Little Smiles Big Sunshine: I can... (evaluation tips for all grades)

I don't know about you but one of my biggest STRESSES is the teacher evaluation process.

This is so true! Especially during my first year of the evaluation process. It was the first year of the new evaluation process and a new administrator! Normally I would consider myself a confident teacher - confident in my teaching style, my methods, and my classroom management skills but the minute my administrator walked in the door all that confidence flew out the window!

I FROZE!

I have to admit it wasn't just my new administrator it happened with the last one too! I just get nervous. It takes me a while to get a feel for the process. No matter how confident I am or how highly I have been evaluated in the past - I get nervous!!!!

I am constantly work on improving and want to continue to grow professionally.

So the battle with he evaluation is my own. It is me against myself! My battle to always do better - to improve every year.

Fast forward 3 years later...

I am me, kindergarten teacher, what you see is what you get. When my administrator walks in I just keep on doing what I am doing! Whether that is singing a song, zipping coats, dealing with a melt down, pop see ko-ing (made up word), or engaging 100% percent of my students authentically!

(see what I did there!?!?!)

It may not always be the best timing but it is kindergarten. Lots of things happen in kindergarten - some things planned some things not so much!

So I thought I would blog about a few things that you can do to make the process go a little smoother!

I am sure that most of you have to have your standards posted!

I find that very important especially for kindergarten since they can't read! :)

RIGHT!?!?!

But it isn't really worth complaining about and should be looked at as an easy point to get!

Just post them and voila! One point for you!

That is practically the easiest part of the process!

Here is a link to the updated version of the Indiana State Standards for kindergarten.

Just print and post and you have already received your first point!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Indiana-Kindergarten-State-Standards-College-and-Career-Ready-1825911

Now although these are written in "I can" statements and should to be posted this way the average kindergartener can't repeat what the standard is.

For example,

I know that words are put together to form sentences.

K.RF.2.3 (Print Concepts)

This is an "I can" statement but if a student is asked what they are doing at a particular station

will they be able to recite this standard? Probably not!

Here is your answer... I can statements to go along with your standards!

Here is how I do it in my classroom. I pick all the State Standards that I am going to use for the week for Language Arts and Math. (This is a more general explanation of my week)

I post those under my Standard headings on my front board.

(These are included in my TPT product above)

I also have "I can" pages.

Since I do Literacy Stations every week, I have made an "I can" page for each color station. I have also included one for math and writer's workshop. I then write a more specific statement for each station that goes along with my weekly standards. This is more like the reason for why the students are doing this particular activity. I go over each of these when giving instructions.

For the above standard K.RF.2.3, I would have the standard posted on the board with all of the other standards for the week. Since we are writing sentences at the blue Literacy station I would write: