Today was very successful in teacher land. The second day of training definitely proved more boring than the first, but I think the administration communicated some good stuff, and achieved their goals today.

The focus of our morning was the Danielson framework. Basically, it's a program for educators that provides a clear-cut set of objectives and expectations for teachers and associates. It came about because for years teachers had been evaluated based on one or two formal observations by their principals. Unfortunately, these evaluations tended to be inauthentic and didn't involve enough dialogue between teacher and principal about what was actually happening in the classroom. The Danielson framework provides administrators and teachers with objectives so that their job is made very clear. It's used for lesson planning, teaching, and reflection and the results of these three components are the basis for the evaluation. In the end, I'll meet with my principal one on one 5 times this year to discuss my progress and present some evidence of what I'm doing in the classroom. She will also conduct a formal observation at least once, and then I'll get a final evaluation at the end of the year called the "summative" evaluation that will take into account all the other meetings/observations. It's a pretty cool system, and actually takes a bit of the stress out of the process. I know exactly what's expected of me, so I can do it on my terms.

This afternoon we went to our buildings for some time to work in our classrooms. We (the 7 new staff members) met with the principal for a while to discuss how the Danielson framework would work in our building, and other basic procedural stuff. I've actually been in the school before and know a lot of that stuff, and since my principal wasn't hired till this summer, a lot of those questions were fielded by me.

And now, enough chatter. I'm going to create a class website :-)