Just wondering about Professional Growth and Evaluation

Two years ago, when I first started at Rabat American School, one of the first big tasks we took on was to revamp the school’s Professional Growth and Evaluation (PGE) model. What I am sharing here are our steps and my reflections since we enter the second year of this process and continue to make improvements.

There is extensive research on this topic, and we also drew from our collaborative experience. We didn’t start from scratch. Instead, we combined elements from different models to create a process that feels meaningful for us.

Our PGE has two main pillars: professional growth and evaluation, and they are closely interconnected. Here’s how the model works:

Self Assessment

During our orientation week, each educator (teachers, counsellors, instructional assistants, and leadership) does a self-assessment on a role-specific rubric. After researching existing tools, and after drawing on previous experience with Kim Marshall’s work (he published an updated version of his teacher evaluation rubric in March 2024) we selected his rubric as a base. The key for our Teaching and Learning Team (TLT) was involving a wider group to ensure input, get buy-in, and make this rubric for our community. We held a powerful session with our team leaders, who gave extensive feedback that TLT reviewed and incorporated (photos below). Later, we ran a similar session with our instructional assistants, and we worked with our counsellors and then with the leadership team to also obtain rubrics that everyone left confident using.

Hypothesis Setting

After the self-assessment, educators identify an area or domain to focus their efforts on, and they review this with their supervisors. From then on, instead of setting traditional goals (like SMART etc), educators come up with a hypothesis, like « If I implement structured reflection and goal-setting activities in my math classes, then students will demonstrate improved metacognitive skills leading to better learner skills and increased self-efficacy ». This hypothesis-driven model stems from our collaboration with Steve Barkley. Here is an article to learn more about his approach.

Testing and Peer Coaching

Educators then test their hypotheses throughout the year. They may select some professional development opportunities that connect directly with their hypotheses. Through our work with Steve Barkley, we have also developed a culture of peer coaching: supporting one another as colleagues, not as evaluators (see Steve Barkley's model below). Peer coaching is now part of our Professional Growth model and can serve as a way to collect data to test each hypothesis. To learn more about peer coaching, Steve Barkley has lots of resources on his website.

Sharing and Celebrating

At the end of the year, we celebrate and share our conclusions as a school community. This is now a major Teaching and Learning event with music and fresh juice mocktails (idea from our teacher leders)

Evaluation

Principals also meet each educator at the end of the year and return to the rubric from the start of the process. They establish ratings for each domain and an overall rating. We’ve found this model to be thorough and flexible, as it allows Principals to adapt the focus depending on the needs of individual teachers. Importantly, we do not expect ratings for every single line of the rubric.

This year, our focus is on making the process more manageable for Principals while maintaining the momentum of a model that is appreciated, research-based, and, above all, meaningful. In parallel, Principals conduct mini-observations throughout the year and keep their notes in a PGE Journal, which educators can review, comment on, and edit.

High-Quality Learning

Finally, we collaboratively developed a school-wide definition of High-Quality Learning (HQL). We unpacked this definition by grade levels and subjects to determine specific “look-fors.” I have the privilege of visiting classes to celebrate HQL in action, creating flyers with photos and observations that I share with the educators and the Principals. These are now featured in our weekly staff communications and our school bulletin for parents.

We are only in our second year with this process, but we feel that we are making strong progress towards our collective efficacy to support student learning.  Along the way, we continue to collect feedback to refine and improve the process and look forward to hearing your ideas.

For what it's worth...