1. Lead Evaluator Training
Evidence Based Observation
Lead Evaluator Training
Part 2 – Session 1
August 24th, 2012
Welcome Back!
Welcome back!

2. “Homeplay”
Practice collecting evidence of “engaged learners.” (if you were still observing instruction)
Examine an observation that you have completed, looking for evidence and bias/opinion.
Identify the presence or absence of “engaged learners” in your current observation tool.

3. Your goals and questions…

4. Questions everyone in the room should be able to answer about engaged learners…
What would be evidence of “engaged learning?”
What are the attributes of engaged learning?
How many students should be engaged?

5. Some of your goals…
I want to incorporate what I have learned about engagement into my observations.
Encourage teachers to refocus on engaging all learners.
Conduct walkthroughs looking for engaged students.
Help teachers design lessons to maximize student engagement.
Be more consistent with the identification of engaged learning.

6. Today’s Outcomes:
Explain the difference between current practice and evidence based observation
Identify and define criteria for 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.

7. Continuum of Engagement
TEACHER ONLY
SIMULTANEOUS ACTIVE PARTICIPATION
OPTIONAL STUDENT PARTICIPATION
OCCASIONAL TEACHER DIRECTED PARTICIPATION
Balance in learning- Striving for Simultaneous active participation- how many students are engaged at once?
Think- where are you currently on this continuum?
What is one action you will take to move yourself to the right side of the continuum?
Think aloud what this could sound like 7

8. Ready for more practice?

9. 4th grade Science Lesson
Students will be able to:
identify the components of a series circuit connection
compare the components of a series circuit with the components of a circuit connection

10. Evidence Collected:
T “Last week, can you tell me what you were building?” “What did we build with a bulb? What did we call it when we had some components?”
S “a circuit.”
T “What were the components in a circuit that you built?” “Eric?”

11. Evidence Collected: T “What do you think these poles represent?”
Ss “North and South”.
T “Here’s the challenge for today, can you get two bulbs to light at the same time?”
All students took out a graphic organizer.
Students were seated in quads. The “getters” collected materials for each group.
All students were building circuits to test their predictions.

12. What does it mean when we say “Teach to an Outcome”?

13. Rubrics…..
What does your piece of a particular rubric say about “teaching to an outcome?”
Be ready to share.

14. Rubric Work…Teach to an Outcome
Pink: Danielson’s Framework for Teaching (ASCD)
Orange: Danielson (2011 Revised Edition)
Tan: Marshall’s Teacher Evaluation Rubric
Green: Marzano’s Causal Teacher Evaluation
Blue: NYSTCE Framework for the Observation of Effective Teaching (Pearson)
White: NYSUT’s Teacher Practice Rubric
Purple: Thoughtful Classroom Teacher Effectiveness (Silver Strong & Associates)

15. What does it mean when we say “Teach to an Outcome”?
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
Provide an example of a clear outcome that displays a level of thinking

16. Time is used efficiently to get to the learning objective

17. Learning Objectives 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.
Provide an example of a clear outcome that displays a level of thinking

18. Learning Objectives Why?
Instructional objectives narrow what students focus on in the lesson and help the teacher keep activities, questions and responses to student’s aligned.
We are going to come back to questioning – as an area of effective teaching we collect evidence on….

19. Learning Objectives
Identify and explain the function of each of the organelles in an animal cell.
Use order of operations to solve these two problems.
Describe strategies that a district could employ to increase the quality of evaluations and the agreement of evaluators
Provide an example of a clear outcome that displays a level of thinking – levels of thinking appear on a continuum – go back and forth across that continuum – lots of people learned blooms taxonomy or classification – can be problematic though – there can be a lack of precision in thinking – also – not necessarily sequenced in that order…Kids Can Appreciate Successful Experience

20. Video: 6th Grade Math 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”
Topic: Determining unit price by dividing decimals

21. Video

22. Evidence Collected:
“What is the unit price?” was posted on the interactive white board. T “Today we are going to learn about unit price. What is unit price?” T“Unit price is how much it costs for each unit.” “How do you find unit price?” was displayed on the white board.

23. Evidence Collected:
T “Make sure your decimals are in the right place.” The teacher held up two boxes of cereal—different size boxes. T “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.

24. The Keys to Teach to an Outcome

25. What qualifies as “evidence” for “teach to an outcome”?
Quotations from the teacher
Examples/models
Descriptions of activities in which the students are engaged
Student quotes

26. More Practice with TTO
Melissa--Minilesson—Identify how writers revise (a series of ideas)—one way provided
Melissa—3rd grade ESL teacher
SWBAT identify how a writer narrows their focus while writing

27. Collection of Evidence
Defend WHY you called this evidence of TTO:
T “Today I want to talk to you about what writers do to narrow their focus.”
T used a visual of a pizza/pizza slices to illustrate “narrowing the focus”.
T “Did I stick to my focus? Is it about my grandmother’s swing and being on that swing—that special time with her?”
T “In a few minutes I’m going to ask you to talk to each other and decide if your story is narrowed or if you need to do some more narrowing.”
Ss buddy shared.

28. Collection of Evidence
What did you collect? Defend WHY you called this evidence of TTO:
The teacher stated to the class, “Narrowing the focus helps us as writers.” She added “narrowing the focus” to the “How Writers Revise” chart posted in the front of the room.

29. “Homeplay”
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

30. The Keys to Teach to an Outcome

31. Thank You! See you August 29th
*Submitting Evidence*
Feel free to bring computers/electronics

32. Lead Evaluator Training
Evidence Based Observation
Lead Evaluator Training
August 29th, 2012
Part 2 – Welcome Back!
Welcome back!

33. “Homeplay” (if you have examples, be prepared to share them)
Practice collecting evidence of “teaching to an outcome”. Describe what has changed for you as an observer as a result of this workshop.
Examine an observation that you have completed, looking for evidence and bias/opinion. Describe what you notice about the types of evidence you are collecting.
Identify the presence or absence of “teaching to an outcome” in your current observation tool
Count off by 3’s. 1’s answers #1, 2’s answer #2, etc.

34. Your goals and “keys”…
Remind them of the pink sheets they completed last time.

35. Keys to Teaching to an Outcome
Make the learning objective clear to the students.
Base the lesson on what it is you want the kids to learn, not do.
Focus on the “bulls eye”/keep focused on the target.
All instruction is focused on the objective of the lesson.

36. Your Goals:
Practice observing specifically to see if the teacher sets a clear outcome and focuses on it throughout the lesson.
Collect evidence to discuss “teach to an outcome” with the teacher. (Did the activities directly relate to the “target”?)
Help teachers recognize/classify if the objective/lesson activities are congruent.

37. Today’s Outcomes:
Identify the key attributes of “effective questioning”
Collect evidence of “effective questioning”
Describe multiple ways for collecting evidence of “effective questioning
Classify evidence of “questions” as
Check for understanding
Effective questions
Objectives
Classroom management/procedural
May notice that these have changed. Refining practice—go through continuum of learning about bias/opinion, collecting quotations, #’s, to now talking about various ways to collect evidence.
As we “classify inside the rubrics” it is important to work towards congruency—how do we label the questions we have collected?

39. What does it look like and sound like when a teacher uses effective questioning strategies?
Everybody think – tell the person next to you….Jon Saphier and Spencer Kaagan – 60% of instructional time is spent asking questions

40. Rubric Language (“Proficient”):
NYSUT:
Most of teacher’s questions are open in nature and engage students in deeper thinking and further discussion.
Teacher responds to students’ questions/comments.
Responses challenge student thinking.
2011 Danielson:
While the teacher may use some low-level questions, he/she poses questions to promote student thinking and understanding.
Teacher creates a genuine discussion among students, providing adequate time for students to respond, and stepping aside when appropriate.
Teacher successfully engages most students in the discussion, employing a range of strategies to ensure that most students are heard.
Critical Attributes:
Open ended questions
Effective use of wait time
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.

42. Criteria for Effective Questioning
Congruent (relevant) to the learning
Invitation for ALL students 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

43. Continuum of Questioning
High Consensus
Low Consensus
Yes/No - Fact
Closed
Open
Flexible questioning. Teachers need to plan and use a range of questions along a continuum from high consensus to ones that are answerable in different ways
Have the participants create questions and classify. 43

44. WAIT TIME What is it? Why do it?

45. Video: 5th Grade Math
Lesson Goal:
“Have them (the students) have a conceptual idea about division of fractions.”
-Bonnie Bushaw
Bonnie Bushaw—5th grade math—guest teacher, 2004

46. Sample Evidence Collected:
“How can I get 1/3 of a muffin? Oh-I saw someone draw a picture. That’ll work. Take a minute to do what you need to do to figure this out.”
“Ok. Who can tell me how many muffins with a third muffin serving? What do we have for a 1/3 muffin serving?”
S “72”
T “Can you prove it?”
S “Yes because if you get 1/3 of a muffin, that’s 3 out of one muffin. 24 X 3 is 72.”

47. Sample Evidence Collected:
T “Figure out my 24 muffins and divide them into ¼ muffin servings.” S “You just add 24 to 72 and get 96.” T “She added 24 to 72, the last answer, is that ok?”

48. Classifying Question Types
What kinds of questions are used for check for understanding?
What kinds of questions are used for effective questions (that lead to the outcome)?
What kinds of questions are used for classroom management/procedural?

49. Video: Tammy Mendoza, 6th Grade Science
“When I heard the city was considering pulling out the sewer line, I thought wouldn’t it be fun to build a model of that and have the kids understand erosion and deposition, but also how it might affect themselves as well as the community.”

50. Evidence Sample:

51. Evidence Sample:

52. Classifying Questions: Are they checking for understanding, effective questions leading to the outcome, or questions that are management/procedural?
What are we going to do today? What’s our goal today?
(Effective questions leading to the outcome)
Why is this important to our community? Why is it important that we are taking time to study our creek? Why have I asked you to make models of this? And why is it important to point out where the erosion and deposition is occurring?
White board partner activity—find a pair with a similar piece of evidence.

53. Classifying Questions: Are they checking for understanding, effective questions leading to the outcome, or questions that are management/procedural?
Are you talking to each other?
(Management/Procedural)
If it were to expand around the corner, what might it effect? What’s around that area?
S: Houses
Also a what?
S: A road
S: and domesticated animals
(Check for Understanding)
White board partner activity—find a pair with a similar piece of evidence.

54. Evidence Collection with Individual Feedback!
Your Mission:
Collect 4-5 pieces of evidence FOR EACH EFFECTIVE TEACHING CATEGORY.
You will be labeling the evidence as “Check for Understanding,” “Student Engagement,” “Teach to an Outcome” and/or “Effective Questioning.”
Keep in mind that “good evidence” is often quotations or numerical facts having to do with the students or the teacher.

55. Let’s Review!

56. Check for Understanding:
Evidence is observable (overt)
Evidence is of ALL students
Evidence is congruent to the objective

57. Engaged Learners:
All students are visibly participating in activities/learning that is relevant to the objective.

58. Teach to an Outcome:
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

59. Effective Questioning:
Congruent (relevant) to the learning
Invitation for ALL students 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

60. Sample:
T “During today’s lesson, you will identify coins and their values. You will practice calculating the sums of the coins.”(Teaching to an outcome)
T “When would you need to add coins?” (Effective Questioning)
T displayed clusters of coins on the interactive white board. All students wrote the sums of the coins on their individual white boards and showed their work to the teacher when she said, “Show!” (Student Engagement/Checking for Understanding)

61. Video:

62. “Homeplay”:
your 4-5 pieces of evidence (labeled) for each area of effective teaching we have focused on to and by September 10th.

63. Thank You!