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Ron King

Professional Development is Broken, but Be Careful How We Fix It | teaching/math/culture - 0 views

teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/...n-but-be-careful-how-we-fix-it

shared by Ron King on 08 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Ron King on 08 Mar 16
     
    This morning, Jal Mehta tagged me on a tweet to linking to his recent Education Week blog post, entitled “Let’s End Professional Development as We Know It.” The following exchange…
Troy Patterson

Principal: Why our new educator evaluation system is unethical - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...evaluation-system-is-unethical

msm245

shared by Troy Patterson on 30 May 13 - No Cached
  • A few years ago, a student at my high school was having a terrible time passing one of the exams needed to earn a Regents Diploma.
  • Mary has a learning disability that truly impacts her retention and analytical thinking.
  • Because she was a special education student, at the time there was an easier exam available, the RCT, which she could take and then use to earn a local high school diploma instead of the Regents Diploma.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Regents Diploma serves as a motivator for our students while providing an objective (though imperfect) measure of accomplishment.
  • If they do not pass a test the first time, it is not awful if they take it again—we use it as a diagnostic, help them fill the learning gaps, and only the passing score goes on the transcript
  • in Mary’s case, to ask her to take that test yet once again would have been tantamount to child abuse.
  • Mary’s story, therefore, points to a key reason why evaluating teachers and principals by test scores is wrong.
  • It illustrates how the problems with value-added measures of performance go well beyond the technicalities of validity and reliability.
  • The basic rule is this: No measure of performance used for high-stakes purposes should put the best interests of students in conflict with the best interests of the adults who serve them.
  • I will just point out that under that system I may be penalized if future students like Mary do not achieve a 65 on the Regents exam.
  • Mary and I can still make the choice to say “enough”, but it may cost me a “point”, if a majority of students who had the same middle school scores on math and English tests that she did years before, pass the test.
  • But I can also be less concerned about the VAM-based evaluation system because it’s very likely to be biased in favor of those like me who lead schools that have only one or two students like Mary every year.
  • When we have an ELL (English language learner) student with interrupted education arrive at our school, we often consider a plan that includes an extra year of high school.
  • last few years “four year graduation rates” are of high importance
  • four-year graduation rate as a high-stakes measure has resulted in the proliferation of “credit recovery” programs of dubious quality, along with teacher complaints of being pressured to pass students with poor attendance and grades, especially in schools under threat of closure.
  • On the one hand, they had a clear incentive to “test prep” for the recent Common Core exams, but they also knew that test prep was not the instruction that their students needed and deserved.
  • in New York and in many other Race to the Top states, continue to favor “form over substance” and allow the unintended consequences of a rushed models to be put in place.
  • Creating bell curves of relative educator performance may look like progress and science, but these are measures without meaning, and they do not help schools improve.
  • We can raise every bar and continue to add high-stakes measures. Or we can acknowledge and respond to the reality that school improvement takes time, capacity building, professional development, and financial support at the district, state and national levels.
Monte Tatom

TICAL - Technology Information Center for Administrative Leadership - 0 views

www.portical.org/

#fhuedu642 professional development edtech tical technology leadership resources msm web2.0

shared by Monte Tatom on 07 Aug 13 - Cached
  • Monte Tatom on 07 Aug 13
     
    This is a fantastic resource for Administrators, by Administrators!
Troy Patterson

Free Technology for Teachers: Teachers Interviewing Teachers - Reflective Practice - 0 views

www.freetech4teachers.com/...ers-interviewing-teachers.html

msm msm156 pd professionaldevelopment

shared by Troy Patterson on 24 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Troy Patterson on 24 Feb 11
     
    Great idea for Professional Development.
Troy Patterson

Updating Data-Driven Instruction and the Practice of Teaching | Larry Cuban on School R... - 0 views

larrycuban.wordpress.com/...n-and-the-practice-of-teaching

msm292 reform data

shared by Troy Patterson on 27 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • I am talking about data-driven instruction–a way of making teaching less subjective, more objective, less experience-based, more scientific.
  • Data-driven instruction, advocates say, is scientific and consistent with how successful businesses have used data for decades to increase their productivity.
  • Of course, teachers had always assessed learning informally before state- and district-designed tests. Teachers accumulated information (oops! data) from pop quizzes, class discussions, observing students in pairs and small groups, and individual conferences.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Based on these data, teachers revised lessons. Teachers leaned heavily on their experience with students and the incremental learning they had accumulated from teaching 180 days, year after year.
  • Teachers’ informal assessments of students gathered information directly and  would lead to altered lessons.
  • In the 1990s and, especially after No Child Left Behind became law in 2002, the electronic gathering of data, disaggregating information by groups and individuals, and then applying lessons learned from analysis of tests and classroom practices became a top priority.
  • Now, principals and teachers are awash in data.
  • How do teachers use the massive data available to them on student performance?
  • studied four elementary school grade-level teams in how they used data to improve lessons. She found that supportive principals and superintendents and habits of collaboration increased use of data to alter lessons in two of the cases but not in the other two.
  • Julie Marsh and her colleagues found 15 where teachers used annual tests, for example, in basic ways to target weaknesses in professional development or to schedule double periods of language arts for English language learners.
  • These researchers admitted, however, that they could not connect student achievement to the 36 instances of basic to complex data-driven decisions  in these two districts.
  • Of these studies, the expert panel found 64 that used experimental or quasi-experimental designs and only six–yes, six–met the Institute of Education Sciences standard for making causal claims about data-driven decisions improving student achievement. When reviewing these six studies, however, the panel found “low evidence” (rather than “moderate” or “strong” evidence) to support data-driven instruction. In short, the assumption that data-driven instructional decisions improve student test scores is, well, still an assumption not a fact.
  • Numbers may be facts. Numbers may be objective. Numbers may smell scientific. But we give meaning to these numbers. Data-driven instruction may be a worthwhile reform but as an evidence-based educational practice linked to student achievement, rhetoric notwithstanding, it is not there yet.
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