New Teacher Evaluation

This simulation involves an early-career elementary school teacher. The simulation begins following the school leader’s observation of the teacher teaching a literacy lesson. The teacher teaches directly from the teachers’ manual and the lesson has no higher-level skills or thinking embedded within it. At the same time, there has just been a new teacher evaluation rubric implemented in the district that is based on four performance levels. The school leader must meet with the teacher and coach improvement to instructional practice while also helping the teacher understand that the new rubric, though no longer saying her performance is “satisfactory,” the new rubric does not mean she is “unsatisfactory.”

Key characters include a second-year 4th-grade teacher, experienced teacher willing to mentor

Trade-offs to consider:

• Investing time directly in improving a new teacher’s instructional skills, while losing the objectivity you need to have to evaluate expected growth
• Enlisting the aid of an experienced teacher to guide the new teacher, while not ensuring success due to limited time and resources for mentoring

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Created in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania