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When I was first hired as a teacher, my superintendent, at that exit interview, told me, “To whom much is given, much is expected.”
I focused on meeting these expectations each day as a teacher while growing my practice and service to student learning. As a teacher and administrator, I have never lost sight of the awesome opportunity and responsibility of ensuring each and every day students experience powerful learning opportunities while feeling valued, engaged and successful.
My name is Colin Ripmaster, MASSP’s Associate Executive Director. To this day, I think about the significance of that simple statement as I work with teachers and administrators around the state in implementing the University of Washington’s Center for Educational Leadership teacher evaluation system.
Helping educators understand what good teaching looks like is at the heart of the Center for Educational Leadership’s Five Dimensions of Teaching and Learning instructional framework, the 5D, which was derived from extensive research on what constitutes high-quality instruction and informed by the experience of practitioners.
Each vision statement summarizes the research on high-quality instruction. The guiding questions promote reflection and inquiry around an area of focus, with an emphasis on continuous improvement and equity. By providing a common language and shared vision of high-quality instruction, we minimize the risk of expectations being a mystery. By focusing on continuous improvement and equity, we are more likely able to achieve our mission of eliminating the achievement gap.
The 5D+ Teacher Evaluation Rubric, a growth-oriented tool for improving instruction, provides clear criteria for success around a shared and common vision for high-quality instruction. Knowing teaching is too complex to be reduced to a checklist, it defines a continuum of practice for each indicator, from unsatisfactory to distinguished.
Each of the five classroom dimensions has five indicators of best practice, and the “plus” in the 5D+ represents the professional practices that educators engage in beyond instruction in service of learning and school improvement through professional collaboration and communication.
Guided by a theory of action, this work is dependent on teachers and administrators engaging in cycles of collaborative inquiry. This is a leadership and system responsibility and imperative. We are responsible and accountable for each other and for student achievement.
Over the course of six days, typically scheduled in two-day blocks four to six weeks apart, participants engage in collaborative inquiry specific to CEL’s foundational ideas, the 5D Instructional Framework, the 5D+ Teacher Evaluation Rubric and inquiry cycle in order to:
- Identify how the new model for teacher evaluation is similar to and different from past practice, including statutory requirements and best practices for IDPs, observation and feedback, mid-year reviews and annual evaluation.
- Develop content clarity and expertise around indicators within the 5D+ Rubric.
- Hone skills for collecting, analyzing and using evidence from classroom practice to plan and communicate formative feedback specific to a teacher’s area of focus.
- Identify supports principals and teachers might use to effectively implement powerful learning opportunities in daily classroom practice, all through assessing observation and conversation data that leads to a summative evaluation.
We know that building the capacity of teachers will lead to better instruction and greater learning for all students. Our theory of action is based on the principle that teachers make learning possible for students by setting high expectations and providing opportunity and support for all students to achieve rigorous outcomes.
Concurrently, principals support teachers in providing powerful learning opportunities with clear expectations of what high-quality instruction looks like and provide ongoing opportunity and support through observation and feedback, embedded learning opportunities and professional development.
All of this is supported by a central office that provides focus and support to make leading possible, to make teaching possible, so teachers can make learning possible for all students.
In order ensure validity, reliability and efficacy, MCL 380.1249(2)(n) requires school districts, intermediate school districts, and public school academies to provide all observers and evaluators of teachers with training by an individual who has expertise in the district adopted teacher evaluation tool and how it is to be used. Through an authorized partnership with the University of Washington’s Center for Educational Leadership (CEL), MASSP is Michigan’s only authorized provider of 5D+ framework training for observers and evaluators in districts that adopted the 5D+Teacher Evaluation System.
The training supports participants in developing a deep understanding of the 5D™ instructional framework and the related indicators in the 5D+ rubric. The series also includes extensive training in the use of “inquiry cycles,” which enable principals to support teachers in using the evaluation process to engage in continuous improvement of their instructional expertise.
Through this training, teachers, school leaders and district administrators develop a clear understanding of what inquiry-based evaluation looks like and how it will help them improve instructional practice.
Cost:
$3,500/full day (contracted in-district; $21,000 total) or
$1,200/person at a host site or online via Zoom
Day 1: Intro to CEL’s 5D/5D+ Teacher Evaluation System and Classroom Environment and Culture
Introduction to the University of Washington’s Center for Educational Leadership (CEL) model for teacher evaluation. During this session, participants are introduced to CEL’s foundational documents, tools, and approach to growing teacher practice. Participants begin to grapple with how and why evaluation processes are connected with teacher growth and what leadership practices are important to implementing a rigorous, fair and transparent teacher evaluation system.
Learning Targets
- Know the background and purpose for using the 5 Dimensions of Teaching and Learning™ (5D™) instructional framework, the 5D+™ Rubric for Instructional Growth & Teacher Evaluation and CEL foundational ideas.
- Develop an initial understanding of the 5D+ inquiry cycle and why it matters when using evaluation processes to grow teaching practice.
- Begin to develop strengths-based and inquiry stances for instructional leadership.
- Develop a vision for rubric indicators connected with a learning-oriented classroom culture and use these indicators to analyze instruction.
- Begin to develop skill sets for collecting instructional practice evidence: scripting, coding, noticing and wondering, working from evidence.
Day 2: Student Engagement
Participants explore the role of a teacher in supporting all students in accessing content and engaging in subject-matter-specific thinking/doing, in order to build student ownership and independence with targeted concepts and skills. Participants examine how 8 cultural forces play out differently in different classrooms and their impact on student engagement and learning. During the afternoon, participants continue to develop critical stances for instructional leadership (strength-based and inquiry) when engaging in inquiry cycles, including the role of an area of focus, pre-inquiry conference, and collecting and working from evidence with an equity lens.
Learning Targets
- Develop a vision for rubric indicators connected with rigorous intellectual work, engagement strategies and student talk.
- Further develop understanding of the inquiry cycle and the role of an area of focus and the pre-inquiry conference.
- Continue to develop critical stances for instructional leadership.
- Begin to develop skills for observing with an equity lens.
- Further develop skill sets for collecting and utilizing evidence: scripting, coding, noticing and wondering, sorting and giving feedback to teachers.
Day 3: Purpose
Participants continue to develop critical stances for leadership, examine bias’, and explore the role of a teacher in designing and aligning components of a lesson to state standards, broader purpose and transferable skills based on student learning needs (academic background, life experiences, culture and language). In the afternoon, participants engage in a case study to create and analyze a script with detail and evidence connected to purposeful instruction, identify evidence connected to a teachers area of focus, and use this evidence to provide strength-based feedback.
Learning Targets
- Continue to develop critical stances for instructional leadership: Equity stance, strength based stance and inquiry stance.
- Examine our biases and their impact on leadership work.
- Develop a vision for rubric indicators connected with planning and facilitating purposeful instruction that are based on standards, and include daily learning targets, performance tasks and success criteria.
- Strengthen understanding of the inquiry cycle, the role of an area of focus and an understanding of the role of the instructional leader in the growth of teaching practice, leveraging evaluation to grow teaching practice.
- Further develop skill sets for collecting, analyzing and utilizing evidence: scripting, coding, noticing and wondering, sorting and giving feedback to teachers.
Day 4: Assessment for Student Learning
Participants examine the role of formative assessment by teachers in planning and facilitating instruction, and students in self assessing and progress monitoring their learning. Participants analyze another administrators observation evidence and how to utilize within a mid-year inquiry conference to examine the teacher’s action steps, formatively discuss teacher growth using your teacher evaluation rubric, and decide whether to continue the same inquiry or identify a new area of focus. In the afternoon, participants engage in a case study to create and analyze a script with detail and evidence, identify evidence connected to a teachers area of focus, and use this evidence to provide strength-based feedback.
Learning Targets
- Develop a vision for rubric indicators connected to facilitating strategic instruction based on formative assessment.
- Further develop understanding of the inquiry cycle, the role of an area of focus and their implications for the mid-year post-inquiry conference.
- Apply critical stances in instructional leadership: equity stance, strengths-based stance, inquiry stance, and working from evidence.
- Use rubric indicators to analyze instruction for knowing students, assessing students and empowering students to take ownership for their learning: develop a common understanding and language for these ideas.
- Strengthen skill sets for collecting, analyzing and utilizing evidence to support teachers with their inquiry: scripting, coding, noticing and wondering, sorting and giving feedback to teachers.
Day 5: Curriculum and Pedagogy
Participants examine the role of the teacher in knowing, organizing and facilitating curriculum and instruction around major concepts within a discipline, as well as supporting all students in accessing content and engaging in subject-matter-specific thinking/doing so that students develop independence with targeted concepts/skills. Participants learn to calibrate and analyze their understanding of indicators by examining observation and conversation evidence. In the afternoon, participants engage in a case study to create and analyze a script with detail and evidence, identify evidence connected to a teachers area of focus, and use this evidence to provide strength-based feedback.
Learning Targets
- Develop a deeper understanding of how to use inquiry cycles to collect and use evidence to support individual teacher learning and whole school learning.
- Use rubric indicators to analyze instruction for teacher knowledge of content, teaching approaches, and feedback to students, using academic standards.
- Use the 5D Instructional Framework and 5D+ rubric indicators to develop a common understanding and language for how to establish student ownership of learning.
- Apply critical stances in instructional leadership : equity stance, strengths-based stance, inquiry stance, and working from evidence.
- Strengthen skill sets for collecting, analyzing and utilizing evidence to support teachers with their inquiry: scripting, coding, noticing and wondering, sorting and giving feedback to teachers.
Day 6: Summative Scoring
Participants learn a criterion scoring methodology to determine an indicator, dimension and overall 5D+ rating by examining observation and “conversation” evidence from 4 classroom observations to assess a teachers practice leading to a summative rating, and how to aggregate with Student Growth and Assessment data to derive a final summative effectiveness rating. Participants further develop understanding of the 5D+ inquiry cycle while applying critical stances for instructional leadership (equity, strength-based and inquiry) in end-of-year inquiry cycle conversations to post-conference evaluation and determine areas of focus for the coming year.
Learning Targets
- Further develop understanding of the 5D+ inquiry cycle and area of focus nesting within end-of-year inquiry conference and PD implications
- Continue to develop critical stances: strengths-based stance, inquiry stance, and working from evidence.
- Learn how to assess observation and conversation data leading to a summative rating.