New Jersey Department of Education

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SGO Training Videos

Video Four: The Power of Collaboration

Slide 1:

This video series is intended to help teachers develop Student Growth Objectives (SGOs) with the support of their administrators and includes all of the latest guidance, resources, and tools for the 2016-17 school year.

Slide 2:

As with all of the videos in this series we will be using the Department’s SGO Quality Rating Rubric as a guiding framework.  This two page rubric is a teaching tool that may be used by teachers and administrators in working towards producing high quality SGOs. 

Slide 3:

Remember, districts have a good deal of flexibility in developing SGOs that best suit their needs. However, there are certain requirements that must be met as well as best practices that educators should consider that add value to the SGO process.

Slide 4:

Throughout this series of four videos, we will address three guiding principles of SGO development.

High quality SGOs should be:

Aligned to standards;

Grounded in data; and

Driven by high expectations for students.

In video 4 of this series we will highlight how collaboration is a critical element for all three guiding principles of SGOs.

Slide 5:

Video Four: The Power of Collaboration

Slide 6:

It is self-evident that schools are communities in which people must work together to provide the best environment and education for students.  In effective school cultures, time is set aside so that teachers work with each other and with administration to determine how best they can meet the needs of their students. Working together also enhances the SGO process.

Collaborative discussion about standards, assessments, and instruction and partnerships around data strengthen the accuracy and value of SGOs

Administrators play an important role in supporting healthy collaborative structures.

Slide 7:

There are opportunities for collbaration throughout the SGO process.

In step one, teams of educators should unpack and prioritize standards, choose or develop assessments, and developed standards-aligned assessment items across disciplines.

Slide 8:

In step two, when determining student starting points teams can share information about students from previous year, collect and compile relevant data points, and once set, discuss student starting points to get feedback.

Slide 9:

During goal setting there is a variety of collaborative approaches; teachers and co-teachers, new teachers and mentors, instructional coaches and individual teachers or teams, grade level or subject matter team members, or administrators with individual or teams of teachers). These collaborations can also be used to share SGOs for feedback prior to their approval.

Slide 10:

During the process of tracking progress and refining instruction in step 4, collaborative teams can: weigh in on strategies to support SGO attainment including instruction, differentiation, assessing learning, and enrichment activities. Teams can help each other with particular challenges and difficult cases, such as students performing way below grade level. Finally, they can help with new strategies for teaching complex content, analysis of class assessment data, and sharing refined instructional plans with those teams for feedback.

Slide 11:

Step Five: In reviewing results and scoring SGOs teachers should always:

Review assessment results with teacher teams and administrator.

Discuss the final SGO results with their administrator.

And consider these results with the team in planning for next year.

Slide 12:

In response to demand from educators across the state, the Office of Evaluation, in collaboration with teachers and administrators for New Jersey, produced the Collaborative Teams Toolkit. This is designed to help educators develop and make the most of collaborative teams, including PLCs.

Slide 13:

The Collaborative Teams Toolkit has been designed to be useful for groups of educators, schools and districts regardless of the level of collaboration that currently exists in a school. 

The Toolkit provides resources and tools to help those who currently have no structures or time in place for working together, such as help with norming, example schedules and effective meeting facilitation. It also provides tools for educators who have strong teams in place already.

Slide 14:

To get the most out of the toolkit, educators should consider using the self-assessment to determine their school’s starting point.  The results of this assessment will help target the areas that will provide most value to an educational community.

Slide 15:

The SGO Integration Tool is a feature resource found within the Collaborative Teams Toolkit. Educators can use this to structure collaborative discussions around SGOs.

Schools can use this tool to target high priority items helping to ensure SGOs remain aligned to standards, grounded in data, and driven by high expectations.

In ensuring ambitious goals are achievable, the SGO Integration Tool provides discussion questions and suggested activities which promote a system for using data to help student meet the high expectations their teachers set have for them.