Beginning of the Year Thinking End of the Year Thinking
This week I will be reflecting on my involvement Robert Marzano's Causal Evaluation Model which has recently been adopted as the teacher evaluation framework in most of the state of Florida. I volunteered to participate in intensive coaching and filming sessions throughout the past year and a half that were sometimes stressful but always revealing. I had always been a fan of Marzano’s work but was skeptical about the model for several reasons. Over the next several posts I will be outlining some of the changes that occurred in my thoughts related to the model and why I am excited about the direction that it is taking us in.
The Marzano Causal Evaluation Model is overwhelming at first glance. It covers 60 different elements of teaching across 4 domains including classroom strategies and behaviors, planning and preparing, reflecting on teaching, and collegiality and professionalism. Teachers can be evaluated in each of the 60 elements and rated on a 5 level scale from “not using” to “innovating,” which means that a teacher is not only using a given strategy but monitoring its effect on all students and adapting it to fit the needs of individuals. My initial reaction to it was that all of the elements were good things but it was way too complex to become an effective tool for busy teachers and administrators in the real world.
As I finish my second year of working with the model I have to say that my understanding of it has evolved and I am now a full fledged proponent of its use. The complexity of the model is actually its strength and not its weakness as it switches the focus on growth as oppose to accountability. Traditional evaluation models and the current drive to use test scores as a basis for rating teachers tend to be simplistic and only cover a few elements of actual teaching. This has created an atmosphere of “gotcha” type evaluations that have provided very little actionable feedback and bred mistrust and disenfranchisement. Simply put, building expertise is not an easy process and it demands a complex tool to support it.
The Marzano model is about empowering teachers and the specific focus on a few areas of need at a time. When implemented correctly, teachers get to choose elements to focus on to build expertise each year. This year I focused on two elements (tracking student progress and generating and testing hypothesis) and really had a chance to develop expertise in using them in the classroom. It required me to really break down and focus on the steps I was using with these particular strategies and then look for evidence in student responses and work to measure the effectiveness of what I was doing. As I gained fluency and confidence in using the strategies I was then able to combine several in what are referred to as macrostrategies (several strategies combined). The lessons that I built using my focus strategies were the best ones of the year and I will be able to build on them next year. Considering that I will be able to devote 10 months to becoming an expert in 2 more strategies next year it becomes apparent how powerful the cumulative effect of this could be in the long term.
It has been said that talent gets you in the door but it is your work ethic and practice that determines where you go from there. A purposeful and comitted focus on building expertise using a growth and not a simplistic “gotcha” model promises exciting things for those who are willing to devote themselves to it.
Malcolm Gladwell on the 10,000 hour rule. How does it support a growth as oppose to accountability model?
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