Frontline Blog

Education is constantly changing, giving us new opportunities to discover, create and adapt. That goes for all of us: the teachers referring to real world situations and current events to deepen student learning, the Curriculum & Instruction specialists seeking ways to further uphold and implement best practices in evaluations and professional learning, and the administrators who must prepare for and comply with new regulations and expectations.  

One day Alan*, a high school student in my special education English class, exclaimed in frustration, “All we ever do in here is read and write!” It was a proud moment for me. A huge compliment. That statement validated for me that I was doing it right, not wasting precious instructional time with frivolous activities.

When Charlotte Danielson first published the Danielson Framework for Teaching in 1996, her intent was to describe what good teaching was. Over the course of several revisions in 2007, 2011 and 2013, the Framework has provided a common language for discussing teaching practice for a vast number of districts across the country. It also serves as a guide for professional learning over the course of a teacher's entire career.

It was always cold when I walked to the bus stop, at least in my memory. Down the hill to the corner store, fumbling with a cassette for my Walkman, lugging a far-too-heavy backpack. Every day of the school year, Ms. Nuse was the first school employee I’d see, and at the end of the day, the last one, too. She was no nonsense, but kind. She drove bus 23.

Dr. James Stronge on the Gates Foundation’s Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative.

We are well into the last quarter of the school year, and that means we are entering the final phase of conducting classroom observations for teacher performance evaluation. If observations involve only one person, how do we enhance intra-rater reliability? And especially, if multiple observers have been involved in observing teachers’ classroom performance, what can we do to ensure inter-rater reliability? If a vice principal conducted an observation earlier in the year and the principal is scheduled to conduct an additional or final observation, how can we ensure the results of the more recent observation won’t sway the decision disproportionately and that observers are using the same yardstick to measure effectiveness?

Each morning, thousands of students step out of cars or bounce off buses into their classrooms at a suburban school district not far from Rochester, New York. With 17 schools and over 3,500 teachers and staff, the team that facilitates professional learning has an incredible opportunity to make a lasting impact on the education each student receives.  

Imagine a world without feedback. No, seriously — try to picture an entire workday when no one receives any information about how things are going. Chefs wouldn’t be able to taste their dishes as they cooked. Pilots wouldn’t receive course corrections from air traffic controllers. You wouldn’t want to get a haircut that day. Feedback is important in all spheres of life, including — and perhaps especially — in education. But not all feedback is created equal. What does it look like to provide meaningful, actionable feedback that supports educator growth? It would be nearly impossible to make an exhaustive list of qualities feedback should have, but this is a start. Effective, actionable feedback should: