Did you ever feel that your feedback to your teachers after a classroom observation may not have been meaningful? This article will help you to begin to build the skills needed to ensure that your feedback is evidence-based, clear, and targeted…in other words, MEANINGFUL.
Why This Is An Important Skill to Develop
- It establishes a common language around teacher instructional practice for clearer communication about what is expected.
- It provides talking points for conversations around what was observed and what improvement in this area might look like.
- It helps to develop an unbiased language for written reports of observations and summative evaluations.
How to Begin
You and your teacher decide one or two elements from the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP) to focus on for the year that lends themselves to evidence gathered from formal and informal observations. Below are two high leverage elements that are a good place to start teachers with varying degrees of experience (this may have been part of the goal-setting conference you have with your teachers early in the school year).
Standard One: Engaging All students in learning
Element 1.6—Monitoring student learning and adjusting instruction while teaching
Standard Two: Creating & Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning
Element 2.6 –Employing classroom routines, procedures, norms and support for positive behavior to ensure a climate in which ALL students can learn
Looking at the Continuum of Teaching Practice, read through and discuss the language that best describes what the teacher would like to achieve during the school year. Below is the Continuum of Teaching Practice for CSTP 2.6:
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Open in new tab You may begin with individual teachers and expand this to a quick activity at the beginning of a staff meeting (more on this in a future blog post!).
How to Follow Up
Be sure to include this document in conversations about classroom observations, as well as pre- and post-observation conferences. It helps to keep the focus on the language of the evidence of the teacher’s practice and NOT on your opinion of what was good or bad. This is known as “the third point” (more about this in a future blog post).
Returning to the language of the continuum of practice will reinforce specifically what you are working on with your teacher and will help to open dialogue about how the teacher might demonstrate improvement. This will also assist you when it comes time to create the summative evaluation report in the spring. Gathering evidence throughout the year and having conversations with the teacher about the progress will also help to avoid potential surprises during the summative evaluation conference in which the teacher feels blindsided by your feedback.
- Part Four of Building a Learning-Focused Culture in Four Parts: Evaluating Progress - September 20, 2022
- Part Three of Building a Learning-Focused Culture in Four Parts: One Classroom at a Time - September 30, 2020
- Part Two of Building a Learning-Focused Culture in Four Parts: Taking Stock - September 14, 2020
