Teacher Evaluation and Collaborative Professional Development

Video Transcription

In this tutorial, we'll consider the role of teacher evaluation in collaborative professional development. I'll begin by helping you to distinguish between professional growth plans and professional improvement plans. We'll then discuss the purpose of teacher evaluation and then we'll take an in-depth look at professional growth plans and professional improvement plans. Let's get started.

Since professional growth plans and professional improvement plans can often be confused with one another, let's begin by distinguishing between the two. Let's begin with professional growth plans. Professional growth plans are usually focused on either improving existing practices or learning new practices. And these plans can be developed either by an individual teacher or by a collaborative group of teachers, again, focused on honing their craft and continually trying to improve their instructional strategies in order to thereby improve student performance.

Professional growth plans may be connected to school or district goals and initiatives. And a professional growth plan may be connected to teacher evaluation, but it may also just be undertaken as its own activity. In contrast, let's look at professional improvement plans.

Professional improvement plans are almost always connected to teacher evaluation. Usually, a professional improvement plan is created in order to target areas that have been identified as in need of improvement for a struggling teacher. So a professional improvement plan would be specific to that individual teacher as it would be developed based on his or her unique improvement needs.

So let's say that you were evaluated by an administrator who indicated that you need to demonstrate improvement in the area of classroom management. Depending on the school or district, you may be directly involved in the creation of your improvement plan or the improvement plan may be created for you.

In either case, your improvement plan would focus just on that area in which you need to demonstrate improvement. So in this example, it would be completely focused on classroom management. The plan would outline specific action steps that you would need to take and specific results that you would need to demonstrate.

In contrast, let's say that a group of teachers, perhaps a PLC group, wants to focus on classroom management in their collaborative professional growth plan. In this case, those teachers would be the ones working to develop the plan. They would be creating the action steps and they would be evaluating their own results.

Again, in contrast to the improvement plan where the administrators would be evaluating whether or not that individual teacher has met the goals or demonstrated proficiency. Since both professional improvement plans and professional growth plans can be associated with teacher evaluation, let's next examine the purpose of teacher evaluation.

Marzano tells us that teacher evaluation should support teachers as they work to improve their effectiveness and their professional practice. So even in evaluation models where the focus is placed heavily on measuring teacher effectiveness using student achievement data, there still often are processes and tools that are built in that are in fact designed to support teacher development and growth.

Here are some common terms that you may see used in these various teacher evaluation models. They may refer to professional growth goals, professional learning objectives, professional development plans and really many other similar terms. No matter what vocabulary is being used the purpose of this type of component is to provide teachers with the support that they need and with the professional learning opportunities that they need either to grow overall as a professional in their content area or to improve in a specific area of need, or to improve their overall pedagogical skills.

Let's take a more in-depth look now at both professional growth plans and professional improvement plans. Let's begin with professional growth plans. Professional growth plans or professional development plans really apply to all teachers. The purpose of a professional growth plan should be to encourage teachers to participate in opportunities for continuous improvement.

Research tells us that students who have access to well-trained and highly effective teachers consistently make achievement gains at higher levels than their peers who do not have access to those highly effective teachers. And that's just one reason why it is so important for us to have really carefully designed and very effective professional growth and development plans in place.

Teachers typically do have at least some level of choice and flexibility in the design of their professional development or professional growth plans, but it is a best practice for school leaders and instructional coaches to collaborate with teachers in order to ensure that plans are aligned to school goals and school initiatives.

Another best practice is to make sure that the plan focuses on areas of need that have been identified through the process of teacher evaluation. Many teacher evaluation models actually require teachers to develop a professional growth plan as part of that teacher evaluation process. And again, remember different evaluation models are going to use different vocabulary.

Some models might say professional growth goals instead of professional growth plan, for example, but the idea is the same. So let's compare that idea of a professional growth plan then to the concept of a professional improvement plan. Remember, professional improvement plans are typically only created for teachers who are not demonstrating effectiveness in their teaching practices.

And so often then for a struggling teacher, the professional improvement plan is a required component of the evaluation cycle. There generally is less flexibility for teachers who are going through the process of an improvement plan because these plans are directed at those areas of low proficiency that have been identified.

Furthermore, the improvement plan will be monitored by at least one evaluator and that evaluator is going to be conducting observations and providing feedback all directed towards that area of need that has been identified. A best practice is, however, to also provide that struggling teacher with a coach or a mentor who is also available to support them as they go through this improvement process.

A key element of the improvement plan is that as teachers demonstrate improved effectiveness or improved proficiency, they will make progress on the rating scale for teacher effectiveness in that particular evaluation model. And eventually, the teacher will no longer need to have that support or improvement plan in place.

On the other hand, if teachers do not make progress in the area of need, they typically do need to stay on that plan either until they actually make progress or until they are no longer eligible for employment. Some states have laws, for example, that say that teachers who are ineffective for five consecutive years are no longer eligible to renew their teaching certification.

And in some cases, teachers actually can be removed from their position even prior to that five year limit if they are not making progress as outlined in their improvement plan. So there definitely is this evaluative and potentially even disciplinary element to a professional improvement plan that absolutely does not exist in a professional growth or development plan.

So here's your chance to stop and reflect. Can you now confidently distinguish between a professional growth plan and a professional improvement plan? As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you may want to explore the additional resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skillset. Thanks for watching. Have a great day.