Monthly Archive for June, 2010

IRIS fidelity Webinar

Published on 20 June 2010 in News, Policy, Teacher education and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College (TN, US), which has produced lots of good stuff, published a module entitled “Fidelity of Implementation: Selecting and Implementing Evidence-Based Practices and Programs.” The center has now announced a 7 July, Web-mediated meeting focused on the same subject.

Fidelity of Implementation: Selecting and Implementing Evidence-Based Practices and Programs

Wednesday, July 7
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time (1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time)

Fidelity of implementation is a vital component of any school improvement process. This interactive webinar will outline the “nuts and bolts” of implementation fidelity by highlighting the IRIS Center’s newly developed, free, online professional development instructional module about fidelity. This module discusses the importance of selecting evidence-based practices and programs and examines actions that school personnel can take to increase the likelihood that the practice or program is implemented as it was designed. Presenters include Larry Wexler, Director, Research to Practice Division at the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP); Mel Riddile, Associate Director of High School Services at the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP); Silvia DeRuvo, Senior Program Associate at the California Comprehensive Center at WestEd; Naomi Tyler, Co-principal Investigator of The IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University; and Kim Skow, Project Coordinator of The IRIS Center and Fidelity of Implementation Module Co-developer.

To sign up for this webinar, please visit http://www.schoolsmovingup.net/webinars/irisfidelity

Here’s a link so one can preview the module Fidelity of Implementation: Selecting and Implementing Evidence-Based Practices and Programs.

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Chicago grading teachers down

Published on 17 June 2010 in Administration, News, Policy and Teacher education. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Writing under the headline “Fewer Chicago teachers making the grade: Study shows new evaluation system rates teachers on a tougher curve” in the Chicago (IL, US) Tribune, Tara Malone and Azam Ahmed report about the two-year-old Excellence in Teaching Project that has identified 20 times as many teachers as unsatisfactory as were identified under an earlier system.

Far more Chicago schoolteachers received the worst rating under a new evaluation system intended to measure how educators connect with students, new research shows.
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Teachers are not widgets

Published on 16 June 2010 in Administration, Assessment, News, Policy, Teacher education and The press. 0 Comments

Over on The Widget Effect, billed as “our national failure to acknowledge and act on differences in teacher effectiveness,” one can learn about an effort to alter the assessment of teachers. The project published report in 2009 about a study of teacher evaluation that people associated with the project conducted. That report describes the ways in which teachers are evaluated in four different U.S. states as well as the views of several professional (teacher or administrator) organziations.

The perspective taken in the report is captured in the following excerpt:

If teachers are so important, why do we treat them like widgets?
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Waiting for Waiting for Superman?

Published on 15 June 2010 in News, The press and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Waiting for Superman, a movie which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010, is about education in the United States. I’m looking forward to seeing it, but I don’t have much hope that it will address the issues noted routinely here on Teach Effectively!

These are a couple of videos about the film. To see the trailer, which I couldn’t embed here, go to the Web site for the movie, Waiting for Superman.

Continue reading ‘Waiting for Waiting for Superman?’

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Pitching the usual message

Published on 3 June 2010 in Musings and News. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

In Taiwan, I have the pleasure of speaking with groups in Taitung and Kaohsiung about the importance of effective instruction. I’m posting the outline here.

The accompanying photo shows the aftermath of the talk in Taitung. Notice all the people with their heads down, sleeping.

Our hosts have been fabulous, and the questions from people in the audience have been very thoughtful. Of course, some of the same issues that arise in the US arise here. For example, there appear to be at least a few individuals who support the romantic-nativistic vision that resists assessing learning performance and emphasizes unmeasurable personal-social outcomes.

Still, this is a worthwhile activity! Here’s a link to an outline of the talk.

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