C E DA RT

SCHOOL ADMIN ISTRATORS OF IOWA AUGUST 7 , 2014

PEER REVIEW

EVALUATION INTENT

Collaborative process to support professional growth

Conversations and reflection focus on Continuous Improvement

Summative Assessment based on the formal and other informal observations, quick visits and walkthroughs, as well as supporting documents or artifacts

All teachers will be part of a Peer Review Team when developing their IPDP.

RESEARCH BASED

If practitioners collaborate in a constructive and meaningful way by:• Focusing on improving teaching and student learning;• Meeting regularly with thoughtfully planned agendas, minutes,

and concise follow-up actions; • Planning lessons, practicing lessons, debriefing lessons;

organizing, analyzing, and summarizing data to plan instruction; solving problems related to student learning, reading, reflecting, and sharing articles that support learning goals;

And• School leaders monitor, support, and participate in the

collaborative process to ensure that efforts are focused on student learning and on district and building goals;

Then teaching and student learning will improve.

Source: Iowa Department of Education www.educateiowa.gov

RESEARCH BASED

Hargreaves, A., & Fullan, M. (2012). Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Harvard Graduate School of Education (n.d). A User’s Guide to Peer Assistance and Review. Cambridge, MA: Author.

Goldstein, J. (2004). Making Sense of Distributed Leadership: The Case of Peer Assistance and Review. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26(2), 173-197 (ERIC Journal Number EJ737147) http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/detail?accno=EJ737147

PEER REVIEW (ATTACHING MEANING)

Collaborative process to support professional growth

Part of Education Reform Legislation Iowa Code 284.6(8) and 284.8(1)

Already doing with Individual Professional Development Plan (IPDP) – now a structured action plan and time to

collaborateExtension of PLC work with intent being conversations and reflection focused on

continuous improvement Non evaluative annual review of every

teacher, every year, conducted by other teachers.

Not tied to summative evaluation.

PEER REVIEW TEAM

• All certified teachers• 2-6 professional colleagues• Common grade level, content or certification• Administrator helps identify team if needed

Team

CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION

Student Centered Classrooms

Teaching For Understanding

Assessment For Learning

Rigorous and Relevant Curriculum

Teaching for Learner Differences

LINKING THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS TO THE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN

LINKING THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS TO THE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN

Teaching for Learner Differences

LINKING THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS TO THE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN

LINKING THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS TO THE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN

CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION

Student Centered Classrooms

Teaching For Understanding

Assessment For Learning

Rigorous and Relevant Curriculum

Teaching for Learner Differences

PEER REVIEW FEEDBACK

• Survey of All Teaching Staff – May, 2014• Monitor implementation

• Providing information about the process - communication

• Selecting the team• How did team set goals• Were the goals/action steps revised?• What action steps…. Peer review

• Gather feedback on the benefits and challenges

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When picking my Peer Review team I… (Choose any that apply)

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Middle

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To determine the Action Steps in my IPDP I… (Choose any that apply)

Elementary

Middle

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Other (ELSC/Off Site)

Most developed with Their team and set Realistic timelines.

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How was the Peer Review process supported at my building? (Choose any that apply)

Elementary

Middle

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Other (ELSC/Off Site)

The District-prepared Power Point was shared and discussed

Team Meeting Time

Peer Observations were Supported

Time during PLC

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The opportunity for Peer Observations was supported by classroom coverage (Choose any that apply)

Elementary

Middle

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Other (ELSC/Off Site)

Did not do a peer observation

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What action steps did you use in your peer review? – (Choose any that apply)

Elementary

Middle

High

Other (ELSC/Off Site)

Reflective conversations

PLC Discussion topics

Peer Observations

SURVEY – OPEN ENDED RESPONSES

• Celebrations:• Gaining new perspectives and practices by

collaborating with colleagues. It’s like our PLC.• Working toward a common goal has been

wonderful. It gave us a clear focus.• It has been helpful to watch other teachers teach

the same content as me in a different format. It changed how I teach.

• Reflective discussion with peers about our teaching, data analysis

• Meeting with job-alikes from other buildings.

SURVEY – OPEN ENDED RESPONSES

• Challenges:• We turned it in and it has never been discussed in our

building since.• I don’t feel that the peer review process was

implemented • Didn’t feel that it was valuable because it wasn’t used as

it could have been.• We were unable to accomplish this.

The intent of Peer Review is not to add one more thing but to embed professional development

into what we are already doing. Working in PLC’s we will continue to refine and reflect in a more

formal manner with supports in place. As a district, Cedar Rapids continually strives to be leaders in doing what we know is best practice

and keeping the focus on impacting student learning.

*What structures have you used in your district/school to facilitate thePeer Review Process?

USING COLLABORATIVE LANGUAGE

Celebrate

StretchValidate

  Instructive Collaborative Facilitative

General Flow C T C T C T

Coaching Stance

Directs, provides information, and

suggestions based on needs and data, connects

to rationale

Coach influences rather than dominates, coach and

teacher work together to analyze data and plan

solutions

Coach facilitates process or discussion framework through questioning,

teacher does most of the talking and self-reflection

Coach Question or Discussion Example

How will you use ____ strategy with our

struggling learners?

Let’s brainstorm some ______ strategies that will meet the

learning need of our struggling learners.

What does the data show as learning needs of our

struggling learners? What are the instructional

implications?

Coach Action Example

Provide student work exemplars, specific

strategies, or policies

Co-analyze student work & data, co-develop lesson plans, co-observe and

provide feedback

Use processes and purposeful questioning to facilitate, listen to teacher

response

Differentiated Coaching/Mentoring Framework (Based on: A Conceptual Framework for Differentiated Coaching from the New Teacher Center)

COLLABORATIVE LANGUAGE

I’m curious to know more

about…

What would it look like if…

How did you decide…

How do you think the

lesson went and why?

I’ve noticed when you…

the students…

What did you do to make

the lesson so successful?

General Conversation and Questioning Stems: A Few Favorites

(New Teacher Center)

Paraphrase What I hear you saying is… As I listen to you, I’m hearing… I’m hearing many things

including…

Clarify Would you tell me more about…? It would help me understand if I had

an example of… Tell me what you mean when you…

 

Mediational Questions What’s another way we

might…? What would it look like if we…? What sort of an impact might

there be if…? What might you see happening

in your classroom if…?

Non-Judgmental Responses What did you do in the planning and

teaching to see so many students improve their learning data?

How did it work when you tried…? It sounds like you have a number of

ideas to try. It will be exciting see what works best for you and the students.

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VIDEO

• What coaching language was used?• How did it enhance the conversation?

• What are we already doing to support peer review and collaborative conversations?

• How could we build on the use of collaborative language in our peer review process?

• NextSteps…

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbrITzGgApA

Cassandra Erkens, 2008Anam Cara Consulting, Inchttp://www.anamcaraconsulting.com

What do we want all StudentsTo learn, know and be able to do?

HOW do we know if they have learned it?

What evidence do we have of the learning?How do we respond if they don’t learn?

Have already learned?

  

Process for CommonAssessments Cycle (C.

Erkens)

  

Conversation and Questioning Stems(New Teacher Center & Building Teachers’ Capacity for Success)

Identify the learning target

What do you want your students to know or be able to do? What does data show as a needed learning target for us to focus? What will it look like or sound like if a student is proficient with this

learning target? Let’s consider creating a rubric to clarify proficiency for this learning

target. What are the scaffold skills students need leading to and following the

learning target? 

Design formative and summative assessments

How will we assess what students are learning? What’s another way students can demonstrate what they know,

understand, or are able to do? How will we use the information from this assessment?

Instruction and ongoing assessment

Do we foresee any possible learning barriers that we need to proactively plan for?

How will we plan for students at various readiness levels? What questions will we ask students throughout the lesson? How will we

plan for deep level thinking questions? Let’s think about what descriptive feedback may feed students forward

in their learning…  

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Monitor for learning and collective results

What will it look like and sound like if students are successful throughout this lesson?

How will assessment procedures, directions, and preparations be the same or different between classrooms/students?

 

Tally and review common assessment results

What patterns can we identify in the student mistakes and what do they tell us?

What key qualities are present? Which students are in the “more than one year below standard” or

exceeding standard” category? What learning needs are present? What experiences do the

students need to further learning? 

Revise curriculum, instruction, and assessments

What instructional strategies were the most effective with the students and need to be repeated?

In what ways did the instruction succeed or need changes to meet students’ needs?

What crucial knowledge, skill or content gaps we need to address? 

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“Quality teaching is not an individual accomplishment, it is the result of a collaborative culture that

empowers teachers to team up to improve student learning beyond what any one of them can achieve

alone.”

Carroll – “The Next Generation of Learning Teams” - Phi Delta Kappan (2009). P. 13

NEXT STEPS

• District Video to review Evaluation Process • Focused on peer review• Shared during pre-service• Support with collaborative language handout

• Keys to Observation and Feedback• Scheduled observations.• Identify the areas for observation (based on goal and

action step/s)• Effective and timely reflection meeting focused on useful

feedback and implementation in classroom instruction (through peer review process and model teachers)

NEXT STEPS

• Support for Collaborative Conversations provided by principals and instructional design strategists

• Use of Steps to Effective Feedback: Leading Post-Observation Face-to-Face Meetings: (p. 103-104)• Praise• Probe• Identify problem and action step• Practice • Plan ahead• Set timeline for follow up

“The most powerful form of learning, the most sophisticated form of staff

development, comes not from listening to the good works of others but from

sharing what we know with others… By reflecting on what we know with

others…By reflecting on what we do, by giving it coherence, and by sharing and articulating our craft knowledge,

we make meaning, we learn.” – Roland Barth