Competency Based Professional Development Metrics

Video Transcription

In this tutorial, we'll examine some metrics that can be used to help you evaluate your progress towards your competency-based professional development goals. We'll begin with a brief overview of how a competency-based approach may fit into the professional development environment. We'll then look at the basics of using rubrics and checklists as metrics for measuring attainment of your professional development goals. Finally, we'll take a closer look at both checklists and rubrics. Let's get started.

Let's begin by just talking about how competency-based performance measures might fit into the professional development environment. Just like we can use content standards and performance standards that are written for students in order to write performance goals for students and then measure their attainment of those goals, we can also use teacher standards to write competency-based goals and create competency-based metrics for the purpose of teacher professional development. Rather than using our individual content area standards, these teacher professional development goals and metrics are going to be built from the professional teacher standards, including the ISTE or I-S-T-E teacher standards, the National Board teacher standards, and the InTASC standards.

Some teacher evaluation models, including the Danielson framework, will actually have these standards-based rubrics already built-in. Those rubrics can, in some cases, also be adapted in order to measure your attainment of your personal professional development or growth goals.

There are a variety of evaluation tools or metrics that you can use for the purpose of assessment in your competency-based professional development, but the two most common evaluation tools are going to be rubrics and checklists. Rubrics and checklists can be used to measure your progress against a specific professional teaching standard or they can be used to measure your progress towards mastery of a given competency. Depending on the nature of your professional development, these may be peer-to-peer evaluations or you may do some self-evaluations using these tools.

So let's take a look at those two most common types of metrics. Let's begin by examining checklists. A checklist is simply a list of desirable behaviors, or tasks, or skills, or conceptual understandings that are related to your professional development goals. A checklist does not measure the quality of learning. It is just meant to measure completion of a skill or a competency.

So a checklist tends to be more broadly based. And it is just used to mark whether or not teachers are exhibiting each of the listed elements. So a checklist just acknowledges whether or not a skill is present or whether a competency or part of a competency has been met by that teacher. So the best use of a checklist is just when you have a simple and straightforward list of competencies, and all you're interested in knowing is whether that skill is present or absent.

So here's an example of a checklist that might apply to your professional development. If one of your goals is to implement all nine of Marzano's high-yield instructional strategies, then having a simple checklist that allows you to keep track of whether or not you have implemented each of those strategies might be a useful tool as you are tracking your progress.

Next, let's talk about rubrics, and how they differ from checklists. A rubric is another type of evaluation tool, but it typically is going to include one or more criteria with different achievement or proficiency levels that are indicated for each of those criteria. You'll see two main types of rubrics.

An analytic rubric is going to use a grid that aligns criteria down the left column, usually, with levels of performance that are usually indicated in the top row of that grid. And then, an analytic rubric will often use numbers or descriptive tags as you align each of the criteria with each of the different possible levels of performance.

And then a holistic rubric is going to contain just a single scale that is used to evaluate all of the criteria together. So a holistic rubric produces just a single score or a single judgment of the quality of the work. And so, even if you are evaluating multiple elements like organization and mechanics and clarity of communication, you don't get a separate score for each of those elements. All of those pieces are put together to give you just your one single score or judgment.

Often, you'll find that holistic rubrics use a one to four point scale or a one to six point scale. In general, rubrics are a great choice when you are evaluating more complex criteria, or when you want to be able to identify through the evaluation, both particular strengths and particular weaknesses within a given competency

Here is an example of an analytic rubric that you might use as you evaluate your implementation of Marzano's high-yield instructional strategies. Notice that the ratings of one, two, three, and four have consistent descriptions for each of the nine instructional strategies. And sometimes in an analytic rubric, that is going to be the case. In other analytic rubrics, you'll find that actually, each element in the chart is completely unique.

And finally, here's an example of a holistic rubric. Still on the topic of implementing Marzano's high-yield instructional strategies, but here we have just one single score that is going to be given in the evaluation of the teacher's implementation of those strategies. Notice that multiple elements are included here, both whether or not the teacher was successful in implementing the strategies. And, in fact, even to what degree they were successful. But also, there is the piece about student growth data. And so, one of the potential issues with a holistic rubric is having to decide which score is most appropriate if none of the descriptions happens to match the situation perfectly?

So having seen examples of both checklists and rubrics, consider how using these types of metrics can help you to evaluate your progress towards your professional development goals. For more information on how to apply what you learned in this video, please view the Additional Resources section that accompanies this video presentation. The Additional Resources section includes hyperlinks useful for applications of the course material, including a brief description of each resource.

Thanks for watching. Have a great day.