Free Administrator Workshop:

STEPS to the Common Core 

Washington, DC

• Find time to listen to the teacher
• Provide resources, do research, help teachers connect with others in their buildings
• Find a few things to set as goals - and set goals with teachers
• Ask teachers to self-reflect
• When possible, get lesson plans ahead of time - critique plans and provide written feedback
• Provide written feedback after every session
• Focus on communication 
• Consider videotaping

• Bombard the teacher with too many recommendations
• Expect that the teacher will change overnight
• Be too late with your feedback. If necessary schedule phone conferencing for follow-up
• Contradict other administrators in your building. Consistency is important
• Focus solely on behavior or academics - look at the bigger picture
• Forget to begin and end with aspects that are going well 

Curriculum Pacing and

the Common Core

CEI is now offering "curriculum pacing" workshops to assist educators with preparing for the common core standards. Working with Dr. David Silverberg of Ashland University in Cleveland, and Kathy Ward Cameron of the Early Literacy Institute, CEI is available to provide technical assistance to administrators and summer workshops for teachers. 

Details, schedules, and more information will be available soon!

Contact us at info@edimprovement.org 

by Sharlen Smith, CEI Intern 

With America's low educational scores, many schools and districts are looking for ways to improve teacher effectiveness, student engagement, and the overall school experience for parents, teachers, administrators, and students. The U.S. Department of Education and Learning Point Associates released an article (Oliva et al., 2009) explaining the positive implications of teacher evaluations and observations.

Teacher observation and coaching are different from formal teacher performance evaluations. Observation/coaching sessions are designed to facilitate teacher growth by sharing strategies and reflecting together on successes as strategies for improvement.  However, these observation/ coaching sessions need to be done frequently and adequately to gain real results.

1. It is important to give feedback to both new and experienced teachers.
2. It is not just about checking off a teacher as "satisfactory," it's about providing the teachers with useful information about their performance, both negative and positive.
3. Teachers need necessary trainings outside the classroom to continue working on their skills.

The Regional Educational Laboratory of the Midwest conducted a research study on what makes effective evaluation successful and why effective evaluations are needed. In order to be productive, multiple evaluators are needed. Principals and administrators are good but including outside teacher mentors is even better. While the RELM focused on evaluation, their points hold true for the informal observation/coaching systems as well.  

In fact, peers or outside consultants often are selected to facilitate observation/coaching. Observations often focus on an array of teaching skills, with an eye toward student responses. Observers look for teachers' understanding of "curriculum, content, and instruction" as well as knowledge of student behavior.  

Both tenured and untenured teachers should be observed. All teachers benefit from observation and feedback sessions.  

The informal observation/ coaching sessions must be conducted within the context of the larger "teacher evaluation" system including the school administrators' 2-3 formal evaluations each year. Many teachers also gain new skills more quickly when less formal observations are also made four or five times a year. Research has shown that video recording is a very effective way for teachers to understand where their strengths and weaknesses are.

For outside evaluators/observers to be effective, communication with teachers and administrators is critical. Building trusting relationships is important to the evaluation process so that teachers appreciate the results and feel the evaluations are reliable.  

To improve trust and build a cooperative working relationship, teachers need to be informed early in the year of administrator and school expectations. In many schools teacher-leaders participate in designing those expectations. Teachers also need one-on-one conferences to know what to improve and how they can do it.  In fact, schools where administrators "walk through" classes on a daily basis are schools where teachers report more administrator support.  

Observation/coaching is an essential part of the evaluation/growth process for teachers. With the best systems, teachers have the opportunity to set their own goals and to use the information from observers to create bases for their strengths and weaknesses. When teachers feel included, they are more likely to listen, feel ownership, and make the effort that is needed for improvement.

Based on an article by Michelle Oliva, Carrie Mathers, and Sabrina Laine. Principal Leadership. March 2009. 

http://www.nassp.org/Portals/0/Content/59182.pdf 



Our Approach to Observation, Walk-Throughs, and Teacher Coaching

        by Dr. Christine Mason

The CEI team uses the CEI Observation Rubric (a four point rating scale) to observe teachers and provide feedback and coaching to them. The rubric consists of a few different analytical points such as student-teacher behavior, student engagement, and questioning skills that we use to evaluate the effectiveness of the teacher's style. Each CEI team member has an iPad that is loaded with the eCove observation system(www.eCove.net) . This system allows us to provide feedback soon after classroom observations and also to compile data to analyze trends. Some of the areas measured by the CEI rubric include: posting of standards and essential questions, use of interactive word walls, levels of questioning, student engagement, teacher-pupil interactions, lesson plans, and lesson delivery. There are also optional places to score evidence of modifications/differentiation, self-determination, career/transitional services, strategies for English Language Learners, and use of research-based strategies.

We combine observation with coaching and conferencing. Teachers and administrators receive a follow-up email with the CEI eCove notes. These notes include a summary of "teacher strengths" and "recommendations." CEI also has a battery of strategies that we commonly use to strengthen teaching. These include such things as assisting schools with student motivation (see the Wow! factor below), work with incentives, teacher organization and planning, classroom management, assessment and data- driven instruction, and "deep learning" or conceptual knowledge. As CEI consultants work with teachers they build on teacher strengths and comfort levels, modeling strategies and providing on-site teaching demonstrations.  

To facilitate this work we sometimes interview students, offer training to groups or teams of teachers, and consider whether to work through co-teaching: training teams of teachers, and how to fit our recommendations into a school's professional development schedule, paying attention to the uniqueness of the culture and mission of the individual school.

During the teacher intervention phase, key staff meet periodically with administrators, ensuring that we are coordinating efforts and assessing and planning the next steps. Sometimes teachers send lesson plans to CEI ahead of time for review and recommendations prior to implementation. Sometimes teachers are asked to provide a weekly self-reflection. CEI also produces the Wow! Ed newsletter and the Wow! Ed archive available to facilitate learning, but also the CEI Briefs. These one page briefs provide quick, easy to read, overviews of such teaching strategies as "Using Exit Slips," "Time Chunking" and "Motivating Students through Multicultural Sensitivity." Each of these strategies is key to increasing the impact of our work at an individual school.