EDUC 5243: Module 9 – Looking After Our Own (Supervisory) Business

  • Introduction
  • Readings
  • PowerPoint
  • Notes
  • Assignment
Introduction

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“Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll understand."
—Confucius

Module 9 Purpose:

  • To examine various ways that teachers can assume responsibility for their own professional development

Module 9 Objective:

  • To understand how teachers can become the architects and managers of their own professional development through a self-directed supervision process

Module 8 presented an overview of various ways in which teachers can assist others in their professional development, one of the fundamental goals of supervision. Module 9 continue the theme of alternative approaches through the examination of ways in which teachers can assume the position of manager of their own professional development through self-directed supervision.

Readings

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9.1 Looking for by Cohen

9.2 Building Portfolios by VanWagenen & Hibbard

9.3 How Portfolios by Lyons

9.4 Using Portfolios by Painter

9.5 Linking Portfolio Development by Zepeda

PowerPoint

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Please refer to the PowerPoint by clicking on the link below. It may take a few moments for the presentation to start.

PowerPoint Module 9

Notes

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9.1 Self-Directed Supervision

Self-directed teacher growth is a supervisory option in which experienced, competent teachers are given the opportunity to work alone, in pairs, or in small groups to design job-embedded learning experiences to further their professional growth and to have a positive impact on students’ learning (Nolan and Hoover, 2005)

This evaluation approach balances the control between the administrators and the teachers. For most of the teaching staff, the major responsibility for growth is on their shoulders. Current supervision theory states that to be effective, supervisory practices must be regulated in large part by the teacher. The teacher decides what happens in a classroom, and instructional practice cannot improve without these decisions being the best possible. (Danielson, 1996)

  • In self-directed supervision, teachers assume responsibility for their own professional development. They might, for example, develop a yearly plan that includes targets or goals derived from an assessment of their own needs. (e.g. Professional Growth Plans)
  • This plan might then be shared with supervisors or other designated individuals.
  • As the process unfolds, the teachers should be allowed leeway in developing the plan, but supervisors should be responsible for ensuring that the plan and selected improvement targets or goals are realistic and attainable. Supervisors should also help the individual teacher to access resources (human and material) and facilitate the process in any way possible.
  • At the end of a specified period (often a year) supervisor and teacher meet to discuss the teacher’s progress in meeting the professional development targets.
  • The conference should lead to the setting of new targets for future supervisory cycles.

9.2 Guidelines/Process for Implementing Self-Directed Supervision

  • Target setting: through personal assessment, teachers develop targets or goals to improve teaching; targets should be few, preferably limited to two or three. Estimated time frames should be provided for each target along with an informal plan of suggested activities for teacher engagement.
  • Target-setting review: after review, supervisor provides teacher with written feedback and a conference is scheduled.
  • Target-setting conference: meeting to discuss targets, time frames, reactions. A written summary of conference prepared by teacher and supervisor is recommended.
  • Appraisal process: agreed upon process that may take the form of formal or informal classroom observations, analysis of artifacts, videotaping, student evaluations, interaction analysis. The teacher is responsible for collecting appraisal information and may arrange this in a portfolio for subsequent discussion with supervisor.
  • Summary appraisal: supervisor and teacher meet to review the portfolio, supervisor comments on each target, and plans are made for the next cycle of self-directed supervision.

(Sergiovanni & Starratt, Supervision: A Redefinition, 2007)

9.3 Professional Growth Plans

Professional Growth Plans may be categorized as:

  • Refining current practice (improvement plans)
  • Acquiring new knowledge (renewal goals)
  • Redesigning curriculum, instruction, or assessment (restructuring goals)

Sample Professional Growth Plans Approach - Alberta Teachers’ Association

Guiding Questions to Develop Your Professional Growth Plan

Goal(s)/Objective(s)

  • Do these goals reflect my own professional learning needs?
  • After assessing my own professional learning needs, what areas have I chosen to focus on for this school year?
  • Do these goals reflect the Teaching Quality Standard and take into consideration my school/system plans?
  • Are these goals realistic?

Outcomes/Results

  • What will success look like when I reach my goal?
  • What do I want to achieve as a result of this goal, and what difference will it make?

Action Plan/Strategies

  • What activities will I undertake to reach my goal?
  • How will I work toward achieving my desired outcomes?

Timelines

  • What are my time targets and how do they fit the cycle of the school year?
  • When will I work toward completing this goal?
  • Is this timeline appropriate for the goal?

Descriptors of Completion/Indicators of Success

  • How will I know when I have successfully met my goal?
  • How will I know to what extent I have achieved my outcomes?
  • How will I collect evidence of my professional growth?

Assistance/Support

  • What assistance and supports are available to me?
  • What expertise is available from my colleagues?
  • What ATA resources are available (specialist council, teachers’ convention, website and professional library)?
  • What resources will help me work toward my goals?
  • How might I access assistance from the Professional Development Committee, district resources, regional consortia, universities and/or community resources?

9.4 Sample Forms

Sample #1 Annual Professional Growth Plan Incorporating Reflection

Annual Professional Growth Plan for 20____ to 20____ Name:
Assignment and/or Career Goal:
Goal:
Teaching Quality Standard Reference:
Strategies / Timeline / Resources

Reflection/Indicator of Success

How successful have I been in meeting my goal?

How has my professional practice improved?

How has student learning improved?

Sample # 2 An Online Planning Form from 2Learn.ca website

**Please note that this is not an official form, but is 2Learn.ca's effort to help you as you plan for professional growth.

Linking Theory to Practice
Personal goals in the area of educational theory/practice:
Topics/Themes I want to explore through in-service/research/action research:
Provincial Policy and Direction
How will policy affect what I do as I plan formy own personal growth?
Self-Assessment
Skill sets that I currently have that support this plan:
Skill sets I want/need to develop to support this plan:
My own personal interests which are best linked to my professional
development plans are:
Leadership Goals
Personal goals in the area of leadership (both theory and practice):
Resources and Support
Resources and support I have in place to complete this professional development:
Resources and support I need to complete this professional development:
Time Management
Realistic time allocation for implementation ofmy own personal growth plan:
Continuity
Method to ensure that this professional development plan is consistent
with situational/school demands:
Assessment of the Plan
Method for ongoing assessment that this plan is "on-track" with the goals
I have established:

9.5 The following samples are based on analysis and reflection of a math teacher’s professional growth plan taken from the text Supervision for Learning: A Performance-Based Approach To Teacher Development and School Improvement (Aseltine, Faryniarz &. Rigazio-DiGilio, 2006)

Activity 9.1 Think and Compare:
As a result of reading the following reflections, how would you, as a supervisor, synthesize the learnings that Eileen has taken away from the process with professional growth plans? Compare this with a more traditional supervisory experience you have had in the past. Think about the differences in professional growth. Discuss this with a colleague to compare your thoughts.

- Sample of Log of Meetings/Analysis/Reflection - Teacher-Directed Supervision Experience by Eileen Blanchard May 20

November 16. At Gary's request, met with Charlie Ramirez, the district math department chairperson, to discuss PBSE and how it might apply to my work as a math teacher. We discussed how to set up units and assessments that were more standards-based. When we talked about this, it seemed to make sense, but when I tried to develop some of these materials on my own, it was very difficult. I'm not sure how all of this will be accomplished.

January 12. Met with Gary and Charlie. They recommended that I revise my professional development plan and suggested that I take some time just to read more about the standards. I am so relieved! I would much rather take the time to learn more about all of this than to try to do more standards and performance-based work without much basic knowledge in this area. I'm looking forward to finding and reading some relevant articles and resources.

February 12. Completed a series of readings related to math standards, materials, and assessments. Summarized them, with comment, and forwarded to Gary. Discussed these with Charlie Ramirez as well. A number of the resources were really inspiring, and now I am excited about trying to actually do more standards-based work.

February 16. Charlie and I met to discuss ideas for a standards-based unit on fractions, decimals, and percents. I will develop a brief overview for Charlie's and Gary's input.

February 22. Completed an outline or overview of the standards-based unit on fractions, decimals, and percents. Sent this to Gary and Charlie for their review and approval.

February 27. Met with Gary and Charlie at a mid-year conference, and we talked about the revisions I made to my professional development plan. This one feels much better! I shared the outline of the unit Charlie and I are planning. Both of them were also very happy with the readings I did, and we discussed highlights of what I learned. I'll try to use some of this new knowledge as I develop and teach the standards-based unit.

March 10. Met with Charlie to develop more specific ideas for the standards-based unit. We think it should culminate in a performance assessment to see if my students can apply their knowledge.

March 24. I had sent Charlie a draft of the unit and we met to discuss it. As always, he had great ideas for improving the lessons. We began to discuss an assessment as well.

April 3. Met with Charlie. We fine-tuned the unit and framed out a performance assessment. I'd like to keep it fairly simple this first time and Charlie agrees.

April 15. Finished writing the standards-based math unit on fractions, decimals, and percents. Will use this with my students early in May when we have completed individual units for each of the three topics. The unit includes a performance assessment to see if my students can apply their knowledge to a more “real-life” problem.

May 10. Met with Charlie to review the responses of my Period G students on the performance assessment. We chose just one class to work with this time so that I could focus on looking at student work deeply, rather than trying to analyze data from all my students. Charlie made several excellent suggestions about how to score the papers with the rubric and how to look at student assessment data afterward.

May 17. Charlie and I met again, this time to review the analysis I had done for my students' assessment. We made a few more adjustments, and I'm really very pleased with the way the analysis came out. It's certainly much deeper than anything I've done in the past.

May 20. Handed in my end-of-cycle packet to Gary. Charlie is going to sit in on our meeting. This year I'm actually excited about discussing the professional development I've undertaken!

- Final Analysis/Reflections on a Standards-Based Mathematics Unit

May 20

The following represents my efforts to develop an analysis of the work that the students in my Period G class did on a performance-based assessment, which was the culmination of the standards-based, integrated unit I taught on fractions, decimals, and percents.

As a result of my collaboration with Charlie Ramirez to create a more performance-based assessment for fractions, decimals, and percents, I came to understand that I would need a rubric to assess my students' responses to the task on this unit's assessment. Earlier in the year, I had investigated the state department of education Web site and discovered not only the state math standards, but what are called the “trace maps” for mathematics. These are specific lists of mathematics knowledge and skills that students in our state should know and be able to use at different grade levels. I looked through these lists for grades 6 and 7 and selected four skills related to fractions, decimals, and percents in order to create a more standards-based rubric to score the performance assessment. With Charlie's help, I created the rubric in Figure A.

The 18 students in my Period G class completed the unit assessment last week, and I scored their papers using the rubric. An amazing number of things happened as a result. First, I did get a sense of their competence—as a group and individually—with these skills. I coded the papers so that I would not be influenced by students' names as I applied the rubric. Charlie recommended that I begin my data analysis with a simple table depicting the scores of each student. See Figure B.

Charlie and I decided to set a high standard for proficiency. Students had to earn a score of 4 or better in each of the four skills related to this performance assessment in order to be “proficient” overall for this assessment.

Many understandings and ideas have emerged from this process. First, and probably my biggest insight, is that the analysis helped me to understand my students' growth individually and as a group. I can tell that my students “get it” when it comes to equivalent fractions, decimals, and percents because their scores reflect fairly consistent accuracy with different forms of equivalents. But when they are asked to apply this knowledge in the context of related knowledge and skills, some fall short, and I know I need to address this. In Figure C, I've listed the names of the kids who will need additional support and attention, along with their scores on each element of the rubric.

It's clear that the six students I've identified know how to convert equivalent fractions, decimals, and percents, but applying this knowledge to a problem is still challenging for them. I will look to Charlie for help developing a plan to work more closely with these students on that skill.

Second, this analysis gave me some insight into the effectiveness of the performance-based assessment I developed for fractions, decimals, and percents. When I worked with Charlie to create this unit, the entire process was new to me, and I thought the unit looked great. But developing and using the rubric, based on the skills related to our state standards, showed me that I had left out an important piece in the assessment: when I asked students to create a layout for the flower bed, they simply needed to recognize and apply several fractions, decimals, and percents. There was no opportunity to use any operations to calculate numbers! Because of this omission, I scored that part of the rubric “N/A,” but I'll need to go back and revise the assessment task to make it more challenging for future use. Now that I think more about the assessment task, I also realize that there should also be more of an emphasis on higher-order thinking skills. I will talk with Charlie about how to include this in the assessment at our next meeting. I'm concerned that the assessment, and maybe even the unit itself, was not challenging enough.

Third, this process has given me the opportunity to think about the rubric developed to score student work on the performance assessment. While the rubric was useful, I see now that it could certainly be improved. When I applied it to student work, the scores for the second skill (working flexibly with fractions, decimals, and percents to solve problems) and the fourth skill (solving problems with ratios, proportions, and percents) tended to be the same. Maybe these overlap, or perhaps I can be clearer about how they are different? The other thing I would do to improve the rubric is related to the evaluation criteria. When I first created the rubric, I based the evaluation criteria on the state “trace maps,” which describe specific skills that students should have at my grade level. But I keep thinking about those articles I read last fall. The literature recommends math activities and assessments that are interesting, complex, and coherent. I'd like to go back and revise my assessment task to be more like that, and I think the rubric should also include elements that look for coherence and higher-order thinking in student work. I should also be looking at how students make sense of their work, especially math applications to real life. On this assessment, I found that kind of information came through in my students' explanations of their work more than in the designs they created. If I scheduled more time for the assessment, maybe two days instead of one, I might even ask students to create two or three versions of their responses to see how they might approach the problem from different directions.