, sit at the back of the library with a pad and pen, and take notes while I taught a lesson or worked with students. At the end of the thirty minutes, he would leave, and in a few days, if I was lucky and he wasn't swamped, I would get called into his office to read the notes, have a brief discussion, and sign a couple of copies, one for me, and one for him. A few times I got to do formative evaluation, which consisted of me having a goal I would like to accomplish during the school year, and that was that. No observation at all, and often, out of sight, out of mind ruled the day. I don't know if I ever completed the goals I set once the school year got rolling and it was on to the daily business of education.
Those days are gone. Now we have TPEP, Marzano, and eVal. Focused and comprehensive cohorts, driven by reform, the state and the contract. I'm on focused, which means I only have to write one student-growth goal instead of three, which is what the teachers on comprehensive have to do. Last year I wrote a student growth goal I didn't accomplish, and it was only during my final evaluation that I realized how badly I had chosen a goal, and how poorly it was executed. Total fail, and in the end, the targeted students didn't benefit at all from my vision, which to be honest, wasn't much of a vision at all. I will admit that I haven't bought in to the whole "new" evaluation system, but I have to do it, so this year I'll make a better stab at it.
My goal for this year will be Goal 8: Exhibiting collaborative and collegial practices focused on improving instructional practice and student learning. This will be a goal that the high school teachers will all be doing, working together to implement common measures to monitor growth and achievement. I'm not entirely certain how this is going to look in practice. The high school teachers will be working together to frame this goal for our individual classrooms. For me, I would like to track various instructional practices and try a variety of strategies to engage students and keep them learning and improving. I suppose student growth, in my two social studies classes, would look like improved grades, better rates on on-time submissions, and classroom based assessments that are approached with a spirit of intellectual curiosity and discovery. I don't expect to be rated as Distinguished on the 4-tiered system, which oddly enough looks a whole lot like the 4-tiered system students have been rated on, but after 30+ years in education, I think I'm a little better than Basic. As my superintendent likes to day, we live in Proficient, and visit Distinguished.
Evaluation has been something that didn't seem very important in the past - we had quite a bit of contract language around evaluation in the past, and it really always had come down to Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. Nobody walked on water, and it was the rare teacher who needed to go on a Plan of Improvement. I told a former boss that unless he could tell me something that would improve my practice, it didn't matter to me at all if I was observed. I teach in a library - it's not exactly a room where I can shut the door and just teach. I work in a fishbowl! With reform leading the way, I have an opportunity to really focus on student growth, and not just a walk-through with a notepad.
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