Danielson Group Analysis (2A, 2B, 2C): Evidence and Levels

Teacher Evaluation Using the Danielson Framework 5. A Complete Observation: Putting It All Together C. Listen to What the Danielson Experts Observed and the Levels of Performance Suggested Danielson Group Analysis (2A, 2B, 2C): Evidence and Levels CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: You ve had a chance to watch a whole observation now. And we d like to offer you our thoughts on what we saw as evidence and how we would evaluate it after the lesson. And we ll just walk through the components of Domains 2 and 3 one at a time and tell you what evidence we saw. Now, it s possible you saw some slightly different evidence. That s okay. So we ll describe what we saw, and I m going to guess you saw a lot of the same. So let s begin. 2A, the environmental respect and report. First of all, what did you see for evidence? And you can be brief about this. PAULA BEVAN: Well, certainly the teacher said I heard some very good discussions with your buddies. She said thank you for clarifying, Kayla. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: I noticed that the students were very patient while their classmates were talking. They didn t butt in, and that spoke well to me. CONNIE SIMS: There were a couple of other pieces of evidence where she said thank you to a particular and she called the students by name. That s very respectful. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Yes, it is. PAULA BEVAN: And there was one more, which I thought you don t hear a lot, which was worth noting. A student asked if this was going to be on the test, and the teacher said yes. Does that make you nervous? And she said that it did make her nervous. And so the teacher went on then to say you don t have to be nervous. We ll make it as easy as we made and referred to a previous lesson. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Right. So I called this one proficient. PAULA BEVAN: I agree. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Okay. Good. Let s move on and talk about 2B, culture for learning. What did you see there? What evidence? Not a lot actually. 1

CONNIE SIMS: I m pausing because not a lot. But she did say today s lesson will be we re going to be rounding up in decimals. The specifics said something like let s read our objective and everybody but that s not really CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: That s not culture for learning. Reading the objectives is 3A. That s being clear about the learning. This is expect and a lot of people confuse these, and so it s good to clarify this. PAULA BEVAN: Here s a question for you. Is the nature of the objectives themselves related to 2B as it gets high expectations for students? CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: That s a really good point, and I have to say it is because if the objectives that the teacher has are really low level, it would seem that it s not. PAULA BEVAN: But then if I m hearing connecting it to Connie s comment, the reading of them would be more tightly connected to 3A. But their content is going to have a lot to do with 2B. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: That s a good point. PAULA BEVAN: Thank you for that. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Yes. That s a great point. I did notice she said something like should we try fractions now or something? Like do you want to give it a try? I mean, she did convey a sense that it might be sort of fun to do this. And that would be culture for learning that we re not just doing this because it s going to be on the test. But we re doing it because it s fun, and it s important. There wasn t a lot there, though. PAULA BEVAN: I did note that she encouraged students to try all of the worksheets that all of the students were doing, and I m believing that those worksheets were at different levels of ability or some were extensions or targeted slightly differently. But she encouraged everyone to sample those. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: She did. So what do we think here? It s sort of mixed. I had originally thought this was at a basic level, but hearing you talk, I m thinking maybe there are elements of proficient here. CONNIE SIMS: I think there are some elements of proficient. 2

CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: So I think we could say it s a mix, and we d want to have that conversation with the teacher after the lesson. Good. Let s talk about 2C, managing classroom procedures. What evidence did you see? CONNIE SIMS: Well, she has then in groups, and she gives assignments as to which group is going to be working with her first, what the other groups are going to be doing, and so that s a procedural process. That s one piece of evidence for this particular component. PAULA BEVAN: She filled out the attendance form while students finished their initial assignment. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Right. That s an efficient use of time to accomplish non-instructional things. I noticed that the students were they were sitting very quietly with their hands folded during the lesson. I ve not known students to do that. I ve not known any children who were born doing that naturally. I m guessing she must have taught them to do that. PAULA BEVAN: I m guessing it doesn t come naturally either. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: And that would be a routine like during a group discussion, you sit here, and you don t nudge your neighbor and all that. And that could be 2D also, depending on what it is. But it s really a procedure for what we do during class work. CONNIE SIMS: She also had index cards to go along with their textbook and reviewed again the process for using those index cards, so that s a procedural kind of piece also. PAULA BEVAN: She was not interrupted during her small group, and that suggests that there are procedures in place for them to CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Well, she said what to do if you have a question when I m working with a group. What do you do? You ask three buddies, and she went over that with them. So I had this at the proficient level for routines and procedures. Did you as well? CONNIE SIMS: I had proficient. I just want to add another little piece of evidence that I think she says or we see, I can t quite remember, that she had the groups listed on the board, which gives an indication that you might infer that the groups are flexible. And you would ask that to make sure, but the idea of that would move it towards proficient, the fact that you can 3

CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Let me remind you of something here. The actual making of the groups and using them instructionally is an element of 3C, engagement. It s in 2C, it s the way the students were able to work in their groups without guidance from the teacher. And again, this is a place where it s easy to get a little confused that the grouping of kids for instructional purposes and being able to move kids around, I would put that in 3C, and I agree with you. It was there. But for purposes of 2C, the fact that the kids knew what to do in their group, didn t have to be supervised by the teacher, that was significant and would put it into proficient also. Danielson Group Analysis (2D, 2E, 3A): Evidence and Levels CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Let s shift our attention now to 2D, managing student behavior. Now, I did notice that at the very beginning of this lesson, she said the principal is in here watching, so be on your best behavior. Well, it looked like they were. So what is there to say for student behavior? CONNIE SIMS: It s another example of not seeing misbehavior. And so, therefore, you would infer that they were. I remember there was one comment made to Andrew, I think. But that s not preponderance. That s not a whole lot, and we want to be careful. And so I think holistically, we saw behaving students. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: We did. So proficient. PAULA BEVAN: That s right. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Yeah. Definitely. So let s talk about physical space, 2E. What do we see there? So quite a lot of evidence here actually, right? PAULA BEVAN: Yes. Certainly, the students were organized in a very purposeful fashion for the learning. I would be very interested to have a conversation with the teacher just to learn more about her thinking for the U shape with the rows in between. I m sure she has lots of thinking about that. But clearly, it was appropriate for her and the large group instruction. And then moving students out into the small group piece seemed perfectly effective. The point of the physical space is access to learning and safety. And so CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: And appropriateness to PAULA BEVAN: To the design of the instruction. And certainly, those pieces seemed to be in place. 4

CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Yeah. Anything to add? CONNIE SIMS: No, I don t have anything to add about that. you? CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: So I have marked proficient for this lesson, did PAULA BEVAN: Yes. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Now we re going to move into Domain 3 and talk about the instructional components. The 3A, the first one being communication both for the purpose of explaining content, for explaining to kids what it is they re going to do, just the task, and the use of language. So what evidence did you have here? PAULA BEVAN: Well, I had not necessarily in order that it occurred, but the teacher clarified what they were to do for the activity after students had some questions for her, which would indicate a slightly lower level of clarity. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Right. That would be basic. PAULA BEVAN: It would be basic, correct. The teacher didn t elaborate on the why of the learning. It was more the procedure of the learning, which has to do with her communication about the content and what she s choosing to tell them about it, situate it. It s situated itself in procedures, but not necessarily in life. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: That s right. It was entirely procedural. I don t know how many times, it was a lot. I didn t count. But what s the rule for rounding? We look to the right. PAULA BEVAN: You look to the right, exactly. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Which, I mean, that s almost, in my view, the least interesting thing about rounding because what s interesting about rounding is why would you do it? Why do you need to know that something is about 3 pounds or about 50 pounds rather than 52 and a half. And there is a lot of need for that, but I didn t hear any of that. Now, it s possible she had done that in a previous lesson. We don t know that until we ask her. CONNIE SIMS: But the challenge and the opportunity you have when you re looking at a lesson is you are gathering evidence on what you see at that time. So the post conference gets into what you were just saying. Perhaps she did lessons, so for the 5

pre-conference. But in that particular lesson, it seemed that she gave the basic rule over and over. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Right. CONNIE SIMS: And not a why about the rule. So that would put it more her communication was CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: About the content particularly. CONNIE SIMS: What was directly about the fact, at the basic level. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: And I wasn t sure whether, and this I m going to show my ignorance here, when she referred to decimals and fractions as though they were the same, they re not the same. And I mean, you hear people talk about a decimal fraction, and so maybe technically they are the same. But I thought for some students, that might be a little confusing because fractions look really different than decimals. So I m not sure if that s a serious content error, but I think it could be a source of confusion. PAULA BEVAN: A source of confusion. And I had to wonder, these students of this age group, that surely they know how to count by tens and they know how to count by ones and they know how to count by hundreds. And those are key skills in rounding. And I didn t see or hear any building on that skill. I heard the rule of looking to the right. But to say CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: And if it s five or more PAULA BEVAN: And if it s five or more, but a particular example was the 125 rounding it to the nearest hundred. And I kept thinking that surely they know how to count by hundreds. So if we re rounding it to the nearest hundred, is it closer to 100 or 200? These are things that you know. And so building on what they know is an important part of communicating about the content. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Right. So I think all in all, it sounds like we re agreeing that this is at a basic level for communicating, especially the content. The procedures were fairly clear, although she did have to do some clarifying. So even that would be at a basic level. PAULA BEVAN: And I heard two small, grammatical errors. Did either of you hear those? Or did I mishear them, and it s always important to check our evidence and make sure we have it right. But I thought that I heard her say is there any questions about what we re going to study today? 6

CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: That s true. PAULA BEVAN: Times to. I heard is for are twice. So that also has to do with using the language well. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Yeah. Okay. So that would be 3A at a basic level. Danielson Group Analysis (3B, 3C): Evidence and Levels CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Let s talk about 3B, using questioning and discussion techniques. First of all, did she? CONNIE SIMS: Well, she asked questions around that moving to the right and what s to the right. But she asked the same question over and over. So there was not a variety of questions or a wide variety to the next question. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Her use of questioning didn t further student understanding. CONNIE SIMS: It just kept repeating. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: It kept repeating, right. PAULA BEVAN: To give her due credit, she did ask some wide questions. And I counted four. Certainly, far lower in preponderance than questions of procedure or process. The area of potential strength around questioning had to do with calling readily on non volunteers heavily, and she did do that a lot. Although, and Charlotte, I d be interested for you to comment on this, I sometimes struggle to know whether to put that evidence in 3D or whether it is more about 2B, a culture for learning. A culture in which you are eligible to answer every question every time a question is asked, which is different kind of climate from you only have to answer a question if you put your hand up. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Or if I call on you. PAULA BEVAN: Or if I call on you. Do you have any thoughts about that? CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Sure. It seems that in my view, that actually is an example of a single piece of evidence that could go both places because you re emphasizing different aspects of it. In the questioning one, what you re emphasizing is that we re using questions to deepen understanding, and I don t want to just hear from the 7

same three people all the time because I know what they think. I need to know and I need to explore this with everybody. But in the way you also are not predictable about who you are going to call on, that says in the culture we re all involved here. You can t just sort of as I ve said before, school is not a spectator s sport. It is a hands on activity, a minds on activity. And that s more in the culture. So yes, that s a good example of a piece of evidence that would go in two different places. Now, she did ask the kids when they talked to their buddies, I think she called them, to say why you did what you did. PAULA BEVAN: I forgot that. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: And I think that is an example that s justifying your thinking. Now, she never heard from them what that thinking was, except when she had the small group. But she was now, I m guessing that what they said to each other was they followed the rule. But she did ask them to justify their thinking. But I still think the use of questioning was probably at a basic level. CONNIE SIMS: I agree. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Okay. A couple more here. What about 3C, engaging students in learning? I have one piece of interesting evidence here I thought. I m curious if you picked it up. When she asked them she asked a question like what would you round this to? Think in your head, and then tell your answer to a buddy. That sort of guaranteed that everybody was going to do it. You couldn t just sit back and be a spectator. So I think that was getting everybody at least doing something. Now, what they were doing, in my view, was fairly low level because it was basically following a rule. PAULA BEVAN: I would like to have been able to see all of the groups work to note how differentiated it was or was not in terms of rigor. We have some sense of it obviously. We saw a bit of that. But it would have been helpful to know more. I noted down the activities that were done during the lesson, opening with division drills for the whole class, and then moving to these groups. One did DIB plus math worksheet on borrowing. One was DIB plus math worksheet on decimals. Each group then had different problems and so on. And then there was this large group process. So engagement is about looking at the way in which the activities bring about real learning. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Yeah. And I actually had a question here, and I would ask the teacher this. But it struck me that if this was fairly new learning for them that there were some huge opportunities missed. If I wanted to teach kids to round to the nearest hundred, let s say, I would put a number line on the board. One hundred, two 8

hundred, three hundred. And then I d take any old number and say 125. Put it on the number line. Which is this nearest? It seems really to use a visual. And then, when you do that, then the reason for the rule is clear. Say you had 157. Put that on the number line. Well, it s not obvious looking at it which one it s closer to. And so that s why we need a rule. CONNIE SIMS: And that s, again, a reason for the post because what you see is what they did and didn t do those things. And you would perhaps inquire and/or give suggestions for her about it. But in the lesson itself, we just saw this much of the process. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: So I think for our purposes here, we can only, as you point out, observe what we saw, think about it against the rubric, and given that for 3C, the students were participating, they did what they were asked to do, but they were not having to think. And because they were only following a rule and a procedure that had been given to them, I didn t see any understanding being developed. That would say to me it s basic level. PAULA BEVAN: I would agree. CONNIE SIMS: Even with Paula sharing the sequence of activities, sometimes the varieties of activities would have us perhaps want it to be proficient. But here again, if the variety is still at a minimal level, it s variety that s basic. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: It is. PAULA BEVAN: Right. Danielson Group Analysis (3D, 3E): Evidence and Levels CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: So let s talk about 3D using assessment and instruction. Did she? A little bit. In the small group, she went around and talked to each individual student and clarified a misunderstanding when the kid thought it was 10 but it was 8. PAULA BEVAN: She did that. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: And that child actually had kind of an interesting reason, but the fact of that misunderstanding itself was instructive, and I hope she learned from that. CONNIE SIMS: I think there is minimal evidence for 3D in terms of that whole assessing. Certainly, when she was asking students to respond, there was not an 9

instructional piece from her on their response. She just accepted, even when you get the correct answer, you can ask a question as to the why. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Absolutely. CONNIE SIMS: But there was no evidence in this particular segment of her taking answers and doing something else with them generally speaking. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: I agree. So I think we have to say basic for this. And what about 3E? Again, flexibility and responsiveness. You know, she was ready for this lesson. She had it planned out. And so she didn t have to do any adjustments. Really, no evidence again PAULA BEVAN: Unless she tells us something in the post observation conference. At this point, there s no evidence that we could assess. CONNIE SIMS: We don t have any reason for why she might have asked one student one question and another student a different question. We just know she asked in the small group what they did. So this is a follow up piece again. So we don t have evidence that stands out from the lesson. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: So I d like to actually make sort of a general observation that we have looked at these lessons and have found evidence for both basic and proficient. Thankfully, no unsatisfactory. But also, no distinguished. And I think we need to sort of just discuss that for a moment. It s not unusual. I mean, I think it s you, Paula, who said, and I ve used this in presentations I do, that distinguished performance is a nice place to visit, but don t expect to live there. It s very high level performance. It s higher that would get you natural board certification. And it insists that the students themselves take on a lot of responsibility for the class. It looks like the class could run itself when there s a and these were both very teacher directed lessons and not unusual in that way. PAULA BEVAN: The thing that is important to think about, too, with the distinguished level and not knowing when in the year the lesson is that we just saw, but student leadership/ownership of some of the learning. Or as you put it, Charlotte, students being able to run the class themselves. It doesn t happen on September 1. It happens with the teacher behaving intentionally on September 1 and every day thereafter to lead students to that place. And we could not realistically expect to see some of that at certain times in the year. However, what we could expect to see is the teacher behaving intentionally toward it. 10

CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: And inviting students to ask questions and ask real questions, not just clarifying questions. PAULA BEVAN: Exactly. And to do turn and talk, various kinds of strategies that invite students to identify powerful questions from less powerful ones and some of those things are the precursor behaviors that we might expect to see if it were earlier in the year. I think it s important to say that 50 percent of the framework components have at the distinguished level this student leadership/student initiative piece. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: It s a community of learners. PAULA BEVAN: It is absolutely. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: It s not just a teacher dispensing information, right. PAULA BEVAN: Exactly. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: And that is relatively unusual. time. PAULA BEVAN: It is unusual, and we get there with intentional behavior over CONNIE SIMS: It s like you were saying earlier that these particular lessons were more teacher driven. And there is a place for that. It goes along with what Paula is saying. You ve got to start to get the foundation. You lay the foundation for future. But at this particular point in these lessons, they were predominantly teacher led, which then would negate the possibility of the distinguished teacher CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Although even a teacher directed inquiry lesson say in science or in math, that is I might want my kids to learn what pie is. But the way I would do it, I mean, I could of course just say well, pie is 3.14 whatever. And they would write it dutifully down and so on. But if I wanted them to actually understand pie, I would do something very different. I would have a whole bunch of circular objects like lids and a bunch of circular objects and have them measure the diameter and the circumference and to make a graph. And they would discover it s a straight line. And the slope of the line is, guess what, 3.14. And they d say it s about 3. And I d say right. And that s what pie is. And they would know that that s a constant, and it s in every round object. I don t think kids would forget pie after that. PAULA BEVAN: They would not. You re right. 11

CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: So it s still sort of teacher directed, and yet I m asking the kids to generate, construct if you like, that understanding. That would make it distinguished also because the kids would be having to create. They d have to be drawing the conclusion. They would notice the pattern, and then that finding would come from them. CONNIE SIMS: But you just said the last part, which makes it important. The finding comes from them. CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Exactly. CONNIE SIMS: You set it out but CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Right. You set it out, and you might bring it to closure, and in fact, you would. You d want to bring it to closure and make sure that that message was understood. CONNIE SIMS: But the dominance of the activity of the lesson CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: Is in the students. CONNIE SIMS: Is in the students. Post Observation Conference Reminders CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: A reflection conference or a post observation conference that some people call it is an opportunity for an observer and a teacher to reflect. And the important aspect of this conference is for the teacher to do structured reflection on the lesson. It s also an opportunity for them to compare notes about how they would interpret what happened there and what level of performance and so on is reflected in the lesson itself. But the real value of this conference is for the teacher. And it is of all the parts of an observation process the one that I urge you, beg you, not to skip. It doesn t have to take very long, and most people find though that if they do invest a little time in it, it s highly rewarding. And teachers will say things and principals will say things like we had such a good conversation. And it s partly because they ve set aside some time, but it s also partly because they both know because they re using the framework for teaching what is important about a good lesson. And so they have a common language. And they have both done some thinking about the lesson in light of the levels of performance. And so it s a valuable conversation because it s grounded in common understanding, shared 12

understanding of practice. And the vehicle for that is the teacher s reflection on the lesson. It s natural and, of course, very understandable that when a teacher has an opportunity to discuss a lesson with a principal or a supervisor that they re very concerned about the level of performance that the evaluator or supervisor might assign to this lesson in some component or other. And that is important if there s any danger that it s below a required standard. That s rare though. In general, most teaching is at least at the basic level and very often above that. And with experienced teachers, almost always it s above that. And so the important thing about this conversation is not really the level of performance. It s not about what did I get. It s not a grade. It s really about how could it be better? And so that s why it s important to know how good it is. Suppose a certain component is at the basic level. Well, your eye drifts to the right, and you think it could be better, and here s how to make it better. And so it really then is an assessment for learning and for improving and strengthening teaching, which is actually the definition of formative assessment. Danielson Group Suggestions: Post Observation Conferences CHARLOTTE DANIELSON: We have earlier in this program talked about the importance of hearing from the teacher during a post observation conference. And the importance of the dialogue between the observer and the teacher and what can be learned by both parties. And so I m going to ask my colleagues to describe some of their experience in both conducting post observation conferences and in teaching other observers how to do them well. PAULA BEVAN: So Connie, you and I both, I know, have a strong belief in the role of the post teaching conference. We ve talked many times about how a truly effective observation is incomplete if we haven t heard from the teacher. Can you talk a little bit about that in terms of what you ve seen that sort of resonates for you as powerful about that? CONNIE SIMS: I think it s in the post observation conference, I think it s powerful and goes well when each has had an opportunity to share the information in advance of that post observation conference, so it s not an I got you, it s a conversation about a snapshot of instruction. And so to have a teacher do a self assessment and do a reflection and get that to the observer, but also for the observer to give the information to the teacher of what they have recorded as evidence. Then they re both on a similar playing field at least of where there are similarities, where there might be some differences, and it just makes for a very engaging professionally supportive conversation between the teacher and the observer. 13

PAULA BEVAN: So I m hearing you say, and I m just going to walk this through in my own head, and you correct me if I m not saying it correctly, if I m the teacher, and I ve taught a lesson, and you re the evaluator, you would give me a copy of your evidence, correct? CONNIE SIMS: Correct. PAULA BEVAN: I would use that evidence to reflect on the lesson, and I would also use that evidence to conduct a self assessment on the rubrics for myself to say this is how I think the lesson should be rated. Is that correct? CONNIE SIMS: That s absolutely correct. PAULA BEVAN: And then I m imagining that the evaluator is also doing similar things in his or her office thinking about the evidence and where on the rubrics this lesson might lie. And then we would come together and have a conversation about that? CONNIE SIMS: We would. And the thinking on both parties is preliminary, is draft kind of thinking. And that s what makes the conversations powerful. It s not like the old way that the administrator would hand me a document already completed. But that the expectation of me as a teacher would be that I come in with additional information that I want to share that will be used as evidence before the final decisions are made. PAULA BEVAN: So thank you for that, and thank you for making clear that there s no real point to a post teaching conference if all the decisions have been made in a final fashion. That it s really a time to look at the evidence for that lesson, analyze it together, look at our tentative thinking, compare it, and have a good conversation about what the best final answer is based on evidence and that we re welcoming additional evidence that the teacher may provide during that post teaching time. CONNIE SIMS: That the teacher feels comfortable and has ownership of the fact that once I get my evaluator s information, there might be something I can bring to that conference like a set of the students work or information about a special needs student that the reason why Johnny was allowed to walk around the room is because and as the evaluator, I might not know that. And as an evaluator, while I ve been watching the teacher teach, then I ve been raising some questions along the way. So this gives me an opportunity to do that, and that really enhances that post observation conference when we talk together. 14

PAULA BEVAN: And don t you think it also gives us a truer result, a more accurate result, because it s based on more evidence from more sources? CONNIE SIMS: Yes, yes. Multiple ways of getting the information about that particular lesson. And you and I both have had the opportunity to help observers and evaluators get more skilled at how to conduct that post observation conference so that they can step back and allow the teacher to take lead with it and the expectation that the teacher can do that. 15