Teacher Evaluation in the State of Indiana: Alignment Efforts in University Based Teacher Instruction

Abstract

As teacher evaluation in the state of Indiana continues to evolve it has become increasingly difficult to prepare, expose and train pre-service teachers to the evaluation process utilized in K-12 education. While the State adopted The Rise Evaluation instrument to create a common standard of measurement, many school corporations modified, interpreted and scored each domain differently. During the evaluation process many shared themes were discovered in over 20 different school corporation evaluation instruments. In an effort to find the basis for a common assessment, a new instrument was created that incorporates these common themes. The new evaluation form has been constructed into a reusable digital template. This new instrument not only helps with teacher training but also aids in comparing University induction evaluation to each individual school corporation. This data is critical in supporting Woodrow Wilson teachers as they enter and work through Induction years. This effort will also serve as University based data collection for Teacher Education program evaluation, while also allowing for a more delicate transition into the fast paced competitive K-12 workforce.