With the national debate around teacher effectiveness, it is curious why e-learning and blended learning are often left out of many of the conversations. I3 reviewers did not get it, and many state Race to the Top plans seem to be propping up the old system, not transforming it.
E-learning and Blended Learning teachers know well that their social media discussions, learning management system archives, and synchronous online webinars can be continuously monitored for coaching, learning, mentoring, and/or evaluation.
In short, there is no classroom door to close in our world. The proverbial one room school house has been moved for these teachers, and transparency helps them do their job as effectively as face to face teachers and even more so when the approach is blended.
On 9/23/10 this week, I’ll be involved in an Edweek webinar with Pam Birtolo, Chief Learning Officer for Florida Virtual School to discuss the “Evaluation of E-educators’ Evolving Skills”. This webinar should also provide context to the recent Edweek article: E-Evaluations: Watching your Every Move”.
These conversations highlight our process at North Carolina Virtual for teacher effectiveness. And as readers of my blog consider online options, these processes are what you should not only expect of your e-learning and/or blended learning provider but best in breed face to face school districts as well.
First, our teachers complete a self-assessment. Over the past three years, our process has been adapted from iNACOL, SREB, and Idaho Digital documents and helps provide a baseline for where our teachers think they are.
Next, our teachers use these assessments to complete a virtual teacher action plan (VTAP). This plan serves as the road map for their discussions with our division directors and department leadership. This plan is an editable wiki and can be adapted, web shared, and accessed for changes through weekly e-learning communities at anytime by a multitude of stakeholders interested in improving teaching and learning at NCVPS.
Then, teachers participate in synchronous conferences with our NCVPS curriculum team to define, tweak, and edit the VTAP in order for the goals of the teacher to align with the goals of the organization. These conversations are recorded and archived, and they serve as a primary record when benchmark and/or evaluation conferences take place.
After the pre-conference, spot checks and virtual class walkthroughs commence to check for evidence that the teacher and the VTAP are meeting the expectations that were set out in the pre-conference. These spot checks provide rich data on usage time, parent call logs, quality of interactions, and alignment of tools to standards. With this information, our staff can quickly affirm quality, focus coaching, and/or place teachers on a watch list so that students get the most out of their online experiences.
From this data, our coaches help teachers via a stoplight schedule to improve on their VTAP goals and their spot check data. Conversely, our evaluators are able to work within a teacher contract system rather than a tenure system regarding data trends. This is significant in that our maximum allowance for teacher improvement is three semesters and sometimes less, depending on whether student needs are being met or not.
Our evaluators review data and target gaps, and share this data with our teachers. Expectations are clear, and teachers are renewed and/or dismissed based on data cycles and held accountable for high quality online and blended instruction. I am convinced these approaches and processes need to be a part of the teacher effectiveness discussion nationally, as this transparencey changes the lives of kids in the online and blended environments every day.
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