A New View of Growing Teacher Expertise

Recently, I finished Susan Brookhart's book How to Make Decisions with Different Kinds of Student Assessment Data (ASCD, 2016).  We have so much student data coming at us as educators - it is important to remember that not all data can be treated the same, and it is not all meant for the same people to use.  

Brookhart creates four quadrants by placing assessments on a spectrum of "formative vs. summative" and "large scale vs. classroom-focused" (yellow boxes below). But all this data is meant for different people, so I have added the red boxes to represent who are the prime users of each type of assessment data (see also Stiggins & Chappuis for more on this).

But as I was reading, I couldn't help but think about how we use data from teacher evaluations. (Or rather, how we do not use data from evaluations.) What different kinds of data do we collect?  Who are the prime users of this data?  Our quadrants might look like the chart below at first.  Note that the users of the data do not change, but the yellow boxes are empty.  In essence, we are asking, "What kind of data would be most valuable to each user?"  This also leads to dangerous discussions such as "What kinds of data promote expertise?"

I'm guessing that the majority of the evidence that you collect (if you are an evalutor) or that is collected about your practice (if you are a teacher) is on the "summative" end of the spectrum.  And since many states are systematizing the collection of teacher practice and SLO data, you could make an argument that most evaluation data is in the upper-right quadrant.  Look whom that data is meant for - district leaders, boards, and state officials.  Perhaps if you have an evaluator who makes more time for it, or if you have an observation cycle where not every year is a summative year, you might get to the lower-right quadrant.  But the left side is largely empty.  What to do?  Especially if these are the areas that benefit practice and innovation.

Here is one possible view of a "balanced" system to growing teacher expertise.  I have adapted it from Brookhart's quadrants.  

In the upper-left quadrant, we have schools studying themselves using school-chosen, educator-gathered, non-judgmental, iterative data.  The principal works with teachers to answer the question "What practices do we want to see and study?"  And then someone gathers that data and reports back to the staff on a regular basis to see if it is happening and with what level of quality. What to measure?  Consider what the instructional vision for your school is.  Or consider some top-tier Hattie strategies.  

In the lower-left quadrant, we have teachers studying themselves.  This is where instructional coaching and reflection come into play.  I often wonder: some doctors are "hospitalists" who specialize at overseeing the care of a vast array of inpatients.  Principals should develop the capacity to be seen as "instructionalists".  Leaders who are experts at strategies, coaching, and spurring reflection.  Teacher reflection is perhaps the strongest of the motivators towards innovation and expertise. 

I had these thoughts while reading Brookhart's book, but the next book I am starting is Frontier & Mielke's book about redefining the process of teacher evaluation and growth.  I think there will be many more connections in it to the quadrants above.  

Getting Better at Innovation

I recently wrote four posts about innovation in education, all inspired by the book "Better" by Atul Gawande.  The bottom line is this: Innovation does not need to be a disruptive practice, but it certainly doesn't happen by accident.  Improving existing practice is innovative, even when it happens incrementally.  Here are links to the four posts I wrote.

Better (link to post 1) - A doctor writes about innovation in the medical world.  Small innovations over the years from around the world have made us the healthy society we are today.  You can replace "doctor" with "educator" throughout this book for takeaways of your own.

Educators - Innovators or Researchers? (link to post 2) - Innovators must be researchers. The focus on PLN's, SLO's, data based decision making, and the "Plan-Do-Study-Act" cycle are all ways of saying teachers must reclaim their role as researchers.

Innovation: Start with the Basics (link to post 3) - You can't innovate unless you know your impact. And as a teacher, you can't know your impact unless you have the basics of lesson design down. Leaders who leverage a common definition of "learning target" and "success criteria" create measurable clarity across a school.

Leading Innovation (link to post 4) - Innovation that isn't shared is wasted.  Sharing your innovations multiplies your impact.  Leaders must expect the sharing of innovation across a school, and educators must help each other realize their strengths.

Thanks for reading,
Chris

Leading Innovation

Last in a series about improving practice and creating a culture of innovation

The three qualities I said were necessary for fully innovative schools:
1.  Teachers claiming their roles as researchers, since research leads to innovation.
2.  Teachers knowing their impact, since professionals seek to increase their impact.

And, for this blog post:
3.  Innovation loves company: Leaders must expect transparent innovation across the school rather than supporting pockets of innovation.


At Google, employees are expected to share their passion projects.  This transparency eliminates silos and leverages the power of group-think to solve problems.  A recent article on IBM's Almaden Lab, one of the last corporate pure research labs, talks about how the researchers have switched from working in isolation to projects that co-evolve.

We need to develop schools in which teacher-researchers freely share their innovative projects with one another.  And leaders need to set the tone by sharing their own passion projects and expect the sharing of innovation across the board.  Remember: innovation does not have to be a disruptive practice, and sometimes we happen upon it by accident.  New educators may need assistance from others to discover what their passion is.  As we learned in the book Better (prior blog post), making daily practice better with consistent small innovations can be just as effective as searching for the miracle cure.

Impact is a measure of innovation.  If principals want to increase impact, we need to first ask how we are increasing innovation.

So what is YOUR innovation?  Your passion project?
Math talk ~ Personalized learning ~ Increasing feedback ~ Technology for achievement ~
Character ed ~ Building relationships with special ed students ~
Using achievement data better ~ Service learning ~ Parent relationships ~
Goal setting ~ Coaching other educators ~ ???

The list doesn't end.  Because innovation doesn't end.
Because getting better can't end.

Innovation: Start with the Basics

2nd in a series about teacher innovation

As an 18 year educator, I've been through many evaluations.  Do you know what point in every evaluation cycle I dread?
The point when you sit down with your evaluator after a formal observation and he/she asks "How do you think that lesson went?"  I always feel like I'm sitting at a car dealership negotiating a price: sound confident, but don't overdo it.

Here's the question I want evaluators to ask instead:
"What was your impact in that lesson?"
Who cares how I thought the lesson went?
What I care about is this: Do we know if meaningful student learning happened?

And this is where innovation comes into play.
You can't innovate unless you clearly know what your impact is on a lesson-by-lesson basis.
John Hattie's mantra of "Know Thy Impact" must be pervasive throughout a school in order for teachers to measure their impact, increase impact, and make their practice better.

If a teacher can't tell you what his/her impact in a lesson was, that's not a problem.
It's a starting point!  Let's help you find ways to measure your impact.
How about learning targets that are more focused? How about trying some exit tickets?
Let's do some meaningful group discussion.  Let's look at some student work.
Once you know what your impact is, the natural goal of a professional is to increase that impact.
And THAT takes innovation!

My two favorite resources on this topic are Formative Classroom Walkthroughs (Brookhart & Moss) and Leading with Focus (Mike Schmoker).  Although Formative Classroom Walkthroughs sounds like a book for principals, it is a great book for teachers to really rethink the basics of lesson design and evaluate impact.  "Learning target" has a different meaning to everyone, but if a principal can leverage a single definition of learning target and success criteria, a school can increase achievement. Remember that "teacher clarity" is a top-tier Hattie strategy.
The book Leading with Focus reminds principals that focusing on the basics of solid lesson design will always produce achievement.  But we need to get into classrooms often enough to see impact and coach impact.  No matter what other initiatives come along over the years, solid lesson design that measures daily impact will keep the ship steady.

You can't get to your destination unless you know where you are.
And you can't innovate unless you know your impact.
Sometimes innovation isn't about the latest, greatest thing.

Sometimes innovation is just about getting the basics right so we can get ... better.