Six on Schools: Can teacher observations lead to constructive conversations; Media Picks Up Student SSJ Walkout; New York:
philip panaritis
"While VAM scores are scorned teacher observations by supervisors are equally flawed. Different supervisors rate the same lesson differently, these is no consensus. The use of a single rubric, in New York City, the Danielson Frameworks, simply became another compliance task, a checklist. All observations are entered into a computerized database, ADVANCE, and principals who fall behind in their observations are dunned.
A principal related to me: all the principals in a district were divided into teams and observed classes in a school. The group facilitators asked the principals how they would rate the lesson. One principal asked: Shouldn’t we be discussing how we would handle the post observation conference? The facilitator demurred, no; we’re only here to assess the lesson according to Danielson.
Danielson is not the Holy Grail, and, following Danielson to the letter does not guarantee successful student outcomes.
Early in the Danielson era I was at her presentation, at the end I asked,
“Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote he couldn’t define pornography; however, he knew it when he saw it, isn’t it the same with effective instruction?”
Charlotte disagreed.
She’s incorrect, after watching many hundreds of lessons you can “feel” a good lesson. Different classes of student require different instructional strategies, effective teaching is varying teaching techniques to suit the kids in front of you.
Attempting to use student test scores to assess teacher performance was disastrous, and, emphasizing the summative assessment rather than the formative assessment is racing down another wrong path; the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming locomotive.
An irony: the other Danielson book, “Talk About Teaching! Leading Professional Conversations, (2009)” should be required reading for supervisors.
Danielson writes,
An important mechanism to promote teacher learning …. is that of conversation. Through focused and occasionally structured conversations, teachers are encouraged to think deeply about their work, to reflect on their approaches and student responses. And yet conducting such conversations requires skill. Many teachers assume that if their principal or supervisor wants to discuss the events in a classroom it means there is something wrong … by neglecting to engage in professional conversations with teachers, educational leaders decline to take advantage of one of the most powerful approaches at their disposal to promote teacher learning.
Conducting a post observation conference is a skill; and should not be a burdensome, compliance chore for the observer and the observed.
Post observation conferences might be a Socratic Method, engaging the teachers in a dialogue, or, a few teachers might observe colleagues and jointly discuss the lesson among themselves with a facilitator. In my school the principal allowed us to substitute a peer observation system in lieu of traditional supervisory observations. Triads of teachers, Teacher A observed B, B observed C and C observed A, in the same week, teaching a lesson on a similar topic, the teachers met and engaged in a facilitated conversation around a template of questions; the “notes” were the observation report. The teachers who participated had never watched a colleague teach, and, reflected deeply on their own practice."
"Ed Notes Online" - 1 new articleMedia Picks Up Student SSJ WalkoutLeonie has a story on her blog: Brooklyn students fight against the Summit online platform and the Zuckerberg-Gates corporate machine - Business Insider, which had a link to Ed Notes: Students in Brooklyn protest their school's use of a Zuckerberg-backed online curriculum designed by Facebook engineershttps://www.businessinsider.com/summit-learning-school-curriculum-funded-by-zuckerberg-faces-backlash-brooklyn-2018-11?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cb_bureau_nyFast Times: https://www.fastcompany.com/90266263/brooklyn-students-walk-out-of-school-over-zuckerberg-backed-learning-system?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cb_bureau_ny Almost 100 students walked out of class at Brooklyn’s Secondary School for Journalism to protest the school’s use of Summit Learning. The controversial educational system is backed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic organization started by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. Students said the program, designed to deliver individualized learning, kept them tied to computer screens for hours each day, the New York Post reports. Wi-Fi issues and system crashes also made the system–built with assistance from Facebook engineers–frustrating to use, and parents expressed concern about how student data would be used. The school is eliminating the program for 11th and 12th grade, according to the report. It’s not the only school to back away from using Summit Learning: Other schools have ended use of the program amid concerns about curriculum content and data use, EdSurge reported last year. The NY Post: https://nypost.com/2018/11/10/ brooklyn-students-hold- walkout-in-protest-of- facebook-designed-online- program/ More Recent Articles
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