The Midwest Regional Educational Service Center’s Curriculum Team is taking on OTES 2.0.
The traditional Ohio Teacher Evaluation System was recently revised and will go into effect for nearly all educators during the fall of 2021.
The MRESC Curriculum Team has developed specialized training to prepare teachers for the new system of tracking their own professional progress and the use of student data to modify instruction. Team members Dave Shellhaas, Gina Rogers and Bob Batty recently rolled out the training at Indian Lake Local Schools.
The Curriculum Team highlighted that OTES 2.0 emphasizes the teacher’s role in gathering student data at multiple intervals (I.E. minute to minute, end of lesson, end of a unit/class, and long term) and then using that data to plan for future lessons.
“This training allows them (teachers) to understand what they should be doing on a daily basis in their instruction to collect data and use it to modify the instruction so that students continue to learn and grow,” Dave Shellhaas, the Curriculum Team’s science and social studies specialist stated.
March 5 at Indian Lake High School, the team provided training to three groups of teachers: group one: grades K-2 self-contained classrooms; group two: grades 3-11 subjects that required state-testing, and group three: subjects that are not state tested (grades 3-12).
Each group discussed and shared new ideas on how to collect data from students.
“Data collection is more than just watching and listening. Using efficient techniques to grab a snapshot of all students’ understanding needs to be prioritized,” Bob Batty explained.
The MRESC Curriculum Team is offering OTES 2.0 teacher training sessions to districts this summer in early June and August. Those sessions will focus on data collection and using that data to make sound instructional decisions to help their students learn.
Under Ohio law, public school administrators use the OTES system to evaluate teacher performance in the classroom.