Teacher Performance Requirements Teacher Observation for TIA
Districts must use one TEA-approved appraisal rubric for TIA and implement observation protocols to ensure valid and reliable teacher observation data. This data must be based on one or more observations of a teacher instructing students for a minimum of 45 minutes or multiple observations that aggregate to at least 45 minutes. All teachers in eligible teaching assignments must receive a complete observation and full appraisal during the Data Capture Year. Teachers with incomplete observation data or without a summative appraisal are not eligible to earn a designation.
Districts will report dimension-level appraisal data from all observable domains (Domains 2 and 3 for T-TESS, or the equivalent for a third party or district-created rubric).
TIA Teacher Observation Self-Assessment
TEA-Approved Options for Appraisal
Selecting a Rubric TEA-Approved Options for Appraisal
The T-TESS appraisal system incorporates all the requirements needed for appraiser certification, recertification, and calibration—and is the most commonly used rubric among TIA districts. While districts can use existing teacher evaluation plans to meet teacher observation criteria, they must use only one TEA-approved appraisal rubric and implement observation protocols to ensure valid and reliable data.
Approved T-TESS Alternatives
Alternate rubrics approved to capture teacher observation data for TIA include Danielson, Marzano, or NIET TAP. Districts implementing these rubrics must use the corresponding T-TESS crosswalk.
Danielson T-TESS Crosswalk
Marzano T-TESS Crosswalk
NIET TAP T-TESS Crosswalk
District-Created Rubrics
Districts using a locally developed rubric must ensure that it aligns to TEC §21.351 or §21.352. When applying to use a locally created rubric, districts must submit their rubric along with a complete District-Created Rubric Crosswalk aligning their rubric to T-TESS.
Learn More About Aligning District-Created Rubrics
Ensuring Consistency Calibration Protocols
Local designation systems must outline how they will provide fair and consistent evaluations to ensure highly effective teachers have equitable access to a designation. Calibration protocols are procedures used to increase alignment between appraisers, campuses, and student growth data throughout the year.
Strong calibration protocols can help increase scoring accuracy by providing appraisers with opportunities to practice collecting defensible evidence for ratings. This provides a deeper understanding of what effective instruction looks like across a variety of contexts and ensures that each appraiser in the district is aligned in how they are evaluating teachers. Consistent appraisal alignment results in stronger systems and improved data validation outcomes.
Teacher Observation Calibration Protocols
Appraisal Training and Recertification
For TIA, TEA requires that appraisers undergo recertification every three years, with annual training of appraisers to ensure consistency, regardless of the appraisal rubric adopted by the district.
Annual training should include a review of the rubric, guidance on accurately evaluating teachers, and strategies for collecting defensible evidence. Additionally, it should incorporate a performance task that requires appraisers to demonstrate their alignment with the rubric standards.
TIA Teacher Observation Calibration Modules
The TIA Calibration Teaching Observation is a tool designed to assist appraisers in enhancing their calibration efforts. Appraisers will take a brief 5-minute quiz to evaluate their current teacher observation practices. Based on the results of this assessment, appraisers will be directed to complete specific training modules tailored to their individual needs. This process aims to ensure valid and reliable teacher observation outcomes.
TIA Calibration Teaching Observation
Appraisal Calibration Schedules
Strong systems don’t stop at calibrating their appraisers at the start of the year but incorporate calibration exercises throughout the school year. These systems develop calibration protocols that include:
- A schedule of calibration activities that span the year.
- Designated times for appraisers at different campuses to calibrate together.
- Certification and calibration of district leaders alongside campus appraisers.
- A definition of what it means for two appraisers to be calibrated to each other during a specific calibration activity. For example, they may require appraisers to match every rating, score within one point of each other on each dimension, match a certain percentage of ratings, etc.
- Coaching and development opportunities for appraisers to become more skilled at rating teachers accurately
- Discussion of evidence during calibration debriefs prior to sharing ratings to ensure alignment on not only the rating but the reason why.
- The evidence provided is objective and states exactly what the teacher said or did, or what students said or did.
- Low quality evidence: The teacher checked for understanding after modeling one problem.
- High quality evidence: After modeling one problem, the teacher asked each student to attempt a second problem on individual white boards (15 x 24). The teacher circulated as students worked and wrote down common errors she was seeing in kids’ work. Then, all students raised their boards so she could see how many students were able to complete the problem successfully on their own. 15 out of 22 students were successful.
Sample District Calibration Calendar
Sample Observation Calibration Plan
Access Free Appraisal Resources with NIET EE PASS
The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) is a national organization committed to ensuring a highly skilled, strongly motivated, and competitively compensated teacher for every classroom in America.
NIET works in partnership with the Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) program to provide free access to an educator appraisal resource library for TIA-participating districts through the Educator Effectiveness Preparation and Support System (EE PASS). This resource library contains hundreds of organized materials designed to share and collaborate among district teams to support local calibration of appraisal systems and best practices.
Group Enrollment
For organizations wanting to provide broad access to educators, please fill out the NIET EE Pass Enrollment for Groups form. NIET will create an account and communicate directly with each educator about login details.
Individual Enrollment
For individuals not enrolling with an organization, please visit the EE PASS website at http://www.eepass.org and click the “Contact Us” tab on the right side of the page, or on the email link at the bottom of the page (support@niet.org). NIET will gather relevant information, establish the account, and communicate with the individual user.
Teacher Observation Calibration Activities
Districts may incorporate various calibration activities to promote alignment among appraisers throughout the year to meet their needs.
Co-Observation | 30-45 Minutes
Two or more appraisers observe the same live lesson at the same time, score 2-3 predetermined rubric dimensions, and then use the evidence collected to norm on ratings.
Appraiser managers may use this as an effective coaching tool to improve appraisers’ rating accuracy and their skill in gathering high-quality evidence. Peers can employ it to enhance their consistency with one another. Additionally, it serves to evaluate the degree to which an appraiser aligns with the rubric.
Single Dimension Walkthrough | 60-90 Minutes
Two or more appraisers conduct short co-observations of multiple teachers (districts select time for short observations such as 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc.). Appraisers rate each teacher on only one rubric dimension.
Campus Walkthrough | 3-6 Hours
The campus leadership team conducts short (10-15 minute) observations across many or all classrooms on campus.
Full campus walkthroughs can provide leadership teams with a view of strengths and areas of weakness in instructional practices across their entire campus, especially if appraisers score teachers they don’t normally observe. This can help increase alignment across a campus’ leadership team.
Student Actions vs. Teacher Actions Co-Observation | 30-45 Minutes
Two or more appraisers observe the same lesson (either live or recorded). One person scripts only what students say and do. The other person scripts only what the teacher says and does.
This activity is useful for developing appraisers’ ability to collect quality evidence using not only teacher actions but also student actions. The debrief conversation will help appraisers develop a deeper understanding of the teaching rubric.
Virtual Synchronous Lesson Co-Observation | 30-45 Minutes
Two or more appraisers observe the same lesson (either live or recorded). One person scripts only what students say and do. The other person scripts only what the teacher says and does.
This activity is especially useful to train appraisers to evaluate instruction in a new context (virtual) and using an adapted virtual instruction rubric. It is recommended for districts with needs to conduct scored observations virtually to implement calibrated co-observations of virtual instruction. This can be used by appraiser managers to develop appraisers’ accuracy and ability to use high-quality evidence to rate teachers using the observation rubric.
Virtual Asynchronous Co-Observation | Varies
Two or more appraisers collect evidence on a few predetermined rubric dimensions using asynchronous instruction and then discuss ratings together.
This activity is useful to train appraisers to evaluate instruction in a new context (virtual) and use an adapted virtual instruction rubric. It is recommended for districts with needs to conduct scored observations virtually to implement calibrated co-observations of virtual instruction. This can be used by appraiser managers to develop appraisers’ accuracy and ability to use high-quality evidence to rate teachers using the observation rubric.
Review and Respond to Data
Districts with strong systems review teacher observation data for skew by appraiser, school, grade level, subject, teacher demographic, and more at least quarterly and the correlation between teacher observation scores and student growth data at the campus level at least once per year.
After analyzing the data, districts develop a plan to fix skew or correlation issues. This likely may involve coaching and recalibrating appraisers, helping teachers improve instruction, or checking the reliability and validity of student growth measures.
Learn More About Teacher Observation Correlation
Single-Appraiser Districts
To support small districts in implementing teacher observation best practices, we have created the resources below.
Teacher Observation Systems in Single Appraiser Districts Webinar
Sample Teacher Observation Plan for Single Appraiser District
Sample Calibration Calendar for Single Appraiser Districts
Teacher Observation FAQs
Teacher Observation FAQs
Many districts allow eligible teachers to waive an annual appraisal. Will an annual appraisal be required for teachers to earn a designation?
Districts must have observation and student data from the data capture year for all teachers in the district’s system. After receiving full system approval, districts may have teachers on appraisal waivers, but those teachers may not be submitted for proposed designations. An annual appraisal is required for teachers to earn a designation. TEA cautions districts to use waivers sparingly following system approval, as this may impact future data validation and future proposed designations. Appraisals must comply with §21.351 and §21.352.
If a teacher instructs more than one TIA-eligible course, does the teacher observation have to take place in the same course that the teacher is being submitted for a designation?
The minimum requirement is a 45-minute observation for each teacher in an eligible teaching assignment. There is no TIA rule requirement that the observation must align with the course submitted for designation in the event that a teacher teaches multiple courses. However, it is best practice for the T-TESS observation to align with the course being submitted for designation for the purpose of analyzing correlation data. When the student growth measure and the T-TESS observation do not align with the same course, districts should consider the impact on their correlation data.
Should ratings collected during calibration protocols be used as formal ratings?
While the decision is entirely up to the school, the ratings collected during a calibration activity are likely to be accurate since each rating was agreed upon by more than one person. For that reason, we recommend using these as formal ratings if that makes sense for your district or school. As you decide, be sure to solicit teacher input.
If two appraisers disagree about a rating, how do we decide which rating is the most valid?
Using evidence collected during the observation, appraisers should discuss which rating makes the most sense based on the teacher observation rubric and then come to a consensus. The practice of debating and grounding discussion in evidence is perhaps the most important part of calibration activities because it promotes a deeper understanding of how to appraise instruction using the rubric. When in doubt, rely on scripted evidence.
What should we do if appraisers don’t calibrate to each other during a calibration activity?
During a single calibration activity, districts should not be concerned if appraisers aren’t calibrated. Continue engaging in calibration activities to become increasingly aligned over time. If a trend emerges in which appraisers or campuses are consistently not calibrated, the district and/or campus should create a plan to increase appraiser validity and reliability. Next steps could include the following:
- Re-train appraiser(s) on the district’s teacher observation rubric.
- Norm on what constitutes each performance level on the rubric for a specific subject or grade level.
- Until calibration is established or re-established, two appraisers conduct each scored observation.
- Assign each teacher two appraisers and use the average scores of both appraisers.
- Increase individualized coaching of appraisers who are not highly calibrated.
