GACE Teacher Leadership Webinar

People in this video:

Narrators/commentators as noted below in text.

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist

Narrator – Other Speakers

On-screen: [Welcome to the Georgia Assessments for the Certification of Educators (GACE) Teacher Leadership Assessment Webinar Thursday, July 24, 2014, 10 a.m. ET Administered by GACE.]

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist: Hello, everyone. We very much appreciate your time and desire and wanting to know as much as you can about the Georgia Teacher Leadership Assessment, and we also appreciate you wanting your students to do their very best on this assessment as well. We hope that the information that we present to you today is going to be very helpful. My name is Annette Deluca. I am an assessment specialist here at Educational Testing Service. Previously I was an elementary teacher for 25 years, and I have now been at ETS for the past 15 years.

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: And my name is Steve Schreiner and I was a middle-level English teacher for 35 years in a school district north of Philadelphia, and I came to ETS in the year 2000, working on performance assessments with Annette.

On-screen: [Overview of Today's Webinar
Welcome and Introductions
Task Requirements
GACE Teacher Leadership Tasks
Scoring the Responses
Receiving Scores
Preparing for the Assessment
Registration
Important Dates
Questions]

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist: Okay, so today what we will be doing is basically talking about the tasks of the Georgia Teacher Leadership Assessment. The majority of our time will be spent on going through each of the six tasks and the requirements of each of those. Then what we will do is we’ll talk a little bit on how to prepare for the assessment, how registration and scoring will happen, and some important dates about the assessment as far as submission and scoring and score reporting.

On-screen: [Task Requirements
Focus on Teacher Leader as a provider of professional support
Background information for the specific task (not scored)
Textbox format
Written commentary
Artifacts]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: So we want to start off with the idea of the task requirements, but we want to give a little focus on all six first before we talk about the individual tasks, and I really want to put some emphasis on that first bullet. This assessment is about how the teacher leader facilitates professional growth among colleagues. So you’re going to see some tasks, and for instance an example of that would be working with families and community, and in that instance it’s not what the teacher leader does in his or her work with families and community. It’s about honing those skills of colleagues so that those colleagues can be better at supporting families and interacting with the community, and we want to try to keep that in mind as we go through each of these. We will try to reinforce that as we go through each task.

And I think the other thing that needs to be mentioned in terms of this first bullet is that these tasks were created with the idea in mind of what teacher leaders actually do. So when teacher leaders work with the task, they should be writing about things that they’re actually doing even right now or will be doing in the next year or so. So it’s not stuff that’s forced. It’s the reality of the situation in which that teacher leader works.

Now in each of the tasks, you’re going to find commonality. So as you go through, you’re going to see what we call the textbox format and that’s going to be groups of questions together in different topics. And you’re also going to see that the rubric that matches the task is built the same way, so that as people are creating their responses to these questions, they could also be checking the rubric at that specific textbox level to see if they’re on task or if they’re off.

Each of the tasks is composed of a written commentary, and the written commentary is written in response to guiding prompts, and you see groups again, groups of those guiding prompts as we go through each of those tasks. Now generally speaking in each task there is also some verbiage about kind of a needs assessment that’s asked for. It might not be scored, but at least it gets, the candidate is asked to do some kind of a needs assessment. There’s always going to be some area of planning, and there’s always going to be an area of implementation, and once that implementation is done, there’s the analysis and reflection. So that’s the format that is followed for each one of these six tasks.

And the second area of submission is what we call artifacts, and there are specific artifacts and we will be covering those for each task. There are specific artifacts that are required, excuse me, a candidate is required to submit, and not only just submit them, but also talk about them in terms of that written commentary. So it’s they could be describing, but they’re also going to be analyzing the impact that those artifacts show in terms of what that teacher leader is doing.

On-screen: [GACE Teacher Leadership Tasks
Candidates are required to successfully complete six tasks
Task responses can be entered into the submission system one at a time, or simultaneously
Tasks must be complete and include all artifacts when submitted for scoring]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: So I would like to spend just a little bit of time on that second bullet. So what will happen is, and again we’ll hit specifics of this later on, but once the candidate gets into what I call the authoring system – it’s also the submission system – once a candidate gets into that authoring system, that candidate can work on his or her task seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. It’s open to that person and that person only. They will find, when they get in there they will find the actual task guiding prompt questions. They will also be able, have an area where they will type their responses, their thinking, their evidence into the computer and the screen just below those guiding prompts. So the guiding prompts will always be in front of them and they can be typing in response to those guiding prompts.

They will also have what we call a library of artifacts, so the candidate can upload artifacts into this library. They do not have to really be restricted to the specific number that is in the task. They can put in quite a few of these artifacts. But when they actually start writing their response to the guiding prompts, then they will link specific artifacts from that library to the written response, and that is the written response and the artifacts is what will finally be scored by raters.

On-screen: [TASK 1: Adult Learning and the Collaboration Culture Context of the Task You will be focusing on a group of colleagues (minimum of three) with whom you worked on a specific task or project and who reflect different stages of career development, different backgrounds, and different perspectives. Consider how you were able to apply strategies of adult learning across your teacher leadership activities with this group in order to promote collegiality and improve instruction and student learning. (Select a situation different from those selected in any other task.)]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: So we’re on task one, and if you take a look at task one again, to repeat, this is set up; each of the six tasks is set up the exact same way. So in the beginning you’re always going to find a task overview, something that gives the candidate an idea of what this whole task is about. And I’m also going to repeat remember whatever it is they’re focusing on, whatever activity they’ve chosen, that activity should be something that they’re actually working with. The candidate has that option to also talk about things that have been occurring; he or she has been working on for two years prior to this particular year that they’re submitting their response.

In this case for task one; this one is about adult learning in a collaborative culture. What I think is really important about task one is that you’re going to see as you go through other tasks questions are being asked about adult learning strategies that are being used, whether it’s working with peers, whether it’s working a specific colleague, but these strategies are going to appear throughout. So the suggestion might be that when someone is going to be doing these six tasks, they consider starting with task one because the ideas in here permeate really the other five tasks as well.

On-screen: [TASK 1
Adult Learning and the Collaborative Culture
Focus on:
Your Colleagues
Your Colleagues' Learning Needs
The Task/Project
The Adult Learning — Individuals (4 maximum)
The Adult Learning — The Group
Impact of Adult Learning
Artifacts:
Feedback from 2 colleagues (4 pages)
Documentation of an adult-learning strategy used (1 page)
Documentation from the plan/project (1 page)]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: So what happens in this case, the candidate is asked to choose a group of colleagues with whom he or she is going to work. And the suggestion here would be, whether it’s for this task or the others, if possible – remember it’s the realistic situation you’re in, the people that you are working with – if possible you want to try to use colleagues that represent a variety of kinds of back experiences, backgrounds and teaching contexts because that then gives a candidate more to talk about in terms of how the strategies, adult learning strategies were applied.

This section in the very beginning, again it’s something that appears in each of the six tasks. There’s a section in the beginning about the colleagues. That provides background for the person who is going to be scoring this response. This bullet, this first bullet, which is always labeled zero, it would be 1.0 in this case, or 2.0, is not scored. It is just there for background information and consists of about a half a page for that background information.

If you have your task in front of you, then you’re going to get to see that one of the things to talk about in the beginning is the colleagues’ learning needs. So how has a candidate identified the learning needs of those colleagues? And, again, it gives a candidate more to talk about, if they are using candidates, oh, colleagues of different backgrounds. And then the group decides on a task or project, and what’s important here is what strategies is the candidate using to help get this task or project going, getting it organized, getting the plan created.

And then there is this concept of what adult learning strategies did the candidate use with the individuals in the group, but also the group as an entity? So there can be interactions with, one-on-one interactions during the course of putting this together, but there’s also that idea of the interaction with the group as a whole and the people interacting together.

And then the last, the question is what is the result, what, the analysis of that impact of adult learning on the colleagues? How did they grow as professionals in this area? And in this case for task one, we have three kinds of artifacts, and you’re going to notice as we go through these there’s a consistency here. So one of the artifacts that are frequently asked for is some kind of feedback, and in this case it’s feedback from two colleagues and the candidate is allowed to provide four pages of that feedback. Another artifact would be documentation of adult learning strategy that was used. That could be a handout that was used. It could be an email that explains something. It could be a lot of different things. But as long as it’s showing what that adult learning strategy was, that’s what the candidate would benefit from.

And last also since the group is putting together some kind of a plan, or working on some kind of project, there would be something, some documentation that would be provided from that plan or that project. And I really want to reinforce here too that these artifacts are submitted and they’re discussed, but they’re also analyzed. It’s not just that they’re mentioned or referred to. They really are embedded in that written response to the guiding prompts and analyzed in terms of their impact and effect on the candidate. That is task one.

On-screen: [TASK 2 Research for the Improvement of Practice Context of the Task You will be focusing on a situation in which you were able to initiate and facilitate your colleagues' (minimum of three) design and implementation of research, including choice of appropriate methodology and analysis of data directly related to a curriculum-based issue. (Select a situation different from those selected in any other task.)]

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist: Okay. Let’s move on to task two, which is research for the improvement in practice. This task assesses seven standards. And here the teacher leader will initiate and then facilitate colleagues in the design and implementation of a curriculum-based research issue. And this research issue has to connect to student learning needs. So within task two they are going to be doing purposeful research that will be leading to change.

On-screen: [Task 2: Research for the Improvement of Practice
Focus on:
The Curriculum-Related Research Topic
Leading the Research Process
Analysis and Use of the Data to Improve Teaching and Learning
Impact on Teaching and Learning
Artifacts:
Data sample (2 pages)
Communication that reflects interactions with colleagues about the research
Feedback from colleagues concerning the research process (3 pages maximum from the above 2 categories)]

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist: So within task two, here again, as Steve said earlier, we are going to be asking the teacher leader candidate to talk about how he or she facilitates this research project. So we’re going to ask them to do is to first talk about the steps that they used to initiate this research project, and then how they, the teacher leader guided these colleagues in identifying and clarifying the curriculum-based issue that they wanted to research. So it’s not about the teacher leader doing the research. It’s not about the teacher leader telling the group what they are going to be doing. We’re asking guiding prompts that ask them how did you facilitate this? How did you guide this? How did you initiate this? So then what they’re going to do is they’re going to design a research plan and we’re going to ask this teacher leader candidate how the teacher leader guided them, the colleagues, to collaborate in the creation. So I want you to keep hearing these words that we’re using, too, to initiate, to guide, to design, to facilitate. Those are all important whenever it comes time for that teacher leader candidate to respond to those guiding prompts within each of these tasks.

So once the candidate has their colleagues in this team, what they are going to do is to guide them in accessing and using research. Here the teacher leader becomes that facilitator who shows the colleagues where they can get research, where they can maybe access and use different research. They’re also going to help them in facilitating the analysis and decision making of this research project. Once this project is implemented, what kind of analysis are they going to be doing? Okay? And then what kind of decision making are they going to be, or what kind of decision is going to be made in regard to that analysis? So what they’re going to, this teacher leader candidate is going to do is they’re going to guide these colleagues to collaborate also with educational organizations on these research-related issues. There are many educational organizations out there that the teacher leader can show the colleagues that they have access to, such as ASCD, or NEA or NSTA. There are so many out there that the candidate can help their colleagues understand that there are places to go in order to do a research-based project.

So once the candidate and the colleagues implement this research to improve practice and student learning, then they’re going to do the analysis. They’re going to use data and find out did this really improve teaching and learning? Okay? So we’re going to ask that colleague how did they facilitate the analysis? Not how did the teacher leader candidate analyze it themselves, or himself or herself, but how did he or she facilitate the analysis with the colleagues, and then how did they apply those findings to impact student learning? What were the results of that analysis? How did it impact student learning? Student learning should be the end result in all of these tasks and the teacher leader candidate should talk about that in all of these tasks. The end result has to show student learning, student growth. Okay, it has to be targeted towards those students.

And then once they have implemented it, and they’ve done the analysis of it, and they talk about how did the results affect student learning, then we want to know about the research process. Okay, we’re going to ask, and the end part of these tasks are reflective for these teacher leader candidates as well, because they have guided, they have facilitated, and what we want them to do now is to step back and think about how this went. So what we’re going to ask them to do is to talk about how this research project affected their colleagues’ ability to select strategies to support student learning or to improve practice. And is this something that is going to be ongoing for them? Okay? Would they change anything that they did? Was it successful? How will this impact? And the whole idea is for these colleagues to continue to do things like this. So how, what kind of impact did that candidate have on these colleagues in doing this research project?

For task two we have artifacts that will ask them for a sample of their research, a representative sample of the data that they get from the research project. We’re also going to ask them for some form of communication to show interaction between individuals in these groups. And then we’re going to have, we’re going to ask for feedback from colleagues concerning this research project as well. That could be emails, letters or some kind of creative form. Okay? So that is task two.

On-screen: : [TASK 3. Professional Learning. Context of the Task. You will be focusing on a situation in which you were able to inform and facilitate the design and implementation of a coherent, integrated, embedded, and differentiated professional learning plan based on assessed student and teacher needs. (Select a situation different from those selected in any other task.)]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: Task three. And this is about professional learning, and there are certain words in this paragraph I really would like to emphasize, and the guiding prompts within the task also lead the candidate to address these words. And what it says there, and what you are able to inform and facilitate the design and implementation, and here come the key words, of a coherent, integrated, embedded and differentiated professional learning plan. So this is really suggesting that we’re not talking about a single workshop or a single session or a presentation. It’s about a plan and a plan that is coherent, integrated and embedded in actual practice.

On-screen: : [TASK 3 Professional Learning
Focus on:
Preliminary Activity
Design of Professional Learning Plan
Analysis Implementation and Impact of a Professional Learning Plan
Feedback and Analysis
Artifacts:
Professional learning plan (2 pages)
Feedback from stakeholders ( 2 pages)
Materials that document the plan's coherence, integral on, and differentiation]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: So there is a preliminary activity. If you remember we mentioned this idea that there is certain information that the candidate is going to be giving the raters so that they have an idea of the situation in which the candidate is working, and in this case it’s about the professional learning plan and the idea of a needs assessment that was used to talk about, determine that professional plan. That is background information and it is not scored. In the task itself and the response, there is a focus on the design of the professional learning plan, and if you have your task in front of you, I really would like to emphasize that second bullet. So, again, it’s asking about the alignment, but it’s also saying why is the goal of this plan significant? And that reinforces what I said earlier. This is not just a single session. It is a collection of items that is based on we have an idea of what the needs are of the faculty, of the colleagues, and what is the plan that’s going to address them, and that plan really needs to be more long term. And the questions, as you’ll see, they’re asking about how is the plan embedded in the actual practice?

The other thing in here I’d like to mention and reinforce is that this task is asking about resources and technology and/or media literacy. So in this task specifically the candidate is going to address, have to address how he or she made use of different resources, technology and media literacy to address those professional learning goals. And I want to reinforce what Annette said, and I apologize for not saying it in the beginning, and that is each one of these tasks leads into the impact on student learning, and that’s true for this task because the candidate is asked how did the plan affect students and teachers, and then it’s asking for evidence about that impact.

Again if you notice, look at the artifacts down below, and the last bullet on the focus and then the artifacts. This task also asks for feedback from the stakeholders and then requires the candidate to do an analysis of that feedback. I just want to take another quick break and that is the keyword here is analysis, and I mentioned this earlier, when making use of artifacts. There are three kinds of writing that the candidate is going to have to work with, and those three kinds are description, analysis and reflection. And in order to address the rubric appropriately, all three types of writing really are going to need to be done. So this basically is the professional learning task, task three.

On-screen: : [TASK 4 Teacher Leadership: Observation and Use of Assessment Data Context of the Task: You will be focusing on a situation in which you were able to advance the professional skills of a colleague by demonstrating and applying expertise in observational skills and in providing quality feedback to support reflective practice. More specifically, think about how you have been able to inform and facilitate the selection or the design, use, and interpretation of multiple assessments, along with other available data, to make informed decisions. (Select a situation different from those selected in any other task.)

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist: Okay, and moving on to task four, which is called observation, the use of data, assessment data. Five standards are addressed in task four, and this task focuses on a situation in which the teacher leader is able to advance the professional skills of a colleague by demonstrating their expertise and observational skills and in providing quality feedback, and all of that is in order to help support your colleagues’ reflective practice.

On-screen: : [TASK 4: TASK 4 Teacher Leadership: Observation and Use of Assessment Data
Focus on:
Preliminary Activity
Preobservation
Observation(s)
Post observation and Feedback
Overall Analysis
Artifacts:
Feedback from the colleague (1 page)
Teacher leader's outline of the Interview
Teacher leader's observation notes
Teacher-colleague lesson plan
Script from discussion with teacher-colleague
Teacher-colleague's assessment plan or assessment tool that is part of the observed lesson (3 pages from any of the 5 preceding categories)]

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist: So if we take a look at the task, what we are looking for is for this teacher leader candidate to select a colleague. Now this colleague can be a novice teacher or it can be an experienced teacher, but they will; the preliminary activity is for them to select this colleague, and with the colleague they’re going to select a lesson on which to focus and where this teacher leader candidate will observe. But the lesson or the lessons must be rich enough to support the use of multiple assessments and data collection. Okay? So the focus here is a lesson, but also that within that lesson they’re talking about assessment and using data to inform instruction.

Okay, so the lesson may be new or it could be previously taught, but it could also be done over one or two days or even maybe multiple days. Okay, because we talk about the use of multiple assessments, sometimes that doesn’t just lend itself to a one-shot, one-day lesson observation, so the candidate and the colleague can talk about how this will happen and be observed. Okay? So that was the preliminary activity.

So now what we’re asking the candidate to do next is pre-observation. So what we’re asking them are for steps for the pre-observation meeting. So this teacher leader candidate is going to sit with the colleague that they have selected and they’re going to talk about what’s going to happen in the classroom when that candidate, teacher leader candidate goes in to observe. So we’re asking the teacher leader candidate what kind of steps are you doing to prepare for this pre-observation meeting? And then we’re going to ask them how did they help the colleague collect, analyze and apply data to determine the focus for the lesson? Okay, remember we’re talking about multiple assessments, but we’re also talking about multiple avenues for data collection. So what the gist of this task is as well, this teacher leader candidate is demonstrating and is modeling for this teacher, for this colleague the planning and the thought processes that go into what, how I’m going to use this data to inform my instruction. So what we’re also asking the teacher candidate to do is to talk about, in this pre-observation, how they support this colleague’s selection and inclusion of these multiple assessments and this data collection, but also how this is aligned with their lessons and goals and the state standards or the local standards that they’re using for the lesson. We also want the teacher leader to talk about the feedback to the colleague about the lesson’s design and the strategies, a reflective, what strategies of a reflective practice did the teacher model, teacher leader candidate model during this pre-observation.

So there’s a lot of stuff going on in just the pre-observation as well. But what we want, and Steve said this right up front with task one, is understanding that adult learner. How did this teacher leader candidate work with this colleague? How were the interactions? How did you, how did this teacher leader candidate model reflective practice? When they’re planning this, and when we talk about modeling it, you know, we’re talking about maybe a think aloud. Oh, let me think how this will happen, or let me think about the processes I need to go through or what I’m going to do. Okay, so what we want to have the candidate then to talk about is that reflective practice, how they modeled it.

So then they’re going to go in and observe. Okay? We’re going to ask them to talk about what area in particular they’re focusing on when they go and observe this colleague and why they’re going to do that, and we’re going to ask them to cite evidence about the effectiveness of the assessment and the data collection tools that were then decided to use as part of this lesson. But we also ask that teacher candidate to think back to that pre-observation and the guidance that they gave then and to talk about now what impact that guidance, that previous guidance had now on the lesson. Okay? What impacted the feedback that the teacher candidate gives earlier have on this lesson presently?

So then after observing the lesson, what aspects of the pre-observation meeting now would the teacher leader candidate change? You know, maybe after they watched this, they’ve observed this colleague in the classroom and they think back to the feedback that they gave them in the pre-observation meeting, maybe they’re thinking, you know, what I need to revise that and I need to do this, or I need to be stronger in that or I need to model maybe this more. So those are the kinds of things that we’re asking them to talk about in this section.

So then once they observe this colleague, now they’re going to have a post-observation and they’re going to give that colleague feedback as well. So we’re going to ask the teacher leader candidate to talk about the feedback and the strategies they modeled to support this colleague, colleague’s reflective practice. Remember this candidate, one of the candidate’s goals is to have this colleague be a reflective practitioner, so we want to know what this candidate, and this teacher leader candidate is doing to model those kinds of things.

So we’re asking the candidate about the feedback to the colleague in evaluating those multiple assessment tools and other available data to make informed decisions and to improve student learning. It all comes back to that student learning. And then at the very end, now is that reflective part, that overall analysis from that teacher leader candidate, because one of artifacts is feedback from the colleague. They’re going to fill out a pre-done feedback form. So now what this teacher leader candidate is going to do is take a look at that feedback, and they’re going to analyze it, and now they’re going to think about the effect of this teacher leader’s ability to advance this person’s professional skills and the collaboration with that person as well and, too, for their student learning. So a lot is also going on there as far as the reflective part for this teacher leader.

And then the last thing is and how would this teacher leader candidate work with others to promote their other colleague’s instructional practices through the collection of assessment in data? So it’s not only what this person; in the reflective part in this overall analysis, it’s not only what they did with this one person. Now where does this teacher leader candidate take it for future use with other colleagues?

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: Before I move on, I want to pick up on something that Annette said, and she said early on that it might, you might want to be choosing a lesson or lessons that allow for multiple efforts at assessment and I think that’s reinforcing what we’re trying to say, too, for each of these tasks. Whatever topic, whatever activity the candidate chooses for each of these tasks really it’s important that they choose something that’s got enough richness to it, that has enough depth to it so that they can provide evidence that responds to these guiding prompts, you know, on a strong basis. Again I mentioned earlier the idea of you don’t necessarily want to have a one-shot deal workshop, but these tasks are really requiring that the activities be ongoing. I think also I need to mention that sometimes, back to that realistic nature of the situation with these tasks, that sometimes somebody is really, really involved in something like literacy, and so a person might say, “Well, I do a lot of literacy. Do I have to change the topic for each of these tasks?” and the answer is no. It still could be an overall topic of literacy, but the situations in which that literacy is addressed could be very, very different. And an example of that would be the idea of you still could work with literacy, but in this case it would be literacy and its connection to collaboration with families and the community.

On-screen: : [TASK 5: Collaboration with Families and the Community Context of the Task You will be focusing on a situation in which you concentrated on improving colleagues' collaboration and interaction in their work with families and the community. (Select a situation different from those selected in other tasks.)]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: This is task five and it is about; and there’s, here’s where it’s really obvious. You’re working with colleagues to improve their skills in collaboration and their interaction in work with the families. It’s not about what the candidate himself or herself is actually doing; it’s about developing those colleagues’ skills.

On-screen: :[TASK 5: Collaboration with Families and the Community
Focus on:
Identification of Colleagues
Family/Community Needs Assessment
Plan and Implementation
Successes and Challenges
Feedback and Analysis
Artifacts:
Needs Assessment (2 pages)
Feedback from colleagues/stakeholders involved in the process (3 pages)]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: For this one I just would like to read a couple lines directly from the task that talk about what’s involved in this one. First of all, this is the one task where the needs assessment is actually part of the scoring. So instead of it being background, it is a part of it. And that needs assessment can be something that’s already in existence, but something that really needs to be modified for this particular situation. And it’s the idea of using colleagues to help create that needs assessment.

One of the things that you’re asked to do is whatever plan that is resulting needs to address a relevant aspect of the educational system, and the question is what area of that educational system will this collaboration improve, and, again, how will student learning activities be affected? In this task, again, a specific question about the use of adult learning strategies used with the colleagues to help them hone those skills in working with parents in the community. And also in this one the idea of asking about what were some successes and what were some challenges that the candidate met up with during the course of implementing the activities and the plans.

And last talking about the feedback, and in this case back that needs assessment. In this case there are two pages of that needs assessment that can be submitted. That needs assessment could have been longer than two, but just two representative pages, two pages that would be significant to the rater. And, again, we’re back to the idea of colleagues, feedback from colleagues or stakeholders involved in the process. So that is collaboration with families and community and I think you’re going to see there’s a large amount of parallel construction between this task and the next one.

On-screen: [TASK 6: Collaborative Teams and Advocacy Context of the Task: You will be focusing on a situation in which you were able to identify and assess opportunities for educational improvement and advocate effectively for them by developing and supporting a collaborative team and promoting collegial interactions that improve the effectiveness of practice. (Select a situation different from those selected in other tasks.)]

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist: Okay, so task six is called collaborative teams and advocacy. Four standards are addressed in this task. And in this task the teacher candidate, we are assessing the teacher candidate’s ability to identify and assess opportunities for educational improvement and advocate for them by first developing a collaborative team and then promoting these collegial interactions to improve that practice. So within this task they’re going to do a needs assessment first. Okay, we’re going to ask the teacher leader candidate to talk about how he or she and their colleagues used this needs assessment to identify and assess opportunities for educational improvement and student learning. Okay?

On-screen: [TASK 6: Collaborative Teams and Advocacy 
Focus on:
Needs Assessment
The Plan
You and Your Colleagues
Advocacy
Feedback and Evaluation
Artifacts:
Advocacy plan (1 page)
Professional growth evaluation from a minimum of 2 colleagues (3 pages)
Stakeholder feedback (2 pages)]

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist: So the first thing we’ll ask them after the needs assessment to do is to talk about what was identified as the educational improvement and then to describe the advocacy plan that the teacher leader candidate and with the colleagues developed, and then how we want them to explain also the relevancy of why they’re doing this. What is the relevancy to the educational system in order to improve student learning? And then we also ask the teacher leader candidate to talk about educational policies and trends that might influence this advocacy work. Okay? So once again the teacher leader candidate needs to be current on educational policy and trends.

So the next part that we talk about in this task is we’re going to ask them, the teacher leader candidate, who are the colleagues that they’re working with and why did you choose this particular group of colleagues? And then what strategies and leadership skills did this teacher leader candidate use to build this collaborative team? Here we’re back again to the adult learning situation again. What kind of strategies did they use to build this team and how this team was going to work collaboratively, and then how did they facilitate the team members’ contributions to this plan?

One of the things we also would like the teacher leader candidate to talk about in this task is how did they promote the understanding of educational policy and its effect on this advocacy plan? So we have the teacher leader leading this, leading these colleagues through this advocacy plan, but then we have the teacher leader also inserting those educational policies that might affect it as well. And then we also want to know what steps are they going to use to ensure that they; what steps is the teacher leader candidate going to use to ensure that there are resources available for their candidates?

Then the next part of this task is the actual advocacy plan itself. So what we want to know are based on the plan, what procedures will the team implement to advocate for this educational improvement, what activities do they have planned for this team to use to involve stakeholders, and then to advocate within and beyond the school community. Okay, so that’s an important part of that fourth section within this task. It’s how do you involve stakeholders and how do you advocate within the school system and beyond or and beyond the school community?

And once the advocacy plan is enacted, then we’re going to ask for some feedback and the evaluation. What means did they use to evaluate the effectiveness of the plan? What means did the teacher leader candidate use to assess the professional growth of her team, his or her team? And then we’re going to ask them for the analysis of the effectiveness of the plan and the collaboration with the team. Here’s the reflective part again. The processes that this teacher leader candidate went through to get this team, or to put this team together, to guide this team, to facilitate this team. Now step back and let’s see, even based on the feedback, because one of the things is feedback from stakeholders, what effect did their collaboration have on this advocacy plan, what effect did the teacher leader candidate’s planning have on it and where would they go next to improve that practice? Okay, so that is task six.

On-screen: [Scoring the Responses:
All responses will be double scored using a four-point rubric Raters include members from the following groups
Program Providers:
P-12 teachers who hold National Board certification and a Master's degree
Practicing Teacher Leaders
Raters scoring the responses will
Complete bias training
Be trained on the tasks and rubrics and other scoring materials
Meet certification and calibration requirements
Be trained and monitored to become an expert in the scoring of two tasks
Scoring Leaders
Perform read-behinds
Monitor scoring activity]

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist: So the next part we want to talk to you briefly about is the scoring aspect of this. So once a teacher leader candidate has all six of their tasks completed, they will submit them through the online submission system that Steve referred to earlier. All the submissions are; all the candidate submissions are double scored, so two raters will be scoring every submission, and based on a four-point rubric, so that means the maximum score a person can get for a task is eight. Raters are going to come from; they are going to be the following groups, program providers, P12 teachers who hold National Board Certification with a master’s degree and practicing teacher leaders. Those who become certified as teacher leaders will also have the option, if they want to, to be a rater.

Raters go through a pretty rigorous process, and we take them through several different elements of scoring these responses and the first one is bias training. We take them through several activities that talk about bias and try, and especially writing bias. Then they’re going to be trained on the tasks, and the rubrics and other scoring materials. And then once they are trained on those materials, then they have to meet certification requirements. They will take a certification test. And they can start, if they were successful then they can start scoring these responses. Every so often as they come back online to score they will have to be recalibrated, so they will have a calibration requirement that they will have to take. And then they’re always monitored. We have scoring leaders that are always performing read-behinds and monitoring the scoring activities.

On-screen: : [Receiving Scores:
Score report is available via candidate's Teacher Leadership testing account
Scores are also sent to the program provider, the GaPSC, and any others identified by the candidate at the time of registration
Score-level feedback will be issued with the score report, based on the specifics of the guiding prompts In the event the composite score does not meet the passing score, the candidate can resubmit any task(s) with a score of 5 or lower, or nonscorable]

Narrator – Annette Deluca, Assessment Specialist: So once these are scored, they will, the candidates will get a score report via their account, their online account, and these scores will be also sent to the Georgia PSC and any other institutions that the candidate at that time would like their scores to go to.

On the score report there will be score level feedback just based on the specifics of each of the guiding prompts. And in the event that this candidate does not; there will be a standard set for overall total score, and in the event that this teacher leader candidate does not reach that set standard, they have the option to resubmit any task that has a score of five or lower.

On-screen: [Preparing for the Assessment
GACE Teacher Leadership Website
GACE Registration Bulletin
GACE Teacher Leadership Assessment Candidate Handbook
Georgia Teacher Leadership Program Standards
Glossary
Permission Forms
Writing Guidelines
Collecting Artifacts
Tasks and Requirements]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: There are quite a few materials that accessible to the candidate that would help him or her go through this process. There is the teacher leadership website and all those materials are there. I mentioned earlier about the idea that the candidate is required to do descriptive, analytic and reflective writing. In the handbook, that’s the third bullet, there is a section in there on that same thing. There are also, there’s a glossary. There is a frequently asked questions. So there’s lots of source, resources that the candidate can make use of to help get through this process. There’s also going to be permission forms. So for any materials that are submitted, the candidate needs to get permission from that person in order to submit them. And the tasks and requirements are right there. They’re transparent. The rubrics are with them. So the candidate or a potential candidate can go in any time and look at these materials and see what he or she needs to do. Keep in mind that a candidate can make use of materials from two previous years, so it would do a person; I think, better to go in well ahead of time, find out what these tasks are and even start collecting materials even before they’ve started.

On-screen: [Registration:
Candidate creates or updates MyPSC account on the GaPSC website.
The GaPSC sends profile and eligibility information to ETS.
An ETS Customer Service Representative creates a testing account for the candidate in the registration system for this assessment (it is not the same registration system used for other GACE assessments); candidate receives a link to the online submission system and log in credentials via email when it is complete.
Candidate accesses testing account and registers for the assessment.
Once registration is complete, candidate can access the online submission system.]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: The registration for teacher leadership is just a little bit different than the other GACE assessments. And in this case the candidate would create the account on the website, and then ETS will receive that information, and then the ETS customer service rep will go in, create the account and then let the candidate know that he or she has an account. And once that happens, then the candidate can access that. It says testing account, I’m going to call the authoring and submission system and go in and start working on his or her responses to the different prompts and requirements.

On-screen:[Important Dates:
Online submission system available: November 3, 2014
First submission deadline: December 31, 2014
Scoring: January 2015
Scores Reported: February 2015
Second submission deadline: May 31, 2015
Scoring: June 2015
Scores Reported: July 2015]

Narrator – Steve Schreiner, Assessment Specialist: There are some important dates on this. The online submission system will be available November 3rd this coming fall. The first deadline is going to be December 31st. Those who submit December 31st will have their materials scored on January 2015. And just a quick tangent. When the candidate is ready for submission, then all six responses are submitted basically at the same time. They will all be scored at the same time. So even if somebody wanted to submit a task like a month early or two weeks early, that’s fine, but it will not be scored until everything is in, and that would be in this case January 2015, and the score report tentatively February 2015. The second submission deadline is May 31st of 2015, with scoring in June and then scores reported by July. Questions.

On-screen: [Questions?  Additional questions should be sent to gace_inquiries@ets.org
with the subject line of Teacher Leadership]

Exit Screen: gace.ets.org