Getting Started with the GACE^® Teacher Leadership Assessment

The following steps are designed to help you prioritize your activities and organize your thinking as you work on your tasks:

• Decide which submission deadline best fits your schedule. See Dates and Deadlines.
• Follow the registration steps for the Teacher Leadership assessment.
• Review the directions for each task, or step within a task, and the corresponding rubric.
• Get a calendar and work backward from your submission deadline date to set a task-completion schedule.
• Start writing and developing your responses to each task, or guiding prompt within each step of a task, and uploading artifacts within the secure online submission system.
• Review your responses to ensure that you have demonstrated the knowledge and skills required in the Georgia Teacher Leadership Standards.
• Compare your responses with the textboxes within the rubrics.
• Submit the task responses and all of the artifacts no later than the submission deadline date.

Using the Rubric

The rubrics for each task, or step within a task, are included in the task directions. The textbox numbers (e.g., 1.1.1 or 1.1.2) listed next to each area being scored on the rubric correspond to the grouping of prompts in the directions. When you finish a draft of a task or step response, read the rubric, ask yourself whether you have provided adequate evidence that addresses each bullet, and critique what you are writing against the rubric.

Collaboration with Colleagues and Other Teacher Leaders

All six of the Teacher Leadership tasks require you to work with colleagues. A colleague, in this context, is a member of the faculty of the school/district where you are experiencing your Teacher Leader internship; a colleague cannot be another candidate in your Teacher Leadership preparation program class.

As much as possible, the colleagues you choose should be different for each task. Although there may be fellow Teacher Leadership candidates in the same school/district who are involved in the activity of the task, it's best if you choose non-candidates to focus on since the tasks require the development of colleagues' skills; a fellow Teacher Leadership candidate's skills should already be finely honed.

When interacting with colleagues, no two people interact the exact same way or respond to others in the same manner. When constructing your written commentary, that difference in perspective must be obvious, and the style of writing and written words must be original to you. When a rater reads multiple submissions, that rater can be expected to find no overlap (similarity in wording). Paragraphs or even sections of paragraphs that are substantially similar will be construed as overlap and in violation of the Rules for Test Participation for the GACE Teacher Leadership assessment.

You may use artifacts that are the same as, or similar to, those used by another colleague. However, your completed artifact should be different, reflecting the different colleagues with whom you worked. If you do use the same artifacts, take care when writing your commentary. Commentary that is similar can constitute overlap.

Focus your work around the requirements of each task. If you are thinking about using something you have already created (e.g., a graduate classwork project) and adjusting it for your response, be sure it is very closely aligned with the task. Sometimes using completed class projects as submissions can result in responses that miss key points of a task, if they are not closely aligned with the Teacher Leadership tasks.