Evaluating Learning, Improving Teaching

Evaluating learning, improving teaching Course code RG00321

Supervisor support notes

The purpose of these notes is to familiarise supervisors with the course and provide specific support to facilitate optimal implementation with teachers in their professional setting.

About the course

Transforming reform initiatives into positive student outcomes within the school context is no mean feat. It takes an exemplary teacher with pedagogical know-how and change management skills. Across all contexts, teachers with these capabilities are in demand - they are expert at teaching and adept at spreading their strengths throughout and beyond the school.

If a teacher aspires to lead and support their school to flourish and grow, this course will help them do it. Teachers will begin by closely examining theories for implementing organisational improvement. Upon this foundation, they’ll engage with up-to-date research, theories, principles and practices in the areas of data collection and analysis, goal setting, evaluation, embedding change and managing the risks associated with it. Practical in its focus, this course explicitly integrates theory and practice so teachers can develop the specialist skills and knowledge to transform the learning that takes place in their contexts and help students flourish.

Throughout the course teachers will draw upon the theoretical findings of prominent research including the work of Earl and Fullan amongst others.

There are four parts to this course. Various tasks require the teacher to apply what they have learnt in their school context as part of the course.

Completing TSA – Evaluating learning, improving teaching will contribute 12 hours of NESA Registered Professional Development addressing 3.2.4, 3.6.4, 6.2.4, 6.3.4 and 6.4.4 from the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers towards maintaining Lead Teacher Accreditation in NSW.

Understanding the role of the Supervisor

The term ‘supervisor’ is intended to be interpreted flexibly within TSA courses. For example a ‘supervisor’ may be a school executive, an expert teacher, a teacher mentor or any teacher with a responsibility for leading the professional learning of others.

Your role as the ‘supervisor’ in the TSA courses is to meet with the teachers at the recommended points in the course and support the teacher to make connections between the course content and the context in which they work.

Degree of involvement

The TSA courses can be successfully completed with varying degrees of support from a supervisor. In an ideal scenario the ‘supervisor’ will work closely with a group of teachers providing regular feedback and support about the application of course content to classroom practice and differentiate delivery accordingly. It is understood however that in some circumstances it may only be possible for supervisors to have minimal involvement.

Advice for implementation

The courses are designed with the characteristics of powerful professional development embedded within their structure. To maximise the impact of these characteristics, strategic planning of how best to enable teachers to embrace and embed the professional learning content into sustainable teaching practices will be beneficial. Every context will benefit from different enablers and supervisors are encouraged to think creatively and innovatively in how they implement the TSA courses.

Course completion and recognition of NESA Registered Professional Development hours

Teachers maintaining their accreditation will have their professional development hours for this course recognised as NESA Registered Professional Development.

A record of their course completion will be automatically transferred to their NESA online account once course completion conditions are met. These course completion conditions are as follows:

·  completion of all tasks and professional readings

·  participation in supervisor meetings

·  completion of all course evaluation questions in Part D: Reflection.

Before the professional development hours can appear in a teacher’s NESA Professional Development Progress Report, teachers will need to complete a course evaluation in their NESA online account.

The discussion points the teacher will focus on for each supervisor meeting are outlined below.

Part A meeting will focus on:

·  their understanding of the NSW Quality Teaching model and how they have used the model in the past to improve teaching practices and student learning

·  their experiences in working with teachers through change processes

·  their understanding of Earl’s article on continuous improvement

·  how they made connections between Earl and Zmuda, Kuklis and Kline’s process

·  how they made connections between the NSW Quality Teaching model and how it could be used in each phase of the improvement cycle.

Part B meeting will focus on:

·  how they identified sources of data available in their school context

·  the tasks they will stop doing, continue doing and start doing as a result of the learning about Data-Driven-Dialogue

·  what triangulated data sets they might examine

·  their learning about how to identify areas of improvement

·  their learning about writing SMART goals

·  their protocol for drawing inferences/questioning the data to determine possible solutions, including how they would use the NSW Quality Teaching model to enhance the procedure outlined in the protocol

·  their initial planning sheet

·  their attempt at devising a Gantt chart and how they think they would be useful in planning

·  how they might consider using the NSW Quality Teaching model to enrich the Plan phase of PDCA.

Part C meeting will focus on:

·  how they will support teachers to trial proposed changes

·  how they will monitor the progress of the implementation

·  their list of ways to check before acting

·  their responses to the Issues of reflection and discussion included with Stoll’s article

·  their thoughts on re-culturing

·  an improvement strategy, program or project that wasn’t embedded and sustained because it only involved re-structuring, and how re-culturing could have been included in the strategy/program/project

·  how they will use the NSW Quality Teaching model to support re-culturing

·  how they will use the Risk management cycle to embed and sustain improvements to teaching and learning

·  their Risk management cycle for ongoing monitoring

·  how they will use the NSW Quality Teaching model to enrich the Do, Check and Act phases of PDCA.

Part D meeting will focus on:

·  how they plan to maintain a log of their journey as they implement their plan for coaching

·  how they plan to keep you, their supervisor, up to date regarding the student learning and improvements to teaching as they continue to work alongside their colleagues

·  how they might consider doing other Lead professional learning courses on the Teaching Standards in Action platform

·  what their plan for ongoing professional learning is.

Evaluating learning, improving teaching Course code RG00321

Course outline

Part and content / Readings / Tasks / Hours /
Part A: Preparation
·  Learn about processes for continuous improvement
·  Connect continuous improvement to the NSW Quality Teaching model / 3 / 2 /
Part B: Plan
·  Identify areas for improvement; set goals and targets
·  Develop an implementation plan / 3 / 7 / 5 /
Part C: Do, Check, Act
·  Trial and check solutions
·  Embed solutions in practice / 2 / 5 / 4.5 /
Part D: Reflection
·  Review what you have learned during the course
·  Review the teaching standards you have demonstrated / 2 / 0.5 /

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