Teacher Evaluation DNA #3 - Embedded and Individualized Coaching

So far in this series, we discussed what Teacher Evaluation DNA (eDNA) is and why it’s important, and we’ve learned about the power of auto-suggestions provided by the iAspire Intelligent Teacher Evaluation Assistant.

There is one more massive benefit of a system knowing your eDNA: Embedded and individualized coaching.

Research has shown time and time again the power of coaching, including the following quote from The Brookings Institution.

“By providing more personalized support to teachers, coaching can improve the classroom instruction students receive and can ultimately ensure that more students are taught by effective teachers and benefit from a high-quality education.”

While most school leaders would love to spend more time coaching their teachers on instructional best practice, there simply isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done.  However, principals play a pivotal role in instructional coaching. Instructional Coach guru Jim Knight describes how principals can triple the effect of coaching.

But how do we bridge this gap, knowing that school leaders are swamped but critical in instructional coaching?  By automating the coaching process.

The iAspire Intelligent Teacher Evaluation Assistant understands your eDNA and will work with you to provide research-based coaching to your teachers using your own evaluation framework’s wording and terminology.  This coaching can be provided in one of two ways:

• The teacher chooses to enroll in an individual coaching experience

• An observer offers a coaching experience based on a classroom observation or need of a teacher

We believe in the power of setting, pursing, and achieving your most important goals.  In iAspire, teachers, administrators, and even organizations can create growth goals. These growth goals are based on the SMART goal methodology and are intended to provide a means to accomplish your most important work.

Teachers, for example, might create a growth goal that is focused on lesson objectives.  During the growth goal setting process, the teacher will be able to choose from different coaching experiences that will help her achieve mastery of lesson objectives. In this way, the coaching can be self-selected by teachers, and it will connect directly to your own framework’s wording.

Principals, coaches, or other observers will also be able to choose from coaching options that are specific to what was observed in a particular observation.  A principal visits a classroom, observes the teacher instructing and the students learning, and provides feedback to the teacher. In addition to the principal making specific commendations and growth opportunities based on the observation, the principal will also be able to offer specific coaching that could benefit the teacher.

While the iAspire has a library of coaching experiences that relate to Danielson, Marzano, and all the others, you will only see your own framework’s terminology.

These coaching experiences are designed to be small, bite-sized microlearning experiences.  According to Training Industry,

“The more we repeat and use information, the more likely it is to end up in long-term memory. That is why microlearning works.”

These micro-learning experiences are offered to your team over the course of a few weeks.  All content is curated, research-based, and actionable. Teachers can start implementing the coaching immediately, and various types of media, including videos, articles, and websites, are used to help the teacher gain the skillet, mindset, and heartset to make an even bigger impact in their classroom.

This is all possible through the iAspire Intelligent Teacher Evaluation Assistant understanding your organization’s eDNA.