Using Teachscape to Support Ongoing Teacher Practices Formative Scoring The Wisconsin workflow in Teachscape for Teachers (using the Danielson Framework for Teaching) and for Principals as educators (using the Wisconsin Framework for Principal Leadership) is designed to evaluate an educator’s practice based on the components of the respective framework and the critical attributes that define the educator’s work for that component. While Teachscape will be used to house information and data about an educator’s practice and ultimately communicate a score for each component of the framework at the conclusion of the educator’s Effectiveness Cycle, Teachscape can also be used to formatively monitor both attainment and growth of an educator’s practice throughout the Effectiveness Cycle. The Wisconsin Educator Effectiveness model focuses on holistically scoring evidence aligned to a component, not scoring individual events (observations and school visits) or artifacts (documents, work samples, or other “things”). Philosophically, this means: Artifacts (documents, notes, etc.)

Observations (events)

Artifacts contain Evidence Evidence can be tagged to a Component Components can be scored based on how the evidence aligns to the critical attributes on the rubric

Observations contain Evidence Evidence can be tagged to a Component Components can be scored based on how the evidence aligns to the critical attributes on the rubric



Focus is on identifying “high-leverage” artifacts that contain a large amount of evidence for a number of different components and aligning the evidence to a component with high fidelity.



Educators and evaluators are encouraged to identify fewer, higher quality artifacts rather than many artifacts.



 

Focus is on critical and careful observation of the educator’s practices, seeking out evidence of multiple components within an observation event, and aligning observable actions to a component with high fidelity. Educators and evaluators are encouraged to conduct four or more high-quality observations and provide specific, evidence-based feedback (coaching).

In this way, observations are used to gather evidence in a standards-based manner which could be scored periodically throughout the Effectiveness Cycle (for instance, at the conclusion of an observation event) and used to communicate and monitor an educator’s growth or attainment of a level of performance on a component. There are three strategies that districts or evaluators could use, either as an individual strategy or as a combined set of strategies within Teachscape, to score evidence gathered from an observation event:

Strategy 1: Use the Teacher Practices scoring module, a component’s Rationale box, and the “sharing” function to list in-progress scores throughout the Effectiveness Cycle Strategy 2: Include score feedback as part of the evidence that is tagged to a component from within an observation Strategy 3: Put component score information in the “Post-observation Feedback” box from an observation The following information explores how a district might use each of these strategies to support in-process, formative scoring of components as evidence from observations in the educator practices area.

Strategy 1: Use the Teacher Practices scoring module, a component’s Rationale box, and the “sharing” function to list in-progress scores throughout the Effectiveness Cycle    

As teachers complete work on components, the evaluator could score a component in the scoring module as an “in-process” score “Sharing” the scoring module makes it viewable to the educator, but not locked for editing. Evidence gathered from observations still remains gathered together in the observation, and can be viewed as a body of work tied to the event. Could use the optional “Rationale” box for a component in the scoring module to communicate additional information about progress, or to date and document the scores for that component from individual observation events.

Potential Advantages to this approach:  Could show educator where they stand (current level of performance) throughout the Effectiveness Cycle on a given component.  Supports early completion of summary scoring when a preponderance of evidence is present.  Helps identify early on in the Effectiveness Cycle where an educator has little to no evidence or is struggling on a component.  Could be used to communicate scores from an outgoing administrator to one that is taking over as the evaluator without having to submit scores as final. Potential Challenges to this approach:  Educators may view the score as “complete” when there isn’t enough evidence to fully support a final summary score.  Evaluators will need to be cognizant that sharing information from the specific observation event may not align with the in-process score listed in the Teacher Practices scoring module. If a score change is warranted based on the most recent observation, evaluators should change that score immediately prior to submitting the observation data and making it viewable by the educator in order to minimize the potential for confusion on the part of the educator.

Strategy 2: Include score feedback as part of the evidence that is tagged to a component from within an observation     

After entering and tagging evidence to components after an observation, communicate a score for the component by adding a score statement and tagging the statement to the appropriate component. Score statement remains a part of the overall observation notes, and can be viewed by the educator. Score statements are time stamped within the evidence for that observation, and could be used to support a “progress over time” conversation. Score statement appears in the collected evidence for that component in the Teacher Practices scoring module. Still allows for high-quality, specific feedback after an observation.

Potential Advantages to this approach:  Preserves scoring for specific components during specific events.  Could be used to communicate scores from an outgoing administrator to one that is taking over as the evaluator without having to submit scores.  Supports early completion of summary scoring in the Teacher Practices scoring module when a preponderance of evidence is present. Potential Challenges to this approach:  Educators or evaluators may view documenting and scoring components within a single observation as a “checklist” of achievements, and once they have a score on a component Educators may view the score as “complete” when there isn’t enough evidence to fully support a final summary score.  Districts will still have to determine locally how much evidence is sufficient to create a preponderance of evidence that supports a final summary score, and also how to reconcile multiple data points of evidence over time to support a final summary score.

Strategy 3: Put component score information in the “Post-Observation Feedback” box from an observation     

After an observation, enter full text information about a specific component as part of the feedback. Means more attention to writing rich feedback statements and including a score supported by the statements. Use “Submit” to share the feedback with the educator, but an evaluator could still reopen the feedback statement if an evaluator wanted to revise/add/delete feedback information or statements. Observation evidence is still viewable as a body of evidence by reviewing the observation event. Represents a very small amount of additional work to develop feedback sentence strings that are used to structure feedback. o “For component #, your strengths were X, Y, and Z. Opportunities for growth are 1, 2, and 3. Going forward, I would suggest you focus your efforts on strategies A, B, and C.”

Potential Advantages to this approach:  Could still see specific, high-quality feedback as part of the body of evidence for that observation event.  Sentence strings can be crafted locally in a way to preserve positive ways that the district has given feedback in the past (for example, maintains locally relevant shared vocabulary, or help align feedback to a building or district initiative or shared SLO.)  Could be used to communicate scores from an outgoing administrator to one that is taking over as the evaluator without having to submit scores. Potential Challenges to this approach:  Could mean that a text box becomes fairly long if giving scoring feedback on multiple components.