SamTastic Weekly Tip: 4/14/25 - Examine your Conversations with Teachers
- Jim Mercer
- Apr 14
- 2 min read
This week’s tip: Examine your Conversations with Teachers
Is your feedback an evaluation or is it a tool to improve teacher practice? Is your feedback a lecture or a discussion?
Many formal evaluation structures gravitate toward simplistic checklists and scoring systems that take the conversation of practice out of the picture.
The research is clear. Formal evaluation does not improve teacher practice unless coupled with a significant investment of leader time throughout the school year. Conversations with teachers about their work needs to be frequent, consistent, collaborative and consistent. Trust doesn’t happen with a single interaction.
Use your TimeTrack data to examine your investments. Look at the frequency of time spent with a teacher. Did you have more than one interaction with the teacher weekly? Did you have one “listening” conversation with the teacher every two week?
What does your data suggest you should do?
The NSIP Board held its Spring meeting online last week. You will find a summary from Board President Bert Hendee, below.
From Bert Hendee, President NSIP Board of Directors:
Your NSIP Board of Directors’ most recent meeting was held via Zoom on April 7, 2025
As we have shared with you before, the board of directors meets two times a year in person. One meeting is held in conjunction with the National Conference and one in the summer either June or July. Two other virtual meetings may be held each year as well. At each meeting we have updates from each member of the board and the executive director. Our vision, mission, bylaws, policies and procedures are reviewed at each meeting as well. An annual board self-evaluation is completed as well as a performance review for the executive director. We are all educators and are passionate about this work and always working towards improvements in our performance and support of NSIP.
During this most recent board meeting we discussed the rather uncertain times that districts are facing right now We pledge to work with you during these times and for you to know that we believe in you and what great work you do and CAN do. As you complete your rubric assessments with your Time Change Coaches we know the reflection time will be invaluable and look forward to discussing this further at our summer board meeting.
If you have questions please feel free to reach out to any board member at any time. Our contact information is on the NSIP website.
2024 SAM Team Performance Report: Executive Summary - https://bit.ly/4fh2V2k
Music Video: I Am a SAM https://bit.ly/48OCjCm
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