The Mamaroneck APPR plan defines a mini-observation as “an unannounced visit by an administrator in which s/he stays a minimum of five minutes. The teacher receives feedback on six mini-observations in two ways, face-to-face first, followed by written form within ten school days after the visit.” Ideally, this process is reciprocal; teachers are encouraged to participate actively by inviting administrators to their classrooms, initiating dialogue, providing feedback, and sharing relevant context and resources.

Since the district adopted mini-observations as the core of its Annual Professional Performance Review plan, administrators have worked, supported by coursework and coaching from Research for Better Teaching, to refine their skills in the following areas:

• Capturing relevant, accurate information during classroom visits
• Identifying lesson objective(s); assessing alignment of lesson activities with objectives
• Planning for evidence-based reflecting conferences by pairing classroom data with non-judgmental questions
• Conducting productive and respectful reflecting conferences with teachers
• Writing accurate, evidence-based mini-observation reports linking observed elements of lesson to areas of performance in RBT pyramid and Marshall rubric

Completing 6+ mini-observations of each teacher—and a formal observation of each non-tenured teacher—is time-consuming. In this Tri-State review, we seek to understand the “value added” by this approach. We’ve asked each administrator to create a portfolio of 5-6 mini-observations (either a case study of a single teacher or a collection of separate mini-observations) and a written reflection. We encourage Tri-State team members to read the reflections and mini-observations of those administrators with whom they will meet during the visit in order to deepen the dialogue.