Each week when I conduct my walkthroughs, I record my findings in an excel spreadsheet. Each member of the Administrative Team maintains a spreadsheet similar to mine, and each teacher has been randomly assigned a number to allow for conversation that cannot be overheard and understood. We are evaluating our teachers based on our Phase 1 criteria which have been pulled from the Planning section of the TEAMs rubric. This evaluation method is also used to determine the types of professional developments that we will provide, and the members of our faculty who will be required to participate in various development or observation opportunities outside of the school.

I love leading professional learning, and one of my favorite parts is providing training with dove-tailing resources that can be immediatly implemented into teachers' classrooms. This is an example of one of these resources. I was requested to create this professional development for English teachers from two counties to support secondary students with extremely low comprehension ability.  I centered this professional development in research, but made sure that I took that research and placed into a form that teachers and students could use as a reference. This document is designed to be placed in student notebooks for reference as they are reading and writing.

While working under Dr. Horne, my team and I developed a professional development centered on the process of Understanding by Design. I have since offered this development to teachers from multiple schools during a PD stockpile day. The handouts for that development.

There are so many things that experienced teachers know. They are, oftentimes, familiar with the technology in their rooms. They understand the intricacies of phonics instruction (assuming they've been in an elementary setting). More importantly, they usually know how to find help for what they do not know. Since over 75% of our teachers are new (either to the profession or to the District) I have tried to make sure that I provide some of that knowledge to new teachers each week in the newsletter through our Tech Tips and Planning Corner sections. Click the picture to the right to see one of our newsletters. The new teacher training is on the second page. 

I am constantly working to improve my practice in myriad ways. In the past two years I have ben blessed to have massinvely insightful (if unofficial) mentors who have helped me work on my self-diagnosed weaknesses. For tracking practice and feedback over time I have three main methods. The first are, of course, my official evaluations. These are very useful as they are rubric-based, strongly guided, and very targeted. Secondly, I use survey and conversational data collected by requesting feedback from subordinates, peers, and superiors. Finally, I have regularly scheduled discussions with a couple of individuals further along in their careers who posess strengths vastly different from my own to attempt to gain insight into how they would handle situations differently than me to broaden my understandings for future decisions.