You will be watching videos, reading documents, and taking check point quizzes throughout these modules to prepare you for the new South Carolina Expanded ADEPT (Assessing Developing Evaluating Professional Teaching) 4.0 evaluation criteria. It is important that you begin to develop a solid understanding of this process, since it will be used by USC Upstate as well as all public schools in South Carolina.
Background:
The Expanded ADEPT 4.0 evaluation criteria will be fully implemented in schools during the 2018-2019 academic year. As a way to prepare all of teacher candidates (you) for this evaluation system, institutions of higher education (including USC Upstate) will begin phasing in Expanded ADEPT 4.0 into the clinical courses and student teaching in Spring of 2017. At the heart of this evaluation model is the NIET (National Institute for Excellence in Teaching) rubric. This rubric was developed with the vision that providing teachers with meaningful, clear, timely, and direct feedback will assist them in improving their practices (teaching strategies, questioning, student engagement, and assessment). Evidence is the corner stone to this evaluation system. It is no longer acceptable for an evaluator to assume certain instructional strategies and other practices are being used in a classroom. Evidence of effective teaching practices must be provided or seen.
Through the Expanded ADEPT evaluation system, more emphasis is put on the classroom effectiveness of a teacher with less emphasis on student performance on standardized testing. This evaluation system is in response to the Every Student Success Act (ESSA) passed in 2015.
NIET Rubric:
This rubric is the primary evaluation instrument for Expanded ADEPT 4.0. The NIET rubric has four domains: Planning, Instruction, Environment, and Professionalism. These domains are not a new concept, they have been emphasized in education for several decades. As you can see from the pie graph below, the instruction domain is emphasized more than any of the other domains.
This does not mean that the other domains are not important components of an effective teacher. The instruction domain is emphasized because that is where the majority of evidence of effective teaching can be collected.
Assignment: Watch the Overview Video