Rubric and Observation Systems
Our research-based rubric defines effective instruction and supports teachers in refining their craft.
There are very few other systems out there that allow teachers to give feedback to teachers in a structured way. Developing a culture where feedback is accepted, appreciated and the norm in our schools promotes success.Dr. Betsy Hargrove, District Superintendent, Arizona
Based on nationally normed, research-based standards, NIET's Teaching and Learning Standards Rubric clearly defines effective teaching and fosters collaboration around a common language and vision that correlates with student achievement.
The rubric, currently used by nine states, brings a comprehensive focus on four key domains: Instruction, the Learning Environment, Designing and Planning Instruction, and Professionalism.
Our observation system provides schools with a strong, valid and reliable instrument utilizing multiple observations of every teacher, every year by multiple, trained and certified evaluators. All evaluations are followed up with a post-conference session between the observed teacher and the evaluator to discuss areas of strength and refinement with the sole purpose being to help the teacher improve.
We offer schools the opportunity to use NIET's Teaching and Learning Standards Rubric, or we assist them in implementing their own. These efforts are supported by:
- Multiple measures of educator effectiveness.
- Research-based teacher classroom observation rubric that correlates with student achievement growth.
- Detailed post-conference planning to translate evaluation results into professional growth opportunities.
- Hundreds of hours' worth of videos that show effective teaching along with evidence and scoring via EE PASS, our online portal.
- Online training modules on each indicator of the observational rubric to support individualized professional development for teachers and help them identify and visualize strong practice.
NIET Principal Standards Rubric
The Principal Standards Rubric defines excellence in school leadership represented in six domains:
- School mission, vision, and strategic goal setting
- Instructional leadership
- Capacity building
- School environment/community and campus climate
- Ethics and integrity
- School operations/management
The domains and their research-based performance indicators serve as a tool for leadership coaching, support, and evaluation. Principals will gain access to complementary support in the EE PASS portal, including online resources, videos, training modules, and evaluator certification.
For more information, visit the Principal Support webpage.
Streamlining Certification: EE PASS
An essential element of effective teaching is providing regular, timely evaluation and feedback. We provide a comprehensive EE PASS online portal tool that has the ability to certify evaluators online. EE PASS ensures that educators who are observing teachers deeply understand the rubric and are equipped to provide accurate and consistent feedback to teachers. In addition, our process provides for seamless recertification year after year.
As a supplement to the portal, the EE PASS App for iPads includes key features educators can access from their iPad, even when offline – with data syncing. They include teacher observations and scripting; video and content library; educator evaluator certification; surveys; and reports. Download the NIET EE PASS Companion iPad App in the Apple App Store.
Human Capital Management: CODE System
For those districts and states that choose to do so, we provide a tool to calculate educator evaluation scores: the CODE System, a highly customizable, secure and interactive human capital management tool. It can be used to store and analyze teacher evaluations for states or districts using any instructional rubric and to manage higher education clinical evaluation.
By entering the observations into CODE, users can access more than 20 real-time reports and analyze the results of teacher evaluations across grade levels and content areas. CODE also ensures inter-rater reliability and consistency of evaluators.
Read the NIET Service Summary: Rubric and Observation Systems.
Download the NIET Educator Effectiveness Services and Resources Catalog for customizable trainings within this area.
View the flyer for NIET's EE PASS online portal and watch the video.
NIET Rubric Companion for Virtual Instruction
As teachers move to virtual learning, many are asking how strong teaching practices translate to the online environment. NIET has developed a tool, the NIET Rubric Companion for Virtual Instruction, to describe what key instructional indicators should look like and sound like when planning and delivering virtual learning. The tool describes instructional practices for both asynchronous and synchronous learning, as well as additional considerations for synchronous learning.
This tool is designed to be used alongside the NIET K-12 Teaching Standards Rubric, but it could support any teacher or leader to deepen their understanding of high-quality virtual learning instruction. The tool streamlines the NIET rubric to focus on the key indicators and descriptors of strong instructional practice that are particularly relevant in a virtual space, and it includes specific examples and strategies for how those indicators could be adapted. NIET will continue to add and modify this tool as we learn more effective virtual learning strategies.
Templates, examples, and guiding questions to accompany the Companion Tool are below:
Example Weekly At-A-Glance and Daily Lesson Plan (download)
Lesson Plan PowerPoint Template with Examples (download)
Guiding Questions for Planning Virtual Learning (download)
For information about trainings, download the NIET Rubric Companion for Virtual Instruction Trainings Flyer.
