This document is intended to help teachers understand and create Student Learning Objectives (SLOs). This resource is a practical guide intended to provide clarity to a complex but worthwhile task. This resource may also be used by administrators for professional learning. As Utah moves toward providing a "Model for Measuring Educator…

Today's ever-changing learning environment is characterized by the fast pace of technology that drives our society to move forward, and causes our knowledge to increase at an exponential rate. The need for in-depth research that is bound to generate new knowledge about curriculum and program development is becoming ever more relevant.…

In "Value-Added and Other Methods for Measuring School Performance: An Analysis of Performance Measurement Strategies in Teacher Incentive Fund Proposals"--a paper presented at the February 2008 National Center on Performance Incentives research to policy conference--Robert Meyer and Michael Christian examine select performance-pay plans…

The basic premise of the personnel evaluation technique described in this paper is that continuing improvement in performance should be the prime commitment of all professionals. Namely, both the evaluator and the one evaluated should initiate, develop, and pursue a plan of action together, as described in this paper. Also included is a sample…

The stated purposes of the Kentucky Career Ladder Project were to: (1) test the feasibility of operating the proposed statewide system to recognize and reward high quality teachers; and (2) provide reliable Kentucky-based information for making sound decisions concerning the future operations of a teacher career incentive progam. This summary…

This annotated bibliography on beginning teacher induction is divided into three major sections. The first area dealt with is the need for induction programs. This section includes topics on the problems of beginning teachers and what assistance can be offered. The second section focuses on designing induction programs and discusses program…

This handbook of guidelines is intended to explain the sum and substance of the evaluation process and to guide a planning committee in designing an evaluation program. The evaluation process discussed is termed "evaluation by objectives." The guidelines for implementing evaluation by objectives have five steps: diagnosing current…

Calvert County School District, Maryland, has developed a differentiated teacher evaluation system that promotes collaboration among supervisors and administrators in rating teacher performance. Methods involve informal observation, rating observation, and nonrating observation. Implementation is accompanied by extensive formative evaluation by…

Formative teacher evaluation promotes teacher growth by illuminating some areas of difficulty and creating a viable course for change. The goal is to help teachers become more effective. Since 1991, the SouthEastern Regional Vision for Education (SERVE) has supported selected school systems in their attempts to design and implement formative…

Several models of curriculum and staff development are described to provide guidance toward the goal of harmoniously blending a humanized curriculum and humanized instruction. The author compares the "explosive" and "implosive" designs for program development and instruction and argues that the implosive design should be adopted and that…

Describes how North Carolina educators cooperated to build a system of teacher-performance appraisal. To build the program, educators derived basic teaching functions from literature and observed teachers to gather performance data. Training is now provided to districts, and information about effective teaching is disseminated throughout the…

This guide is intended to help the reader understand: the value of teacher induction programs designed to orient, support, train, and assess novice teachers; what makes induction programs work; the essential ingredients of an effective induction program; and how to get started improving efforts to support and assess novice teachers. Six sections…

This article attempts to provide British educators, who face a similar trend, with a synthesis of some major developments in the Accountability in Education movement in the United States. (Author/SJL)

Multiyear study of a small school district in Virginia finds that portfolios enhance the accountability and professional development purposes of teacher evaluation. While finding portfolios to be fair and accurate measures of teacher performance, teachers and administrators expressed concern about the time required to develop them. (Contains 3…

This report presents a description of the Virgina Beginning Teacher Assistance Program (BTAP), its background and rationale, development, major program assumptions, and major program activities. The Virginia BTAP has three major components: teacher assessment, teacher assistance, and program management. The development and implementation of each…