Teacher and Leader Evaluation

Florida Charter Schools

Teacher and Leader Evaluation

Staff Development Presentation Materials

for Certified Trainers

Achieving Professional Growth Goals:

The Power of Deliberate Practice

Presented by

© 2013 The Leadership and Learning CenterPage 1
Reproduction rights provided to Florida DOE and FL Charter SchoolsTeacher and Leader Evaluation

Learning Activity 1

Deliberate Practice Jigsaw Activity

Below is information on deliberate practice from major authors in business and education. Divide the segments among members at your table to first study and then present each author’s major points; then complete the graphic organizer at the end. As a group, decide on a common description of deliberate practice in a school context and create a visual display of how coaching, feedback, and practice can help grow teaching talent at your school.

Geoff Colvin (2009): Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

The concept of deliberate practice, advanced by Anders Ericsson and his colleagues (and since investigated by many other researchers), is quite specific: It isn’t work and it isn’t play. Deliberate practice is characterized by several elements:

Specifically designed to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help
Can be repeated a number of times
Feedback on results is continuously available
Highly demanding mentally, whether the activity is purely intellectual or heavily physical
Isn’t much fun

Effective deliberate practice almost always involves a teacher to design the activity best suited to improve an individual’s performance. Anyone who thinks they’ve outgrown the benefits of a teacher’s help should at least question that view. It is apparent why becoming good at almost anything is extremely difficult without the help of a teacher or coach – at least in the early going. Without a clear, unbiased view of the subject’s performance, choosing the best practice activity is impossible. Deliberate practice requires that one identify certain sharply defined elements of performance that need to be improved and then work intently on them.

High repetition is the most important difference between deliberate practice of a task and performing the task for real. Two points distinguish deliberate practice from what most of us actually do. One is the choice of a properly demanding activity in the learning zone; the other is the amount of repetition. Top performers repeat their practice activities to a stultifying extent.

Feedback is extremely important to deliberate practice. You can work on technique all you like, but if you can’t see the effects, two things happen: You won’t get any better, and you’ll eventually stop caring. This is why a teacher, coach, or mentor is vital, providing crucial feedback.

Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration – hence the word “deliberate.” Continually seeking exactly those elements of performance that are lacking and then trying one’s best to make them better places enormous strains on anyone’s mental abilities. Instead of doing what we’re good at, we insistently seek out what we’re not good at. Then we identify the painful difficult activities that will make us better and do those things over and over. This isn’t much fun.

James Kouzes and Barry Posner (2010): The Truth about Leadership

Anders Ericsson of Florida State University is the noted authority on deliberate practice. Over the course of 25 years of research, Anders and his colleagues have found that raw talent is not the sole component to becoming a top performer. What truly differentiates the great performers from the good performers – whether it’s teaching, sports, or any other discipline – is hours of practice. The estimate to achieve excellence in any field is approximately 10,000 hours of practice over a period of ten years. That’s about 2.7 hours a day, every day, for ten years, proving there is no fast track to excellence.

The researchers are clear that not all practice makes perfect. You need deliberate practice to develop expertise. Deliberate practice has five elements.

It is designed specifically to improve performance, which means there is a methodology and a very clear goal.
It has to be repeated with great frequency until it is automatic.
The feedback on results must be readily available. Every learner needs feedback. It’s the only way you know whether you are making progress on your goal and whether you are executing your practice activity properly. A coach, teacher, or mentor is needed to truthfully analyze how you are doing. Openness to feedback, especially negative feedback, is characteristic of the best learners.
The work is highly demanding mentally. Developing expertise requires focus and concentration. You are more likely to tire from mental strain than from physical strain.
Deliberate practice isn’t much fun, and it is not designed to be fun. But the knowledge that you are improving and the ability to be better in what matters most to you is worth working for.

Pink, D. (2009): Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us

Psychology professor Anders Ericsson calls deliberate practice a “lifelong period of… effort to improve performance in a specific domain.” It isn’t running a few miles each day or banging on a piano twenty minutes daily. It’s much more purposeful, focused, and even painful. The following are the steps to becoming a master:

Deliberate practice has one objective: to improve performance. It is about changing your performance, setting new goals, and pushing yourself to reach higher and higher each time.
Repetition matters. Basketball players don’t shoot free throws for ten minutes at the end of practice; they shoot five hundred.
Seek constant, critical feedback. If you do not know how you are doing, you will not know how to improve.
Focus relentlessly on where you need help. Many of us work on what we’re already good at, says Ericsson; those who get better work on their weaknesses.
Prepare for the process to be mentally and physically exhausting. That’s why few people commit to it, but that’s also why it works.

Fullan, M. (2011): Change Leadership: Learning to do What Matters Most

The vast majority of us are not born with talent; it must be developed. It is not theory that develops talent; nor is it mere experience (20 years doing the same thing is just one year’s experience times 20). The answer to developing talent is deliberate practice, and this is not easy. The 10 rule really is true: it takes years of continuous application and learning to become an expert. The characteristics of deliberate practice are as follows:

It can be repeated. A lot.
Feedback on performance and results is continuously available.
It is highly demanding mentally.
It isn’t much fun when you are learning it.

Through deliberate practice, your task is to deepen your knowledge about what works and about how to support and develop others, particularly those with whom you are working. The most attractive and best organizations are those that have a reputation for developing people. They have good leaders who are good at their own development and establishing the environment whereby they help others learn and grow.

Deliberate Practice Notes Activity

For each of the outside squares below, record your notes on the major points from each of the four authors on deliberate practice. Discuss the similarities and differences among the four, and then as a team develop your description or definition of deliberate practice as it relates to the school setting. Record your work in the center square.

Learning Activity 2:The Deliberate Practice Process in Teacher Evaluation

Directions:With a partner or at your table, examine the deliberate practice process below for teachers. Compare this process to our past efforts to grow and learn professionally. What is similar? What is different? Use the common language definitions of focused practice and focused feedback below to help inform your discussion. Be prepared to share your thinking in five minutes.

Use a Common Language

Focused Practice: Focused practice is an element in the “feedback and practice” process that supports improving one’s proficiency in specific instructional practices. It involves a teacher understanding the differences in proficiency levels and tracking one’s progress toward effective and highly effective performance capacities. It is intentionally limited as to the issue(s) to be addressed and focused on a limited number of strategies where corrections, modifications, and adaptations are made to improve student learning at an appropriate level of difficulty so that the teacher can experience success.

Focused Feedback: Focused feedback is an element in the “feedback and practice” process that supports improving one’s proficiency in specific instructional practices. Focused feedback (on what is observed when the instructional strategy is being used) is generally provided by administrators, coaches, and peers. It is intentionally limited to the issue(s) to be addressed and focused on specific classroom strategies and behaviors during a set time interval. The feedback is informative, constructive, objective and actionable – meaning the educator has guidance on how to make changes that improve proficiency of the practice. Focused feedback is usually provided through these five processes; self-rating, walkthroughs, comprehensive observations, coaching or cueing, and student surveys (where student perceptions of teacher behaviors are collected).

Learning Activity 3:

After the narrowing process, you are ready to develop a deliberate practice plan for the year. The below template is a sample. With your partner or tablemates, discuss how much change will be necessary in order to transition to this planning format from your previous planning process.

Teacher’s Name and Position:______
Evaluators Name and Position: ______
Target for school year: 2013-14 Date Growth Targets Approved: ______
Teacher’s Signature: ______Evaluator’s Signature______
Deliberate Practice Growth Target #: ___(Insert target identification number here, the check one category below)
( ) School Growth Target ( ) Teacher’s Growth Target
Focus issue(s): Why is the target worth pursuing? (data point from the SIP)
Growth Target: Describe what you expect to know or be able to do as a result of this professional learning effort. (indicator(s) from the narrowing worksheet)
Anticipated Gain(s): What do you hope to learn?
Plan of Action: A general description of how you will go about accomplishing the target.
Progress Points: List progress points or steps toward fulfilling your goal that enable you to monitor your progress. If you goal
1.
2.
3
Notes:

Feedback and Concluding Thoughts

Based upon your experiences today…