Faculty Evaluation: 10 Take-Aways

Faculty Evaluation:  10 Take-Aways for a Comprehensive Professional Review

Two years ago I was given the opportunity to create a faculty evaluation process for our faculty.  My goal was to create a comprehensive evaluation process for our faculty in all they did as professionals:  teaching, co-curricular activities, residential duty, and advising.  In the process to create the process, I had a steep learning curve.  I consulted the best on the subject, Robert Marzano's Art and Science of Teaching Model (2007) and Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching (2007).  Their work and the work we did as a faculty, we created the New Hampton School Professional Review.  If you want a copy, I am happy to share it with you, contact me. Also from this worthy endeavor, I gleaned a few take-aways.  I will share those with you too.

1.  Make a virtue out of a necessity.  
When I became the Dean of Faculty I was given a challenge, really an ultimatum I called a challenge.  Create a faculty evaluation.  We had an evaluation process, but it was mostly in the academic area.  What we needed was comprehensive evaluation in all the areas for which faculty are responsible.
2.  Be comprehensive and selective, but not specialized.  
I began to consult everyone on what they did.  I read as much as I could.  What I wanted was an evaluation that combined the quadruple-treat of work our faculty did in teaching, co-curricular activities, residential duty, and advising.
3.  Recognize the realities.  
I spoke to the heads of all our programs:  academic department heads, residence hall heads, head coaches, and heads of the arts.  They all said what they do is hard.  We needed an evaluation that done by people they trust to give the most actionable feedback.
4.  Evaluation is not about the struggling teacher.  
Faculty are always skeptical about any program that elevates one faculty above another.  Also when starting an evaluation process, the first question is "who is going to be evaluated?"  In our cases we started by evaluating the academic department heads.
5.  Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.  
Next we needed to design the process.  For this I asked the know best faculty to help build the domains and the indicators of the evaluation.  Also, we created teams of evaluators to conduct the evaluations.  No one would observe any one person.  This was instrumental, the creation of observational teams.  This could be its own topic, so I will pause on this subject.
6.  Create a development scale.  
All the observations have a scale:  Unsatisfactory, Basic, Proficient, Distinguished and Never, Sometimes, Often, Always.  See the Observational Records for demonstrations.
7.  Find the path to the process. Once the faculty created evaluation tools, rubric, and process were created we had to explain it.  For this, one of our department heads had a paramount idea.  Make the evaluation fit on one page!  Brilliant!  
8.  Nurture the outliers.
Recognize not everyone fits into: teacher, coach, dorm parent, advisor.  Find a way to provide feedback for the Community Service Director, the Theater Director, and the Athletic Trainer.  For this we have their like colleague from another school.  
9.  Match it to Mentoring.
This is a future goal.  I want to not just evaluate our most senior faculty, I believe once a person goes through the evaluation process they become mentors of new faculty.
10.  More about the mission. 
What if instead of "proficient" we said "innovator" to better match our mission and vision statement.

My goal was always to keep improvement in mind, improvement in our faculty and the process.  The best faculty are attracted and retained by a school culture in which faculty evaluation is done with them, not for them.  At New Hampton School, we start and end at the individual.

For the full presentation, go to this link:  http://www.slideshare.net/danielwlove/isanne-nhs-evaluation-professional-review

Quality of Network

 

Quality of Network

The importance of the quality of network is very much in an effort to solve the feeling that can occur in middle-management situation, the feeling of being isolated.  Worried to talk to your Head of School about your problem, because he is also your supervisor.  The other side of the spectrum, knowing you cannot confide in individual members of the faculty. 

The quality of one’s network is literally their professional support system.  Those with whom you can share new ideas, solve existing problems, and vent without fear of retribution or violation of confidentiality.  Overall, my litmus test of the quality of my network is the level of “connectiveness” I feel to my work. No one person does their job alone anymore, however how connected you are to others (however you define your network) help you to feel more efficient and more effective.

Before I go too much further, let me try to explain what I mean by “quality of network.”  Network is to me, all those people in which I confide.  Those I go to, for gathering information, vetting ideas, and disseminating facts. How well a person deliberately creates this resource base, can be in my opinion, an element of their professional success. I divide network quality into two categories:  internal resources and external resources.

Internally:

Access to your Head of School:  weekly meetings, availability by phone, willingness to discuss a range of issues from ideas, impressions to complaints and possible solutions.

Check-ins Points:  go to where people gather naturally and listen to them.  Make yourself available to hear what they have to say.

Externally:

Cohort Groups:  ISANNE LEADS, TABS,

Professional Development:  Master degrees,Graduate classes, or conferences

Social Media: 

·     Twitter:  follow professional in your field and thinkers outside of your school and schools in general.  This is the best DIY (Do It Yourself) professional development available.

·     Blog:  Write about what you are doing, thinking, trying, worrying about…if you don’t like to write in essay form, Twitter is like mini-blogging

·     Facebook:  make a group with those that do the same job as you and share your thoughts. 

·     List Serves: 

·     Video Conference:  Skype or GoToMeeting—is great example to video conference on topics

I encourage others to develop their support system.  It has helped me better support my faculty, which in turn helps support our students.  Please let me know if I can be of any help.

My thanks to the ISANNE Heads of School who listened to me as I presented on the topic above on November 15, 2012.  Matt Ruby, Gould Academy Head of School who lent the phrase “quality of network.”  Most importantly, thanks to Andrew Menke New Hampton School Head of School who trusted me enough to talk about the complexities to support someone in middle management.

After a few mini-blog tweets, it is now time for the real thing.  So I created my own blog to share ideas about education, educational communities, and ideas of inspiration.