It's what you learn after you know it all that counts" ~John Wooden
I often think about and have used John Maxwell's famous quote, "change is inevitable. Growth is optional". It's true, our world is transforming around us, which requires change to happen in the way we do business in education if we want to be prepared, current, and innovative in our profession. However, growing personally and professionally is dependent on our attitudes, mindset, and willingness to engage in new learning, take risks, and embrace the opportunities.
Our common mission, Every Student, Every Day, A Success, requires all stakeholders to collectively take responsibility for preparing our students to thrive in an ever changing world. We accomplish this by continuing to learn and grow in our practice, just as we expect doctors to learn new techniques and use advanced technology to diagnose and treat patients. As professionals we are expected to produce results; in education it's about our students; are they prepared, do they have the knowledge and skills to be successful and thrive in an ever changing world?
So how do we measure the performance of our educators? We know that our best results from students come from intentional standards based planning, frequent monitoring for growth throughout the unit, feedback and support for those that need more, and at the end, a final evaluation of overall learning.
Our current Focus Framework Evaluation Model takes a similar approach with educators. It is a shift from a summative score based on a one time subjective evaluation to a competency based model that allows educators to grow in practice. Informal, walkthroughs and formal observations provide the opportunity for feedback and support. Yes, there is a summative score at the end, but the intention is that you will know where you are performing based on the feedback you have received along the way. This is a good thing! Receiving a beginning rating is OK! It doesn't necessarily mean you are ineffective, it's just where you are with execution of the strategies (elements) at that time. Ineffectiveness is only apparent when growth isn't happening over time. With the focus on standards based planning and using data to drive instructional decisions, we would expect that we would have high number of teachers at beginning and developing. however, as professional learning, instructional coaching, and support is provided, growth should be evident!
Empowering educators to be instructional leaders evolves from this model! Embrace the opportunity to learn together with your administrators, coaches and PLC 2.0 teams! We are in this together!
Learning Sciences Marzano Center published white papers around the model if you are interested in more information.
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