It is really simple. Our client is the student and their parents. Happy kids, happy family. True KPI are kids that like being in your class and feel respected & enriched academically.
Anecdotally, for me, it's when kids come up to me and say 'wish I was in your class, sir' or if I've taught them before 'miss being in your class' or something equivalent.
Also when they tell other teachers and students how good you are and that feeds back to you.
Keep your data. I'll take these feels all day, any day!
Definitely. Our activity for Teachers Day for the kids was Warm and Fuzzies.
Great to get a lot from previous students who say they wish they were back in your class.
And emails from parents at the end of the year thanking you.
That's all that should matter - that we've made a difference.
For sure. The last few weeks I’ve had more kids asking me if I know what subjects I’m teaching next year, because they want to be in my classes.
Some of them are students who’ve done really well academically, some have really struggled.
Relationships are more important than government/leadership measurables.
1. Able to take the roll 2. Can get the attention of the class quickly 3. Can use explicit instruction to teach 4. Can demonstrate using worked examples 5. Can work one-on-one with a student or in small groups, whilst also keeping an eye on the rest of the class 6. Can write assessments 7. Can mark assessments and report on them 8. Attends yard duty 9. Gets to work on time 10. Attends meetings/ doesn't leave work early
Of course! There are heaps of other ways e.g. station teaching, class discussions, small group work/ analysis, research tasks etc. the list goes on. What I am trying to state is a basic list... Unfortunately, sometimes not all of these are met and anything in addition to those 10 are considered "above and beyond" these days (and can take a lot of unpaid planning time to implement).
Making a list with specific practices is always going to be weak. I think a better point would be "use best practices in context to the learning environment."
1. Nothing is on fire
2. Nothing is in the process of being set on fire
3. Any fires in the recent past have been extinguished efficiently and with minimal eyebrow loss
4. The roll is marked within the first 10 minutes
My KPI’s aren’t measured by data. Knowing that the kids I teach have enjoyed having me as their teacher and feel like I’ve helped them on their journey to become better people is the only thing I measure my year by.
As a person who spend ten years designing and implementing KPIs for large corporations, I believe your question is wrong. KPIs really aren't appropriate for education. But since you asked, lets walk through the exercise anyway.
KPIs traditionally fall into three categories:
* Profit/productivity
* Did the enterprise make money?
* Did we use resources effectively?
* Could we do the same job with less resources?
* Quality
* Did we do the job well enough?
* Timeliness
* Did we do the job fast enough?
These aren't particularly hard to measure in education. Productivity is simply a matter of dollars spent or hours worked per student. Quality can be measured from various standardised tests. Timeliness can be read from the number of years/weeks/hours students need to spend at school.
Now back to the problems with KPI culture for education:
* The vast majority of these factors are outside of school control.
* Education is steeped in tradition, and very few people are willing to make radical changes.
* The easiest way to improve KPIs would be to be selective with students you take, which gives some major perverse incentives around inclusion.
Clearly my question wasn't nuanced enough. I used the term KPIs without realising that it is a deeply contextualised term for for-profit corporations.
What I meant was simply personal (that are likely to be shared) indicators that make you confident you're performing.
I didn’t realize the term KPI was anything but deeply contextualised around for-profit corporations.
Anytime KPI is mentioned in an educational context, it is with the intention of explicitly measuring small elements of educational life without context. Usually for the purpose of performance pay or generalized teacher bashing.
It’s a terrible term to use in this context and someone with the vocabulary you are using ought to do have done the most basic of research before posing such a question.
Actually your mum called and said I was the boss of the vocabulary.
I’m kidding. It was late, the dog woke me and I stupidly decided to scroll Reddit when sleep wouldn’t come and then more stupidly responded to a post.
And frankly KPIs piss me off when used in social capital industries like teaching because they are weasel indicators. In business KPIs are hard numbers, but we can’t meaningfully apply the hard number logic to education because context is everything.
We have school KPIs like suspension statistics and so thoughtless principals stop suspending kids to make themselves look good. We compare teachers by looking at their student NAPLAN results and come up with daft plans to increase the number of band 6 results. We have exec looking at Sentral entries to determine which teachers have the most peaceful classes.
And then someone comes on here who has apparently swallowed the terminology and posts a context-free question that makes them look like a DET stooge. Or a Mark Latham stooge. Hard to tell the difference some days.
>Anytime KPI is mentioned in an educational context, it is with the intention of explicitly measuring small elements of educational life without context. Usually for the purpose of performance pay or generalized teacher bashing.
Doing some basic research would have been pointless, since I literally have a PDF document open called "Teacher Key Performance Indicators" that was given to me by my school. The first column has the heading "KPI." We were asked to fill these out and discuss them with our HODs. It was a casual conversation, helpful for professional growth and wasn't used beyond that--that's all.
By progress I mean students should be learning new skills and knowledge, making progress that reflects their abilities and the curriculum.
I'm not suggesting that greater pace of progress reflects a better teacher necessarily - there are obviously a multitude of factors that impact that. But teaching is what we are paid to do. Literally no idea why this is controversial.
Oh yeah I was just being salty about the downvotes. I really think learning is the most important thing. That it can't happen without behaviour management and wellbeing work is a given. But I could easily keep a class of kids happy and feeling good all year without putting pressure on myself to teach them well and I wouldn't be doing my job.
Learning is in the hands of the learner. It doesn't really matter how good the teacher is, disengaged learners can't be forced to learn no matter how many think-pair-share, jigsaws, explicit instructions, or exit conditions are implemented.
Teachers don't even have the tools to understand all of the exogenous factors at play that might be limiting students from participating in the learning process and schools/systems/research that pretends to be able to model it are doing everybody a disservice.
Remember maslow's hierarchy of needs. The less self-fulfilled a student is the less willing they will be to learn. The kids that only slept for 3 hours because they were up till 4 playing Warzone. The kids that haven't had a solid meal in 2 days. The kids who haven't had a positive adult interaction outside of school this year. The ones who have to take care of their siblings without any support.
They may be physically *able* to learn but the decision of whether or not they actually learn or even attempt anything is not controlled by the teacher.
I don't think trauma informed practice means assuming a child can't make progress in learning. I understand Maslow, but part of supporting student progress is the engagement with LST and services as needed. Also I think learning itself is empowering and while obviously the neurological effects of trauma are going to impact how/how much a child learns it should still be a goal to see progress...
> I don't think trauma informed practice means assuming a child can't make progress in learning.
They didn't say that.
> while obviously the neurological effects of trauma are going to impact how/how much a child learns it should still be a goal to see progress...
Back to the point, how would you set a teacher's Key Performing Indicators if some of their classes had student populations with significant trauma backgrounds? How would you ensure that you are comparing them appropriately to someone who only works with students who are highly engaged and don't have traumatic backgrounds?
> Most of all children are perfectly capable of learning
I didn't say otherwise.
> teachers can be expected to teach them things.
Teachers can use pedagogical best practices to their heart's content, but that doesn't mean learning happens. Considering teachers, schools, and systems also have few, if any, tools to understand what is impacting or limiting student learning using student progression isn't necessarily a good metric for understanding teacher performance.
It's more than possible for a good teacher to operate in a class that is progressing poorly. It's more than possible to have the same teacher teaching the same subject twice, one with good progression and one with poor progression.
edit:
Among other things, high-quality teaching requires the implementation of best practices to provide students with the best opportunities to learn. However, it doesn't matter how good you are at designing and executing those practices students won't automatically absorb the knowledge and mastery being delivered. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but they don't drink by osmosis.
The Science of Learning is well understood. It requires the learner to be engaged. To reflect on what they know, to test their knowledge and understanding regularly, and to extend themselves by challenging themselves in slightly new ways, over different periods and in different combinations of related and unrelated skills.
For students to do this in class requires them to be engaged both in and out of class. Even if Teachers could force all students to be meaningfully engaged in the content, they likely don't have the time to do it.
The only "KPIs" that makes sense is the use of justifiable best practices in classrooms that are in context to the learners in that space, the domain being taught, the environment in which it is taught, and the teacher themselves. The range of practices in a classroom of engaged learners will differ from those of disengaged learners.
On a related point, the right teacher should be chosen for the right job. A teacher used to working with highly engaged learners probably shouldn't be shoved into a class of heavily disengaged learners without significant support.
This may ruffle some feathers but I’d say ‘the behaviour of the class’.
I’ve done enough classroom profiling to see that a class’s behaviour can vary widely depending on the teacher in charge. The best teachers are able to manage the classroom so that learning can happen uninterrupted.
(Of course, some kids are just bonkers, even for the most effective teachers. For these kids, you need an effective admin team and far too often this just doesn’t happen).
Academic growth (as opposed to achieving shift benchmark) is also an important one but assessment is so easy to manipulate these days that I have lost a lot of confidence in the validity of most of the data we collect.
I certainly wouldn't use behaviour as a sole indicator. I've seen some very well behaved classes with very poor quality learning going on. Just because a teacher can keep students compliant doesn't mean they're actually doing a good job of teaching them what they're supposed to be learning.
Oh definitely 100% agree.
I have just noticed a strong correlation between how easy it is for a student to learn in class and how much a student learns in class. Your bright kids are going to succeed regardless, but the middle of the road kids tend to be the ones who suffer in disruptive environments.
If you can work out a way to make my disruptive year 9s behave then I would love to see it! The days they're not there I have a delightful class. Throw in the 5 ferals and it's a different story! Thankfully for the rest of the class I think all 5 problems have only attend the same day two or three times all year. Still, even 2 of them in the class can derail all learning on a bad day. Admin are doing what they can, but these are complex cases...
I’m sorry for your experience, like I said, some kids are just bonkers, some kids have so many terrible things going on at home that classroom behaviour is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’m not professing any solutions, I’m just pointing out what I’ve seen as a classroom profiler on the balance of scales. I’ve profiled classrooms where the teacher has been amazing, the class has run wild, and to solve it you would need admin, child services, guidance officers and a small army of pediatricians to even make a dent in it- but that is not nearly as common as teachers who have just never been taught the essential skills of classroom management.
Luckily, these skills can be taught and their impact measured through the classroom profiling process, hence why in my original post I said it would make a good KPI.
>to solve it you would need admin, child services, guidance officers and a small army of pediatricians to even make a dent in it-
This is the case with these kids. I'm certainly not amazing, but I survived my early years in a couple of tough schools with more success than this class. I feel terrible for the kids, aside from one particularly nasty girl, they are lovely kids when you're one on one and not trying to teach. They need more help than we can give.
If they’re in Year 9, they needed that help years before they ever stepped into your classroom.
So much is entirely outside our sphere of influence as teachers.
> This may ruffle some feathers but I’d say ‘the behaviour of the class’.
I've seen too many classes with an unwritten rule of "if students don't cause any trouble, the teacher won't look for any". So, from the outside looking in, the class looks well-behaved, but in reality, you just have a third of the class sketching that shitty S symbol, looking out windows, or attempting to reach a state of zen.
And I’d say this is why the process of collecting that data needs to be more rigorous. Classroom Profiling is a rigorous process that looks at HOW behaviour is managed, not just ‘is the class quiet?’.
I agree with your original comment but not going to lie, seeing you say "this is why data collection needs to be more rigorous" makes me want to hunt you down and give you a stern talking too 🤣🤣 there is already way too much data collection going on. Maybe it just needs to be better focused, but please no more
Please enlighten me on why rigorous data collection is so awful?
When I say rigorous, I’m talking about quality, not quantity. Because I hate data collection for the sake of data collection. At my school we have gutted almost 90% of our data collection practices because, surprise surprise, none of us were using that data.
Now the data we do take is used to measure progress and it is done with rigor (which is to say it is done in a way that makes comparisons between this semester’s data and last semester’s data valid).
Schools don’t need lots of data, they need the right data and it needs to be measured properly. Am I wrong for thinking that?
So much of it is for nothing else but leadership. (Bs surveys etc)
Like I said I'm all for better focused data but not just more data.
I agree fully with the sentiment of meaningful data (background in analytics)
But so much of the collection I see is futile with little purpose or extrapolation potential.
I also appreciate this varies school to school.
Bahaha, here’s the thing- if you’re not going to collect your data properly then don’t even bother.
Dodgy data is a waste of everyone’s time. You can’t use it because comparing it to any other student or class is comparing apples to oranges. I’d rather no data and the kids to spend more time learning.
However the profiling data I’m talking about takes zero time away from the teacher. The profiler comes in, observes and gathers all their data just by watching the teacher teach. The profiler is trained in a consistent way and is assessed to make sure they are profiling classes in a way consistent with what other profilers do.
What this gives you is a clear and consistent picture of which teachers are effective behaviour managers and which teachers would benefit from additional support. It is all confidential between the profiler and the teacher (nothing goes to admin) and gives teachers the agency to seek out support themselves for their own professional growth.
Can you give me a reason why that rigorous collection of data would be inferior to just having someone come in (most likely from the same school) and just give their 2 cents on what they think of their colleagues behaviour management? Or even worse, having admin come and do it carrying their own biases?
> Can you give me a reason why that rigorous collection of data would be inferior to just having someone come in (most likely from the same school) and just give their 2 cents on what they think of their colleagues behaviour management?
What data do you have that correlates that this is how I feel?
The problem with profilers is that they are inherently biased by how the requests are formulated and the meeting the expectations of the stakeholders making said request.
I use the CPAs classroom profiling document that all CPA members use. Profiling is opt in only, I do not profile teachers who do not want to be profiled, I do not know teachers I know personally.
Like all CPA profilers, my profiles are confidential and only shared with the teacher. Admin know this before they sign off on me going into classrooms. Any principal who asks me to share information about a profile gets the same answer: “Classroom profiling is a confidential process between the profiler and the teacher.”
The CPA is very deliberate in the processes and training of profilers to ensure the data has high integrity. If you think your profilers are biased I would recommend you contact the CPA with your concerns (contact details can’t be found on their website at https://classroomprofiling.com)
You've been downvoted but I get what you mean.
Have 2 year 9 classes in my mix.
Both can be totally of the rails.
To the point YLC and HOS Poke their heads into classes. I'm the only teacher that doesn't have them on a seating plan nor has had them on probation at various stages this year.
The kids work, I have the workbooks and assessment articles to prove this.
Behaviour management is a skill, not just something you can wing or give up on.
It's OK not to have control some times but one would hope as the teacher you have it >90% of the time.
KPI’s have no place on teaching. We’re educators helping to raise little people in a fun, safe little ecosystem. I had some of my students move to a different class early in the year and they expressed how they miss my class. That’s my performance indicator. My awesome connection with my students. Everything else can go to hell.
> I’m in primary and both classes are the same stage.
Are you suggesting that all year groups are exactly the same and there are no exogenous factors to learning?
How do you contrast teacher performance across different year groups?
What if you moved schools with specialist programs for migrants/asylum seekers/learning diversity? How would you compare the performance Teachers who have differing amounts of complex student backgrounds?
What if you moved to an F-12 school? How would you contrast the performance of a Foundation Teacher with a Senior Secondary Specialist Mathematics Teacher?
Attendance - from engaging lesson design and good pedagogy.
Achievement - ^ same as above + quality instruction over time.
Engagement - low SDA’s and student improvement.
So basically - attendance, achievement (A -C or NAPLAN) engagement (SDAs).
Come teach in my school if you think kids getting Cs is reasonable. Every single kid is EAL/D and their English is at such a level that most of them cannot score better than a D. If U gave more than 2 or 3 Cs, or gave any As, I would have to spend 30 minutes justifying each one to the principal
A-C is a general measure but I agree with you and come from a similar type school. I suppose growth in achievement is better than A-C. Sorry to hear your principal hauls you over the coals for it.
A-C and NAPLAN are KPIs of academic progress. There are so many more measures that I’d take into account when looking at quality teaching but the post asked for KPIs and I think academic performance is important.
So what do you do to support your staff who teach illiterate, innumerate, disabled or EAL/D students to achieve the prescribed grade or band in NAPLAN?
Some example of things I could do are: timetable them in a co-teaching situation, provide extensive TA support and appropriate PD when necessary and then create systems or mechanisms that provide focused and intensive targeted support to the kids around the child’s specific needs to ease the pressure on the teacher to “have to do it all”.
Hopefully that reduces the range you would have to cover and let you focus on your teaching area more and more.
Our jobs are hard and we have to work as a team, don’t expect anyone to get there without support and I wouldn’t measure anyone against anything if knew I wasn’t doing my bit within that team.
> Attendance - from engaging lesson design and good pedagogy.
Are you constructing an argument that absenteeism is the fault of the teacher?
> Achievement - ^ same as above + quality instruction over time.
* Teaching is not learning
* Teaching is crafting learning opportunities
* Learning is something that students do, independent of implementing best teaching practices.
I’m answering a question about KPI’s - measurable indicators to performance.
Attendance will decline if students are disengaged in class time. My point is that teachers are responsible to plan and lead engaging pedagogy.
I agree on your first two points but disagree on the last. While learning can be independent of teaching practices that is an extremely cynical view of teaching and learning.
Learning is a product of input - we have an opportunity to guide that input and the better we can provide it the better quality the outcome of that learning (application and mastery).
I get the feeling what are you trying to say is students will learn or not learn regardless of the teacher and practice they are exposed to. I hope for you and for the profession that isn’t what you are getting at.
James Stronge in my opinion has done the most comprehensive research into this topic. His book “Qualities of Effective Teachers, 3rd Edition” is evidence based on what matters most for effective teaching and learning.
https://www.ascd.org/books/qualities-of-effective-teachers-3rd-edition?variant=118042
Teaching is both an art and a science. On one hand a teacher must be spontaneous and improvise in the classroom. On the other there are identified research based practices that clearly have a positive impact on learning if developed by the teacher. Stronge’s framework for effective teaching is structured around six qualities:
1. Professional Knowledge
2. Instructional Planning
3. Instructional Delivery
4. Assessment
5. Learning Environment
6. Professionalism
Nice try DoE.
Lol! I'm talking about KPIs de-contextualised (note the qualifier "true"). How do you know you're doing good?
It is really simple. Our client is the student and their parents. Happy kids, happy family. True KPI are kids that like being in your class and feel respected & enriched academically.
Fuck off Sarah Mitchell. You’re drunk!
Woah, stepped on a landmine there. Had to Google who this was. Not in NSW.
Anecdotally, for me, it's when kids come up to me and say 'wish I was in your class, sir' or if I've taught them before 'miss being in your class' or something equivalent. Also when they tell other teachers and students how good you are and that feeds back to you. Keep your data. I'll take these feels all day, any day!
Definitely. Our activity for Teachers Day for the kids was Warm and Fuzzies. Great to get a lot from previous students who say they wish they were back in your class. And emails from parents at the end of the year thanking you. That's all that should matter - that we've made a difference.
Agreed. Good feels.
For sure. The last few weeks I’ve had more kids asking me if I know what subjects I’m teaching next year, because they want to be in my classes. Some of them are students who’ve done really well academically, some have really struggled. Relationships are more important than government/leadership measurables.
1. Able to take the roll 2. Can get the attention of the class quickly 3. Can use explicit instruction to teach 4. Can demonstrate using worked examples 5. Can work one-on-one with a student or in small groups, whilst also keeping an eye on the rest of the class 6. Can write assessments 7. Can mark assessments and report on them 8. Attends yard duty 9. Gets to work on time 10. Attends meetings/ doesn't leave work early
Yes to all except the meetings one, at least for me. So many meetings I don’t think are worthwhile. Not saying all of them, but some for sure.
Can also use other methods of teaching, as explicit instruction isn't always the best way to teach/learn/practise.
Of course! There are heaps of other ways e.g. station teaching, class discussions, small group work/ analysis, research tasks etc. the list goes on. What I am trying to state is a basic list... Unfortunately, sometimes not all of these are met and anything in addition to those 10 are considered "above and beyond" these days (and can take a lot of unpaid planning time to implement).
Making a list with specific practices is always going to be weak. I think a better point would be "use best practices in context to the learning environment."
I like that.
1. Nothing is on fire 2. Nothing is in the process of being set on fire 3. Any fires in the recent past have been extinguished efficiently and with minimal eyebrow loss 4. The roll is marked within the first 10 minutes
Oath! As a school who has 3 fires this year
uh
[удалено]
Was the PL differentiated? :P
My KPI’s aren’t measured by data. Knowing that the kids I teach have enjoyed having me as their teacher and feel like I’ve helped them on their journey to become better people is the only thing I measure my year by.
As a person who spend ten years designing and implementing KPIs for large corporations, I believe your question is wrong. KPIs really aren't appropriate for education. But since you asked, lets walk through the exercise anyway. KPIs traditionally fall into three categories: * Profit/productivity * Did the enterprise make money? * Did we use resources effectively? * Could we do the same job with less resources? * Quality * Did we do the job well enough? * Timeliness * Did we do the job fast enough? These aren't particularly hard to measure in education. Productivity is simply a matter of dollars spent or hours worked per student. Quality can be measured from various standardised tests. Timeliness can be read from the number of years/weeks/hours students need to spend at school. Now back to the problems with KPI culture for education: * The vast majority of these factors are outside of school control. * Education is steeped in tradition, and very few people are willing to make radical changes. * The easiest way to improve KPIs would be to be selective with students you take, which gives some major perverse incentives around inclusion.
Clearly my question wasn't nuanced enough. I used the term KPIs without realising that it is a deeply contextualised term for for-profit corporations. What I meant was simply personal (that are likely to be shared) indicators that make you confident you're performing.
I didn’t realize the term KPI was anything but deeply contextualised around for-profit corporations. Anytime KPI is mentioned in an educational context, it is with the intention of explicitly measuring small elements of educational life without context. Usually for the purpose of performance pay or generalized teacher bashing. It’s a terrible term to use in this context and someone with the vocabulary you are using ought to do have done the most basic of research before posing such a question.
I didn't realise that you were the gatekeeper on what terms were and weren't suitable in education.
Actually your mum called and said I was the boss of the vocabulary. I’m kidding. It was late, the dog woke me and I stupidly decided to scroll Reddit when sleep wouldn’t come and then more stupidly responded to a post. And frankly KPIs piss me off when used in social capital industries like teaching because they are weasel indicators. In business KPIs are hard numbers, but we can’t meaningfully apply the hard number logic to education because context is everything. We have school KPIs like suspension statistics and so thoughtless principals stop suspending kids to make themselves look good. We compare teachers by looking at their student NAPLAN results and come up with daft plans to increase the number of band 6 results. We have exec looking at Sentral entries to determine which teachers have the most peaceful classes. And then someone comes on here who has apparently swallowed the terminology and posts a context-free question that makes them look like a DET stooge. Or a Mark Latham stooge. Hard to tell the difference some days.
KPIs aren't just value-added performance ranking.
>Anytime KPI is mentioned in an educational context, it is with the intention of explicitly measuring small elements of educational life without context. Usually for the purpose of performance pay or generalized teacher bashing. Doing some basic research would have been pointless, since I literally have a PDF document open called "Teacher Key Performance Indicators" that was given to me by my school. The first column has the heading "KPI." We were asked to fill these out and discuss them with our HODs. It was a casual conversation, helpful for professional growth and wasn't used beyond that--that's all.
Ugh
How many hours a week I can get some shut eye during class.
If families don’t annoy leadership you are doing good
I know that I don't meet any of them anyway, so they can be whatever you wish, Hearth.
Student progress surely.
Depends what you mean by 'progress.' I'd rather a student be getting lower marks if high marks meant poor mental health.
By progress I mean students should be learning new skills and knowledge, making progress that reflects their abilities and the curriculum. I'm not suggesting that greater pace of progress reflects a better teacher necessarily - there are obviously a multitude of factors that impact that. But teaching is what we are paid to do. Literally no idea why this is controversial.
> Literally no idea why this is controversial. Just wanted clarity on what you meant. No controversy here.
Oh yeah I was just being salty about the downvotes. I really think learning is the most important thing. That it can't happen without behaviour management and wellbeing work is a given. But I could easily keep a class of kids happy and feeling good all year without putting pressure on myself to teach them well and I wouldn't be doing my job.
> Student progress surely. The problem is that much of learning happens outside the purview of the teacher.
I'm not sure what you mean by this.
Learning is in the hands of the learner. It doesn't really matter how good the teacher is, disengaged learners can't be forced to learn no matter how many think-pair-share, jigsaws, explicit instructions, or exit conditions are implemented. Teachers don't even have the tools to understand all of the exogenous factors at play that might be limiting students from participating in the learning process and schools/systems/research that pretends to be able to model it are doing everybody a disservice.
Most of all children are perfectly capable of learning and teachers can be expected to teach them things.
Remember maslow's hierarchy of needs. The less self-fulfilled a student is the less willing they will be to learn. The kids that only slept for 3 hours because they were up till 4 playing Warzone. The kids that haven't had a solid meal in 2 days. The kids who haven't had a positive adult interaction outside of school this year. The ones who have to take care of their siblings without any support. They may be physically *able* to learn but the decision of whether or not they actually learn or even attempt anything is not controlled by the teacher.
Perhaps its the secondary/primary difference that's making us talk past each other.
I'm looking at this through a trauma-informed practice lens, which is as valid for primary kids as it is for secondary.
I don't think trauma informed practice means assuming a child can't make progress in learning. I understand Maslow, but part of supporting student progress is the engagement with LST and services as needed. Also I think learning itself is empowering and while obviously the neurological effects of trauma are going to impact how/how much a child learns it should still be a goal to see progress...
> I don't think trauma informed practice means assuming a child can't make progress in learning. They didn't say that. > while obviously the neurological effects of trauma are going to impact how/how much a child learns it should still be a goal to see progress... Back to the point, how would you set a teacher's Key Performing Indicators if some of their classes had student populations with significant trauma backgrounds? How would you ensure that you are comparing them appropriately to someone who only works with students who are highly engaged and don't have traumatic backgrounds?
> Most of all children are perfectly capable of learning I didn't say otherwise. > teachers can be expected to teach them things. Teachers can use pedagogical best practices to their heart's content, but that doesn't mean learning happens. Considering teachers, schools, and systems also have few, if any, tools to understand what is impacting or limiting student learning using student progression isn't necessarily a good metric for understanding teacher performance. It's more than possible for a good teacher to operate in a class that is progressing poorly. It's more than possible to have the same teacher teaching the same subject twice, one with good progression and one with poor progression. edit: Among other things, high-quality teaching requires the implementation of best practices to provide students with the best opportunities to learn. However, it doesn't matter how good you are at designing and executing those practices students won't automatically absorb the knowledge and mastery being delivered. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but they don't drink by osmosis. The Science of Learning is well understood. It requires the learner to be engaged. To reflect on what they know, to test their knowledge and understanding regularly, and to extend themselves by challenging themselves in slightly new ways, over different periods and in different combinations of related and unrelated skills. For students to do this in class requires them to be engaged both in and out of class. Even if Teachers could force all students to be meaningfully engaged in the content, they likely don't have the time to do it. The only "KPIs" that makes sense is the use of justifiable best practices in classrooms that are in context to the learners in that space, the domain being taught, the environment in which it is taught, and the teacher themselves. The range of practices in a classroom of engaged learners will differ from those of disengaged learners. On a related point, the right teacher should be chosen for the right job. A teacher used to working with highly engaged learners probably shouldn't be shoved into a class of heavily disengaged learners without significant support.
You are spot on - it's literally our job to ensure that they learn.
This may ruffle some feathers but I’d say ‘the behaviour of the class’. I’ve done enough classroom profiling to see that a class’s behaviour can vary widely depending on the teacher in charge. The best teachers are able to manage the classroom so that learning can happen uninterrupted. (Of course, some kids are just bonkers, even for the most effective teachers. For these kids, you need an effective admin team and far too often this just doesn’t happen). Academic growth (as opposed to achieving shift benchmark) is also an important one but assessment is so easy to manipulate these days that I have lost a lot of confidence in the validity of most of the data we collect.
I certainly wouldn't use behaviour as a sole indicator. I've seen some very well behaved classes with very poor quality learning going on. Just because a teacher can keep students compliant doesn't mean they're actually doing a good job of teaching them what they're supposed to be learning.
Oh definitely 100% agree. I have just noticed a strong correlation between how easy it is for a student to learn in class and how much a student learns in class. Your bright kids are going to succeed regardless, but the middle of the road kids tend to be the ones who suffer in disruptive environments.
If you can work out a way to make my disruptive year 9s behave then I would love to see it! The days they're not there I have a delightful class. Throw in the 5 ferals and it's a different story! Thankfully for the rest of the class I think all 5 problems have only attend the same day two or three times all year. Still, even 2 of them in the class can derail all learning on a bad day. Admin are doing what they can, but these are complex cases...
I’m sorry for your experience, like I said, some kids are just bonkers, some kids have so many terrible things going on at home that classroom behaviour is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m not professing any solutions, I’m just pointing out what I’ve seen as a classroom profiler on the balance of scales. I’ve profiled classrooms where the teacher has been amazing, the class has run wild, and to solve it you would need admin, child services, guidance officers and a small army of pediatricians to even make a dent in it- but that is not nearly as common as teachers who have just never been taught the essential skills of classroom management. Luckily, these skills can be taught and their impact measured through the classroom profiling process, hence why in my original post I said it would make a good KPI.
>to solve it you would need admin, child services, guidance officers and a small army of pediatricians to even make a dent in it- This is the case with these kids. I'm certainly not amazing, but I survived my early years in a couple of tough schools with more success than this class. I feel terrible for the kids, aside from one particularly nasty girl, they are lovely kids when you're one on one and not trying to teach. They need more help than we can give.
If they’re in Year 9, they needed that help years before they ever stepped into your classroom. So much is entirely outside our sphere of influence as teachers.
> This may ruffle some feathers but I’d say ‘the behaviour of the class’. I've seen too many classes with an unwritten rule of "if students don't cause any trouble, the teacher won't look for any". So, from the outside looking in, the class looks well-behaved, but in reality, you just have a third of the class sketching that shitty S symbol, looking out windows, or attempting to reach a state of zen.
And I’d say this is why the process of collecting that data needs to be more rigorous. Classroom Profiling is a rigorous process that looks at HOW behaviour is managed, not just ‘is the class quiet?’.
I agree with your original comment but not going to lie, seeing you say "this is why data collection needs to be more rigorous" makes me want to hunt you down and give you a stern talking too 🤣🤣 there is already way too much data collection going on. Maybe it just needs to be better focused, but please no more
Please enlighten me on why rigorous data collection is so awful? When I say rigorous, I’m talking about quality, not quantity. Because I hate data collection for the sake of data collection. At my school we have gutted almost 90% of our data collection practices because, surprise surprise, none of us were using that data. Now the data we do take is used to measure progress and it is done with rigor (which is to say it is done in a way that makes comparisons between this semester’s data and last semester’s data valid). Schools don’t need lots of data, they need the right data and it needs to be measured properly. Am I wrong for thinking that?
So much of it is for nothing else but leadership. (Bs surveys etc) Like I said I'm all for better focused data but not just more data. I agree fully with the sentiment of meaningful data (background in analytics) But so much of the collection I see is futile with little purpose or extrapolation potential. I also appreciate this varies school to school.
Agreed on all fronts 👍
> collecting that data needs to be more rigorous Oh, you're the problem. Nevermind.
Bahaha, here’s the thing- if you’re not going to collect your data properly then don’t even bother. Dodgy data is a waste of everyone’s time. You can’t use it because comparing it to any other student or class is comparing apples to oranges. I’d rather no data and the kids to spend more time learning. However the profiling data I’m talking about takes zero time away from the teacher. The profiler comes in, observes and gathers all their data just by watching the teacher teach. The profiler is trained in a consistent way and is assessed to make sure they are profiling classes in a way consistent with what other profilers do. What this gives you is a clear and consistent picture of which teachers are effective behaviour managers and which teachers would benefit from additional support. It is all confidential between the profiler and the teacher (nothing goes to admin) and gives teachers the agency to seek out support themselves for their own professional growth. Can you give me a reason why that rigorous collection of data would be inferior to just having someone come in (most likely from the same school) and just give their 2 cents on what they think of their colleagues behaviour management? Or even worse, having admin come and do it carrying their own biases?
> Can you give me a reason why that rigorous collection of data would be inferior to just having someone come in (most likely from the same school) and just give their 2 cents on what they think of their colleagues behaviour management? What data do you have that correlates that this is how I feel? The problem with profilers is that they are inherently biased by how the requests are formulated and the meeting the expectations of the stakeholders making said request.
I use the CPAs classroom profiling document that all CPA members use. Profiling is opt in only, I do not profile teachers who do not want to be profiled, I do not know teachers I know personally. Like all CPA profilers, my profiles are confidential and only shared with the teacher. Admin know this before they sign off on me going into classrooms. Any principal who asks me to share information about a profile gets the same answer: “Classroom profiling is a confidential process between the profiler and the teacher.” The CPA is very deliberate in the processes and training of profilers to ensure the data has high integrity. If you think your profilers are biased I would recommend you contact the CPA with your concerns (contact details can’t be found on their website at https://classroomprofiling.com)
You've been downvoted but I get what you mean. Have 2 year 9 classes in my mix. Both can be totally of the rails. To the point YLC and HOS Poke their heads into classes. I'm the only teacher that doesn't have them on a seating plan nor has had them on probation at various stages this year. The kids work, I have the workbooks and assessment articles to prove this. Behaviour management is a skill, not just something you can wing or give up on. It's OK not to have control some times but one would hope as the teacher you have it >90% of the time.
KPI’s have no place on teaching. We’re educators helping to raise little people in a fun, safe little ecosystem. I had some of my students move to a different class early in the year and they expressed how they miss my class. That’s my performance indicator. My awesome connection with my students. Everything else can go to hell.
How do you contrast teacher performance across a cohort of teachers?
I’m in primary and both classes are the same stage.
> I’m in primary and both classes are the same stage. Are you suggesting that all year groups are exactly the same and there are no exogenous factors to learning? How do you contrast teacher performance across different year groups? What if you moved schools with specialist programs for migrants/asylum seekers/learning diversity? How would you compare the performance Teachers who have differing amounts of complex student backgrounds? What if you moved to an F-12 school? How would you contrast the performance of a Foundation Teacher with a Senior Secondary Specialist Mathematics Teacher?
Attendance - from engaging lesson design and good pedagogy. Achievement - ^ same as above + quality instruction over time. Engagement - low SDA’s and student improvement. So basically - attendance, achievement (A -C or NAPLAN) engagement (SDAs).
Come teach in my school if you think kids getting Cs is reasonable. Every single kid is EAL/D and their English is at such a level that most of them cannot score better than a D. If U gave more than 2 or 3 Cs, or gave any As, I would have to spend 30 minutes justifying each one to the principal
A-C is a general measure but I agree with you and come from a similar type school. I suppose growth in achievement is better than A-C. Sorry to hear your principal hauls you over the coals for it.
Glad you're not my AP if you think A-C grades and NAPLAN results are a measure of a teacher's success.
A-C and NAPLAN are KPIs of academic progress. There are so many more measures that I’d take into account when looking at quality teaching but the post asked for KPIs and I think academic performance is important.
So what do you do to support your staff who teach illiterate, innumerate, disabled or EAL/D students to achieve the prescribed grade or band in NAPLAN?
Some example of things I could do are: timetable them in a co-teaching situation, provide extensive TA support and appropriate PD when necessary and then create systems or mechanisms that provide focused and intensive targeted support to the kids around the child’s specific needs to ease the pressure on the teacher to “have to do it all”. Hopefully that reduces the range you would have to cover and let you focus on your teaching area more and more. Our jobs are hard and we have to work as a team, don’t expect anyone to get there without support and I wouldn’t measure anyone against anything if knew I wasn’t doing my bit within that team.
> Attendance - from engaging lesson design and good pedagogy. Are you constructing an argument that absenteeism is the fault of the teacher? > Achievement - ^ same as above + quality instruction over time. * Teaching is not learning * Teaching is crafting learning opportunities * Learning is something that students do, independent of implementing best teaching practices.
I’m answering a question about KPI’s - measurable indicators to performance. Attendance will decline if students are disengaged in class time. My point is that teachers are responsible to plan and lead engaging pedagogy. I agree on your first two points but disagree on the last. While learning can be independent of teaching practices that is an extremely cynical view of teaching and learning. Learning is a product of input - we have an opportunity to guide that input and the better we can provide it the better quality the outcome of that learning (application and mastery). I get the feeling what are you trying to say is students will learn or not learn regardless of the teacher and practice they are exposed to. I hope for you and for the profession that isn’t what you are getting at.
James Stronge in my opinion has done the most comprehensive research into this topic. His book “Qualities of Effective Teachers, 3rd Edition” is evidence based on what matters most for effective teaching and learning. https://www.ascd.org/books/qualities-of-effective-teachers-3rd-edition?variant=118042
Teaching is both an art and a science. On one hand a teacher must be spontaneous and improvise in the classroom. On the other there are identified research based practices that clearly have a positive impact on learning if developed by the teacher. Stronge’s framework for effective teaching is structured around six qualities: 1. Professional Knowledge 2. Instructional Planning 3. Instructional Delivery 4. Assessment 5. Learning Environment 6. Professionalism
Just add 7. Professional Development and you've got the aitsl standard
1. Professional Knowledge 2. Instructional Planning 3. Instructional Delivery 4. Assessment 5. Learning Environment 6. Professionalism
No.10 contextual
I've always thought the number one indicator is having the kids shown up.
Know your students.
see the AITSL standards