Did you know you can use ESSA Title II Funds to bring teacher feedback video into the classroom?
Administrators and teachers are constantly tasked with finding different ways to improve their schools and deliver a better experience for their students. However, resources for developing improvement programs are often limited.
Through the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the Department of Education provides states, school districts, and administrators with support to improve their schools through federal funding.
This funding, if used efficiently and effectively, can have a real impact on a school’s instructional quality. But deciding how to use funds in a manner that’s both effective and appropriate can be difficult, especially when funding is relatively limited.
Professional development of school faculty is proven to impact student outcomes in a variety of subjects (Suk Yoon, Duncan, et al., 2007). But traditional professional development events, such as sending faculty to conferences and bringing in outside professional coaches, can quickly consume a school’s resources.
With Vosaic’s teacher coaching, observation, and evaluation with video, schools can realize significant instructional improvement and professional growth, utilizing their ESSA Title II-A funding to do so. Administrators and teachers can use this powerful and accessible tool to build the school’s human capital. Vosaic’s video feedback suite gives faculty a platform for collaborative professional development and evaluation that can be easily configured to fit your school’s specific needs – whether you’re a Marzano school, using Danielson’s, CLASS, or any other observation and/or coaching framework.
The law states that Title II-A funds can be used for “carrying out programs and activities that are designed to improve the quality of the teacher force,” such as “innovative professional development programs” (Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015).
Programs put in place using Title II-A funding must also be effective and “evidence-based,” meaning that at least one experimental, quasi-experimental or correlational study exists that, “shows a statistically significant and positive effect of the intervention on a student outcome or other relevant outcome” (Department of Education, 2016).
There are a number of studies reflecting such results using video for professional development. The Department of Education has published nine evidence-based studies demonstrating the positive effects on student outcomes that ongoing teacher development programs can have (Suk Yoon, Duncan, et al., 2007). Additionally, one Harvard University study found that using video for professional development fostered collaboration with colleagues and promoted open communication about performance between teachers and their administrators (Kane, Gehlbach, et al., 2013).
With Vosaic, schools of varying sizes can use Title II-A funds to invest in their teachers. By tapping into even a small Title II-A allocation, institutions can realize improvements to student engagement, faculty development and organizational culture.
FACTS is a partner with Vosaic. This article was originally posted in its full format at Vosaic.com.
