1 Evidence Based Observation Lead Evaluator Training Part 2 – Welcome Back!

 How do you identify the outcomes desired during a lesson without prior knowledge of the lesson or lesson plan?  Great to have the videos and conversation (Discussion time?)  It’s getting easier! Keep providing the practice!  Feeling more “focused” with practice  Follow-up ongoing training next year

 What does stating the outcome of the lesson do for the students?  Should all classroom activities be aligned with the objective?  What does it mean when we teach to an outcome?  What are the critical attributes of active engagement?

 Practice collecting evidence of “teaching to an outcome”  Examine an observation that you have completed, looking for evidence and bias/opinion  Identify the presence or absence of “teaching to an outcome” in your current observation tool

 Explain the difference between current practice and evidence based observation  Identify and define criteria for one area of effective instruction around which evidence collection will be focused  Describe strategies that a district could employ to increase the quality of evaluations and the agreement of evaluators.

 The objective of the lesson is clear to the students (Shift from “What do I want them to do today?” to “What do I want them to learn today?”)  All classroom activities are aligned with the objective  Time is used efficiently to get to the learning objective

What? Objectives state what students are expected to learn in that lesson. Objectives begin with VERBS that identify the level of thinking required in the lesson.

 Identify and explain the function of each of the organelles in an animal cell.  Use order of operations to solve these two problems.  Compare the introduction of Bennett’s play with the introduction of Hellman’s play.

Why? Instructional objectives narrow what students focus on in the lesson and help the teacher keep activities, questions and responses to student’s aligned.

Outcomes: Students will be able to:  Calculate unit price by dividing the price of the product by the number of units  Compare unit prices to determine the “best deal”  Explain the mathematical thinking behind what makes it the “best deal”

“What is the unit price?” was posted on the interactive white board. Teacher said, “Today we are going to learn about unit price. What is unit price?” Teacher stated, “Unit price is how much it costs for each unit.” “How do you find unit price?” was displayed on the white board.

The teacher stated to the students, “Make sure your decimals are in the right place.” The teacher held up two boxes of cereal—different size boxes. The teacher said, “You aren’t looking for the better deal, you are looking for the better price.” One student worked on the white board solving 420 divided by 5.

What does it look like and sound like when a teacher uses effective questioning strategies?

Rubric Language: Marshall: Plans all units embedding big ideas, essential questions, knowledge and skill goals that cover all Bloom’s levels Danielson: Teacher uses open-ended questions, inviting students to think and/or have multiple possible answers. The teacher makes effective use of wait time. The teacher builds on uses student responses to questions effectively. Discussions enable students to talk to one another, without ongoing mediation by the teacher. The teacher calls on most students, even those who don’t initially volunteer. Many students actively engage in the discussion. Marzano: Teacher engages student with explicit decision making, problem solving, experimental inquiry or investigation task that requires them to generate and test hypotheses. Teacher uses wait time.

Criteria for Effective Questioning  Congruent (relevant) to the learning  All students  Invitation to think  A range of questions are used to extend thinking from a base of knowledge to higher order thinking that is more critical and creative

Continuum of Questioning High Consensus Yes/No - Fact Low Consensus Why or why not? Defend your position..What if?

Can anyone tell me? Beam your question to all students! Susan, what is the answer to number 4… Popsicle sticks Hands up if you know…

 Be ready to explain how you solved the problem…  Write down one way we know Huck wants to belong to the rest of the “gang”  Be prepared to explain one of the four main causes of WWI  Point to the parallelogram on your paper  How do we solve for x? After you have “beamed” your question or directive to all, then you can ask individuals for their responses.

 Length of student responses increases between %  More inferences  More speculative thinking  More questions  Decrease in failure to respond  Decrease in discipline problems

The teacher asked, “What is dividing? What do we do when we divide? What does it mean?” Student responded, “It means to cut a big whole into smaller pieces—like cutting a pie into smaller pieces.” Teacher asked, “What could we divide besides pies? Student responded, “pizza.”

Teacher asked, “ok—Do we have to divide fractions? Can we divide something that isn’t fractions?” Student stated, “You could divide numbers.” Teacher said, “ok, I could divide numbers, why would I want to do that? Whatever for?” Student said, “Like to…like if you are on a field trip you could see how many groups you need for one person to watch over.”

The teacher asked, “Why did slavery happen?” One student stated, “I’m going to add on white people needed slaves so that they could get fast and easy money.” Another student stated, “I think slavery happened because the plantation owners were lazy.”

 Practice collecting evidence of “Effective Questioning.”  Examine an observation that you have completed, looking for evidence and bias/opinion (ongoing)  Identify the presence or absence of “Effective Questioning” in your current observation tool

On the back of your evaluation: Write a memo to a colleague in which you summarize the key points of Effective Questioning.

Thank You! See you on 11/21/11 at Maine-Endwell at 7:30 am