More food for thought...

Wow, where did August go?  On the first day of school I suggested that we focus on the Learning Community (LC) rubric of the Teacher Observation Instrument.  Well, how did it go?  I hope you took the opportunity to focus on your classroom practices as it related to building community in your classrooms.  Recall that community is the focus of our PLC Initiative for this school year.  It might be a good time to read the rubric again and reflect on how you see yourself fitting in on the scale. 

So, a new month is upon us this week and it just so happens that another of the rubrics is a natural progression from our last focus: Learner Engagement (LE).  Like the LC rubric, engagement practices are developed over time and refined over time.  Here is the description of the Learning Engagement rubric:

The Learner Engagement rubric is designed to support teachers with establishment of classroom environments that support authentic engagement in learning.  The effective teacher understands the relationship between motivation and engagement and knows how to design learning experiences using strategies that build learner self direction and ownership of learning. The teacher collaborates with learners to develop shared values and expectations for rigorous academic discussions, and individual and group responsibility for quality work. Engagement is both student-to-student and teacher-to-student, and is grounded in development of critical thinking skills focused on content specific process skills. This facilitates authentic engagement where students are not just compliant, but can see a connection between the assigned task and the results/outcomes, and that there is clear meaning and personal relevance.

There are four elements that are used to rate the teacher in LE rubric:

1.       Student-to-Student Interaction

2.       Teacher-to-Student Interaction

3.       Authentic Engagement/Quality of Work

4.       Critical Thinking

All four elements are rated during the actual observation of our teaching. 

Fostering engagement is a practice that takes thought, practice, reflection, and refinement.  I would encourage everyone to be proactive in this endeavor, and help each other grow as professionals practicing our craft.  If you have strategies that you think would benefit this process please make time in PLCs to share so that we can practice building capacity within our department.  Perhaps the easiest of the four elements in this rubric to focus on is the Teacher-to-Student Interaction.  It is somewhat easy to plan for, attempt, reflect upon, be observed by others, and change if necessary.

Remember, the Professional Responsibilities rubric has an element that addresses Collaboration with Colleagues.  As we develop our collective capacity (Teacher Growth, and Relationships are NHS focus areas) building within our department and PLCs we will be growing ourselves in a manner that will allow us to be evaluated at higher levels on the PR rubric.

Have a great September!