Competency Based Professional Development Metrics

Video Transcription

Hello there. I hope you're doing well today.

As we continue to learn about competency based professional development goals, we've arrived at the point where we want to be able to evaluate them using the appropriate metrics. Let's learn what this might look like.

If something isn't working, we need to know. Time is a precious commodity in our field, and we can't afford to waste a minute on practices that don't help us improve. This is why it's critical to analyze and measure the impact that professional development has on what we do.

Teacher performance can certainly be competency based. Attainment of goals can be measured, just like we do with our students. All we need are the competency based metrics to do so. These metrics can be derived from various professional teacher standards, such as ISTE, InTASC, National Board, Marzano, Danielson, or a number of other relevant standards and guidelines. If you are familiar with some evaluation models, like the Danielson framework for instance, you already know that they have embedded rubrics that can be adapted to measure the attainment of professional development growth goals.

When districts invest time, money, and resources into professional development, they want to know if it's making an impact, and rightfully so. Metrics are needed that will measure the attainment of the goals of the plan. The best tools for this job must outline the teacher's level of competency. And more often than not, rubrics fit the bill.

Rubrics work because they measure progress against specific professional teaching standards, or competencies. Rubrics are also defined by having one or more criteria with different levels of achievement. Most of the time, they have a description attached to level.

There are two types of popular rubrics: analytic and holistic. Analytic rubrics give you more detail by including multiple criteria that can be evaluated independently. Conversely, holistic rubrics are more general in nature and only include a single set of criteria that summarizes all relevant aspects. With these tools in hand, teachers are ready to self-evaluate, or in many cases use them to evaluate peers.

In this course, we've looked at many teaching standards, and rubrics can be developed using any one of them. I will demonstrate how to take an existing rubric and adapt it so that it can be used to evaluate teacher practice based on professional development activities. I will draw from one of Charlotte Danielson's rubrics. So here we go.

I have selected to use standard 1D, demonstrating knowledge of resources. Teachers have participated in a professional development on the use of Google Classroom, including Google Docs, slides, sheets, and forms. A few weeks later, it's time to evaluate if any of those tools are being utilized in the classroom. Like I said, a teacher can use something like this to evaluate themselves or a peer.

Let's start at the bottom of this rubric. In this example, a teacher's practice would be considered unsatisfactory if the students have not been exposed to any of the Google tools listed. As we move to the basic level, the teacher has made the students aware of these tools, however has not integrated them into the classwork or existing curriculum. At the proficient level, the teacher is now modeling and assigning the use of these tools within the context of the daily curriculum. A teacher who is distinguished in this category has not only given assignments and modeled the tools, but also given students the opportunity to explore and expand on the use of those tools.

There are best practices when using rubrics that should be adhered to. Rubrics should only include standards and skills that will be directly measured. Or in cases that they are not being used for evaluative purposes, they can be used to provide feedback. It makes good sense to run a check on the rubric to ensure that it is measuring what you want it to measure.

It's also best practice to share the rubric and review it with teachers prior to using it, so they can gain a deeper understanding of it. Along the same lines, providing teachers with copies as soon as possible is always a good idea. And finally, if the PD is not part of the teacher evaluation, it should still be used but only to provide helpful feedback on the newly learned strategy.

Next, let's review some of the guidelines you'll want to follow when developing a rubric for your professional development. We will start with the performance levels. Similar to what we would do with students, it is helpful to use teacher work samples to guide the practice. The samples should be sorted into categories that most closely relate to the level of performance I like to start with the Met/Not Yet, and then work from there.

In most cases, the extremes are pretty easy to pick out. It's the middle categories you'll struggle with. Once the groups of work are sorted, they should each be assigned a descriptor that connects to the level of achievement. Ask yourself, what would a beginning assignment look like, as compared to a basic assignment. And so on from low to high, kind of what we did with the Danielson rubric.

You will probably end up with three or four groups that indicate a level or range with broad categories. Most commonly, the language will be similar to beginning, basic, proficient, distinguished, or maybe novice, intermediate, and advanced. You could also incorporate a numbering system if you choose. Keep in mind that if you do, it can start with zero. But zero should represent a total non-completion or non-performance of the task. The maximum number of columns you would want is six. But also, try to avoid odd numbers because it can be very tempting to just choose the middle column, regardless of accuracy.

In addition to performance levels, if we funneled down a little further, we'll find performance elements. These are more specific areas that describe the teacher's performance and what will be evaluated. There is no set rule on how many there should be. In fact, the number can range anywhere from 3 to 15, each focusing on a different area or skill. When writing performance level descriptions, it is recommended that the authors begin with describing what they want to see in the highest performance level as objectively as possible. Then, by using similar language, they can work down from there. Each building on the previous one, yet clearly distinguished from it.

One way to accomplish this is by using descriptive language, or by clearly defining distinguishing characteristics or measurable criteria. Some stems you may want to remember to help to do this are, major to minor, always to never, often to seldom, and always to rarely. Despite all this, it can still be difficult to distinguish between different levels when making a scoring decision. Just remember to refer to the rubric and leave any subjectivity out of it, both when scoring and providing feedback. For some it might seem like a pet peeve, but it's important that rubrics fit on a single sheet of paper as well.

Let's go ahead and summarize what we covered in this lesson. We started out by talking about measuring the impact of professional development and why it's important to do so. Next, we introduced the metrics you should use, that being rubrics, both analytical and holistic. I modeled the application and use of one taken from the Danielson framework. Finally, we covered best practices and guidelines.

And now, today's food for thought. Use the guidelines listed the next time you're creating a rubric. To dive a little deeper and learn how to apply this information, check out the additional resources section associated with this video. This is where you'll find links targeted toward helping you discover more ways to apply this course material.

Thanks again for watching. We'll see you next time.