1. Advancing Student and Educator Growth through Peer Feedback
Laurie Pallin
Heather Sangermano
Teacher asks question, calls on any student – response, “I don’t think this is right, but….”

2. Conference Objectives
Participants will…
Explore the use of peer observations to improve and advance educator practice and instructional quality
Explore the potential of peer feedback to support professional growth to improve student outcomes;
Engage in specific professional learning visit strategies aligned with Connecticut’s Standards for Professional Learning and designed to improve educator practice and student outcomes; and
Identify strategies, practices, and/or measures to bring back to respective districts.

3. Part I: History of Professional Learning Visits (PLVs)
Creating a culture in every school whereby all staff members learn from one another

4. Voluntary Teams of Trained Observers Focused on Problems of Practice
Page 1
Hypothesis:
Use of close reading strategies will provide students with the skills to explicitly reference the text when responding to comprehension questions.
Focus Question:
What evidence is there that students are using close reading strategies text to support written and verbal responses to text-based questions?
Steps for Initiation:
Meet with other PLV trained team members to establish norms, set schedule for visit, identify evidence
Conduct our first walk by end of November
Post results in staff room
Discuss results at December staff meeting
Conduct second walk by end of March
Post results and share at April staff meeting
Teachers identified instructional areas they wanted to improve and practices to implement in their classrooms

5. “Our school culture of concern for our students drives our teacher walkthrough program. Our teachers are open to continuously seeking out and accepting ways to improve our students’ learning.”
M.J. Dix, Principal, Leonard J. Tyl Middle School

6. Part II: Evolution of PLC /PLV Process in light of state mandates
Preserving a culture in every school whereby all staff members learn from one another

7. Illustration of Core Requirements of Teacher Evaluation
Student Growth and Development (45%)
Whole-school Student Learning Indicators or Student Feedback (5%)
Observations of Performance and Practice (40%)
Peer Feedback (10%)
Outcome Rating (50%)
Practice Rating (50%)
Peer feedback comprises 10% of your final annual rating.
All of these factors are combined
to reach your final annual
rating

8. Legislation Regarding Professional Learning

9. Evaluation Component # 2- Peer Feedback (10%)
The Peer Feedback component of the teacher evaluation plan consists of the following steps:
Teacher identifies a focus for peer observations based on performance and practice goal and based upon school and district goals.
Teacher works with PLC group to develop a list of observable behaviors that indicates progress toward meeting the goal.
Peer conducts at least two observations (one before January midyear conference), completes Professional Learning Visit Feedback Form for each visit, and shares forms with the teacher.
Teacher engages in dialogue with the PLC group about his/her progress.
Teacher completes a reflective narrative and self-rating to submit to evaluator.
The purpose of the peer feedback goal is to encourage teachers to learn from one another and to further our professional learning visit initiative. Peer observations will remain teacher-centered. Peer observers will not be involved in evaluating a teacher. Instead, the teacher being evaluated incorporates comments from the Professional Learning Visit Feedback Form and the PLC conversations into a reflective narrative summarizing his/her progress toward meeting the goal.  This narrative should include answers to the following questions:
What is your goal?
How did your performance in this area look at the
beginning of the year?
What evidence did you decide would be collected
through the peer feedback process to show
progress toward your goal?
What recommendations were made by your peer
observer and your PLC group?
How has implementation of the recommendations
made by your peers impacted student learning?

10. Documentation
Page 2

11. Peer Feedback Scoring

12. Evaluate our Decision Which statement do you agree with the most?
The score which each teacher receives for this 10% of their total annual evaluation score should be determined by the evaluator based upon measurable, consistently administered criteria. OR
2. The value of peer feedback and its potential for promoting teacher and student growth outweighs the possibility that teachers will score themselves more highly than their administrator would.
Are evaluators’ scores consistent, quantitative measures which truly reflect instructional quality?
Is the 45% bucket for SLO’s more accurate?

13. Part III: Aligning Evaluation with Goals and Professional Learning
Montville Public Schools is a community of problem-solvers.

14. Page 3

15. Which of these 41 elements most directly align with st achievement goals…those provide coherence in goals.
Middle section is about student learning of declarative and procedural knowledge
New
Practice and deepen
Hypothesis generation and testing
First year teachers had wide degree of choice from 41 elements

16. Reflecting on Progress
Page 4-5

17. PLV Planning
Focus: Students will improve skills in argument (developing written and oral arguments with Claims, Reasons, Evidence and evaluating the arguments of others)
Desired, Observable Behaviors
Observable Evidence
What does the teacher do?
What do the students do?
What does student work look like?
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