Announcing a Refined Solution for Calibrating Observers

SANDY, Utah - Sept. 10, 2014 - PRLog -- Teachers deserve to have fair, accurate and valid evaluations. As performance evaluations become more high-stakes, it’s crucial that observers are scoring teachers correctly.  Truenorthlogic (http://www.truenorthlogic.com), in collaboration with Teaching Learning Solutions (http://teachinglearningsolutions.com/), built Calibration Connect to support the efforts of school districts and state agencies to increase observer and evaluator effectiveness, ensuring evidence collected during an observation is valid and defensible and the score is consistent. Taking over two years of experience and thousands of school district and state agency participants trained, Calibration Connect has been refined to be the most robust observer calibration platform available.

Calibration Connect is an online solution which assists in building individual skills and accuracies while systematically gathering data to demonstrate inter-rater reliability among the calibration participants. Calibration Connect makes it easy to gain visibility into raw ratings, evidence collection and analysis, and collaboration in support of the evaluation process. Observers are able to demonstrate their abilities to collect defensible evidence and select valid ratings and precise outcomes for observations and evaluations.

Calibration Connect supports not only raw and consensus ratings, but evidence collection, analysis and collaboration in the support of the rating. Rather than a simple average of observers’ scores (inter-rater agreement) and pass/fail outcome, the Calibration Connect solution goes beyond by providing observers an automatic rating of their level of proficiency based on three quantitative accuracy measures that, when used together, provide a more precise picture of an observers accuracy.  These proficiency levels can be used to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses, to drive professional development offerings, or to plan additional next steps. The solution is self-serviceable, allows for unlimited calibration events, and can be configured to any observer-in-training service the school district or state provides.

“The growth of teaching and leading professionals is too important to leave to chance or bias,” said Jeanette Haren, President and CEO of Truenorthlogic. “Calibration Connect gives districts and states an easy and reliable way to measure observers’ individual skills and accuracies as well as inter-rater reliability across multiple observers, thus providing teachers with the confidence that they are being observered fairly by a proficient observer.”

Albert (Duffy) Miller, Teaching Learning Solutions Co-owner, agrees, “Calibration Connect is an online platform that allows for in-depth observer training, actual classroom observations, and professional development to ensure continued calibration of observers. This leads to greater inter-rater reliability and agreement among observers, and in turn helps districts know where to focus professional development for observers and teachers.”

ABOUT TRUENORTHLOGIC

Truenorthlogic is the leading K-12 talent management solution for district leaders who are frustrated by the need to integrate multiple systems to deliver true educator effectiveness. Unlike point solutions, which ignore and ultimately compound this problem, Truenorthlogic simplifies the complexity, bringing great educator effectiveness programs to life while meeting real world needs for transparency and accountability. Truenorthlogic provides a comprehensive solution that requires a personalized and integrated approach to professional growth. www.truenorthlogic.com

ABOUT TEACHING LEARNING SOLUTIONS

Teaching Learning Solutions contracts with districts of all sizes to support implementation of teacher and administrator evaluation models or other evaluative criteria. Teaching Learning Solutions works collaboratively with schools to customize professional development that will increase a school’s or district’s capacity for sustained improvement in teaching and learning. www.teachinglearningsolutions.com