Evaluating and Advancing the Effective Teaching of Special Educators With a Dynamic Instructional Practices Portfolio

Abstract

We describe the concept of a dynamic instructional practices portfolio to evaluate special education teachers. This portfolio features the My Instructional Learning Opportunities Guidance System (MyiLOGS) as the core component. MyiLOGS is an online, daily self-report measure of opportunity to learn (OTL) that provides detailed information on teachers’ use of instructional time, curricular content covered, and instructional practices, all of which are known to influence student achievement. This measure and its related support measures have evolved from professional development research. To use MyiLOGS, teachers must pass a qualifying assessment to document their knowledge of effective instruction. An observation tool called My Instructional Observation System (MyiOBS) is based on the same instructional framework as MyiLOGS and provides a third-party account of the reliability of a teacher’s self-reported practices. Finally, after using MyiLOGS to document daily instruction, teachers receive detailed instructional feedback every 40 days that can be used to create an Instructional Growth Plan (IGP). This IGP then can be used to document instructional improvement within a school year. Collectively, the three assessment tools—MyiLOGS Qualifying Assessment, MyiLOGS, and MyiOBS—provide substantial data about teachers’ knowledge and daily instructional actions. Coupled with a personalized instructional feedback report and structured improvement plan for designing and measuring changes in instructional actions, the MyiLOGS Instructional Practices Portfolio has the potential to provide special education teachers a personalized and data-rich evaluation tool. All the elements in this Instructional Practices Portfolio have been used with both general and special educators in research and technical assistance projects, but not as part of a formal evaluation system. We conclude with an examination of proof of concept issues to address for the proposed teacher evaluation tool.