During the October 9th SCEE Webinar on observing teacher practice, the presenters from Washington DC Public Schools (DCPS) addressed teacher stress in addition to several other issues. Kim Levengood, Director of Teacher Effectiveness Strategy, and Jess Wood, Project Director of Align: TLF Training Platform, explained how the district is working to reduce stress levels. Strategies to reduce stress at the school level were provided by Principal Dana Nerenberg.
Through revisions to IMPACT, the district has incorporated multiple components to lessen teacher stress. The changes include:
• including informal observations,
• requiring fewer observations for high performers,
• dropping low outlier observation scores,
• introducing a career ladder,
• ongoing feedback collection,
• sharing contextual information about teachers' classrooms with master educators, and
• focusing on relationship building between master educators and teachers.
Principal Dana Nerenberg discussed how school leaders can also play a role in reducing teacher stress. Nerenberg's faculty knows and appreciates that she and the assistant principal work as a team to determine ratings when practice falls between two categories. Nerenberg and her leadership team also conduct informal observations to prepare teachers and appropriately time observations around the various scenarios, such as fire drills, that may impact teaching and learning.
The presenters all agreed that opportunities for teachers to provide feedback on the observation process have been especially effective in reducing stress.
As an Educator in Residence, I'm appreciative of the time and attention DCPS is paying to the issue of teacher stress relative to the changes being made to evaluations. The shift to more comprehensive educator evaluations is the most difficult move educators have faced during my career. I am witnessing firsthand from friends across the country the impact new evaluations are having on the way teachers think about their practice. A recent Facebook post by a friend of mine who is also a previous State Teacher of the Year said, "Apparently I'm not as effective as I think. Bad way to end the day." How do we build evaluation systems that improve practice without crushing spirits?
When I reflect on focusing on the practice of teaching and not on the person, I always come to the same conclusion. We need to find the best coaches and study their techniques. Coaches give specific feedback on performance, build confidence, and motivate their players. How can we do the same for teachers?
As a mother, I'm even more appreciative of the awareness of teacher stress. My own five-year-old son is sitting in a classroom of a teacher facing a revised evaluation system. The best case scenario is for my child's teacher to utilize the revised evaluation system as a tool for improvement. The worst case scenario is for the revised evaluation system to negatively impact the ability of my child's teacher to meet his needs. What else can we do to ensure the former happens in all of our states and not the latter?
Comments
Karen says:
Holly: I concur with your comments and the need to improve one's practice (in a continuous improvement cycle), without "crushing spirits". At the SEA level, we are also hearing and sensing the stress and anxiety that both teachers and principals are feeling with the implementation of their systems. I concur that high quality coaching and mentoring are invaluable to not only boost confidence, but to also help teachers grow in practice. Principals also need coaches and mentors. . . Regarding your ending question: I feel it's critical that student/teacher performance measures reflect fairnessand relevancy tied to the context of a teacher's classroom/school. Ongoing dialogue between teacher and evaluator as well as the need for all stakeholders to understand "change" - the challenges that will be faced, how this "change" will impact the current way of doing business, balanced with developing strategies collaboratively as a team as to how best deal with it - will strengthen trust and openness.
November 5, 2012 at 4:38 PM | Permalink