Those here who have followed the Colorado Leap Evaluation thread in DPS over the past few years know that it is a complex teacher evaluation system – very complex – that pretty much determines if a teacher gets to keep their jobs. Failure is not an option. This initiative is in many states now.
I had mentioned last week that I had my big (unannounced) evaluation with an AP last week and that I needed to improve in three areas. Now, I am suggesting to the group that we just turn that energy of being under a microscope (which allows fear to creep into our teaching, which is a bad thing to happen in a comprehension based classroom) back on the system by following up within a few weeks of the evaluation to show exactly how we are responding to the suggestions made.
The reasoning behind this idea is that the best defense is a good offense, as the Baltimore Ravens have realized lately. Instead of feeling intimidated and helpless by these big impersonal corporate model evaluation systems, which are here whether we like them or not, we just react by following up pro-actively, which is the opposite of a response based on helplessness and fear.
Here is an email I sent this morning to the AP who observed me, as an example:
Joe just a short follow up on our Leap meeting last week. I want to point out a few things that I have initiated in my teaching since we talked:
1. The first area in need of improvement was differentiation. Here are three things I have set in motion since we talked:
a. Deconoix Gabell, the 9th grader from Congo, fluent in French but with no literacy skills, is on a program of reading and writing in my level 2 class. He has been a loner so far this year and Gabriella and I made the move to get him into that 7th pd. community. It has worked marvelously. Friday we talked about his name, a complex African French name in which we worked on spelling and slowly build a huge amount of trust in the room. It was great! Anyway, he is on his own program while tagging in with the rest of the class at the same time, in a way, so he can learn to read and write his own language.
b. I talked with Wendy from the Respect Academy about Flor who is very determined to become an expert at languages. She actually came to Lincoln from Mexico very recently against her parents’ wishes and that as a 9th grader! The stories these kids could tell! Anyway, she is determined to become a language teacher and is now taking, along with her Respect Academy work, Chinese with Annick and French with me and seems very happy.
c. I am putting Diana Rodgriguez into the National French Exam and working with her 8th period to directly prepare for that contest given in March. I have given Diana a number of old exams which she is busily working through at home and I also want to ask you and Josefina if we can find funding for the French AP exam this year – she may not pass, since she is only a 9th grader, but with the experience and another year of French next year she has a strong chance of passing it next year. So let me know on that. I can kick in some funding for that as well since it is only one student.
In terms of checking for understanding, the second area of Leap improvement, I have started to use the attached evaluation rubric for kids, as well as generally giving an exit ticket quiz at the end of every class. Not every quiz goes in my gradebook but daily quizzes are the best way I know to determine if the kids are learning – the periodic hand checks I do in class aren’t that accurate, although it goes without saying that in a class based on storytelling I am always actively evaluating students during class, making eye contact with them, pulling them into the discussion, etc.
And the last area I needed to work in was in using technology and you used the word “infused” on that. That is something I am still working on but hope to bring into my teaching as the months go by. One thing I have done recently, as I told you during our interview, was to bring some software called Textivate into my teaching to teach writing. I think that in foreign language education the best way to get kids to write better is to use this program. We’ll see how that develops.
Anyway, just checking in with an update on how I am responding to your suggestions. Thanks for reading!
Ben