Welcome to the ACCESS Newsletter
Celebrating February
 
As we embark on another month together, DDOE would like to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation for all that you do to support student learning. We understand the challenges you face every day, and you should all be proud of the work you are doing to benefit Delaware students.

This month we focus on one of the strands of instructional leadership: effective communication. We all assume the role of instructional leader at some juncture in life. Each of us, whether we are the school leader, classroom teacher, lead mentor, instructional coach, etc., can significantly impact others by what we say and do. 

In this edition of ACCESS, we will explore how teacher feedback impacts student learning (Performance Area #2, 2.3: Checks for Understanding and Feedback). What do students think when they receive written comments? Do they think say:
  • "Look at all these comments. I guess I’m just not good at writing;"
  • “What’s the point of revising? I’m just not good at writing;”
  • “I see that my writing meets some but NOT YET 2 of the criteria for a quality writing piece;” or
  • "I will go back and revise looking at the criteria that were marked Not Yet. I can fix this!”

How students interpret feedback makes a difference in how they respond to learning, especially whether they give up or go back and revise their work to meet mastery. Feedback dramatically impacts student learning.

This month also spotlights two amazing educators who - through their daily interactions and communications - impact the growth of their students as well as each other. 

Enjoy!
Celebrating amazing educators at New Castle County Vo-Tech District
Anthony Reid
Math Teacher, Howard High School
Tammy McDermott
Assistant Principal, Howard High School
Both Mr. Reid and Mrs. McDermott are instructional leaders who make feedback a regular and ongoing event. Both Mr. Reid and Mrs. McDermott empower each other, strongly motivate students, and develop their own deeper learning. 

Shout out to Mr. Reid, who strives to develop competence and confidence in his students as experts to create a classroom environment that extends beyond himself as the sole authority. Mr. Reid keeps his students focused on what’s important and supports them in investing their efforts in incremental improvement and achievement. 

Shout out to Mrs. McDermott, who collaborates with teachers to assess the impact of practices on learners. Mrs. McDermott is a leader who interacts often to stimulate teacher thinking and problem solving, and to give feedback about performance in relation to a standard. Mrs. McDermott, through properly executed feedback, enables teachers to make better decisions than they would have made without such information.
If you would like to nominate an educator to be recognized in the Spotlight section, please email Angela Socorso.
Feedback, Praise, Guidance
Feedback: Information about how one is doing in his/her effort to reach a specific goal. Feedback is nonjudgmental, specific, detailed, and points out what aspects of proficient performance are present and which are absent from the current work one has produced.

Guidance: Advice, suggestions, encouragement, or questions used frequently with new tasks and withdrawn gradually with demonstrated proficiency.

Evaluation: Praise, judgement, opinion, or grade about some aspect of an educational process
Feedback, guidance, advice, cuing, suggestions, challenges, prompts, and pointing out discrepancies are all different from one another and all useful when properly applied. Skillful teachers respond to student work or performance in an optimal way so that it builds student capacity. (Saphier, 2018). Skillful teachers provide constructive feedback that is useful to all learners in that it serves to both instruct as well as motivate students. One way might be to provide “wise feedback.”

Learn more about Wise Feedback here.
The attributes of feedback are present in the Delaware Teacher Classroom Observation Tool in Performance Area 2, Indicator 2.3: Checks for Understanding and Feedback. View the DTC tool here.

  • Teacher assesses all students’ progress towards the objective(s) at critical moments in the lesson and uses the feedback to adjust instruction.
  • Students are provided multiple options to demonstrate their learning.
  • Students receive frequent, timely feedback that is specific to them and the established criteria for success and use the feedback to correct their work.
  • Students use the criteria for success to self-assess their progress towards mastery of the objective.
  • Students are provided opportunities to relearn, redo, or be reassessed.

Are ALL of your students receiving
Wise Feedback
that motivates them to revise their work and master new learning? 
Educator Resources
  • ACCESS eNewsletter: Read Delaware’s monthly eNewsletter focused on school staff evaluations. View previous issues here. 

  • DTGSS Schoology group: Get DTGSS information specific to teachers and administrators. Find downloadable resources, including training and overview materials. For access, enter Schoology code: X8WB-ZKQJ-M585J or email NewTeacher.Evaluation@doe.k12.de.us