Governor Phil Murphy • Lt. Governor Tahesha Way

Reflective Practice Protocol

  • The Reflective Practice Protocol is an option for tenured teachers who have been rated “Highly Effective” on their most recent summative rating.
  • Participation in this protocol is optional and based on mutual agreement of the participating teacher and their direct supervisor.
  • The Reflective Practice Conference between the teacher and supervisor will replace one traditional, announced classroom observation. Participating teachers must still receive at least one traditional, unannounced classroom observation as part of the Teacher Practice rating.
  • As with any announced classroom observation, teachers should receive pre- and post-conferences for the Reflective Practice Conference.
  • The Reflective Practice Conference will be based on teacher reflection in several required components. Administrators are responsible for conducting and scoring the conference based on available evidence.
  • As when multiple traditional observations are used to provide a practice score, districts must use the Reflective Practice Conference plus any traditional observations to produce a practice rating that contributes to a 1-4 summative score.

Required Components

Each of the following components is required for participating in the Reflective Practice Protocol and informs the reflective conference, a substitute for one traditional, announced observation. Supervisors and teachers may agree beforehand to focus more heavily on certain components, but the specifics of the required activities should be agreed upon before embarking on this evaluation option. 

Video Capture
Reflect on video of a lesson or segments of lessons determined by the teacher.
Student Voice
Reflect on feedback from students either through a student survey or focus group.
Traditional Observation
Reflect on either the information collected from at least one unannounced evaluator-conducted classroom observation or discuss areas of focus for an upcoming unannounced evaluator-conducted observation.
Student Performance
Reflect on student progress toward academic goals.

Optional Components

The following components are optional for participating in the Reflective Practice Protocol. These options provide additional peer and administrator feedback that a teacher can use to further learn about and improve their practice.

Collaborative Peer
Reflection on peer or team observations that are not evaluative in nature.
District or School Walkthrough
Reflection on aggregate information and its relationship to individual practice.

Reflective Practice Protocol Options

  • Acting as Cooperating Teachers
  • Teachers Pursuing National Board Certification or Recertification

Rubric

Video Capture
Exemplary Adequate Approaching Needs Further Examination
Cooperating Teacher provides thoughtful information concerning clinical intern’s pedagogical strengths and areas of focus according to the teacher practice instrument. They recognize the changes made in clinical intern’s instruction due to their coaching and highlights the impact of those changes, along with any further adjustments needed. Cooperating Teacher provides thoughtful information concerning clinical intern’s pedagogical areas of strengths and areas of need according to the teacher practice instrument. They highlight some changes in clinical intern’s instruction due to their coaching but should monitor the impact more.  Cooperating Teacher provides basic insights concerning clinical intern’s pedagogical areas of strength and needed focus according to the teacher practice instrument. Further work should be done connecting observation and coaching to clinical intern’s change in practice and impact.  Cooperating Teacher provides basic information concerning video capture observations but has not connected those observations to coaching or clinical intern’s instructional change.
Student Voice
Exemplary Adequate Approaching Needs Further Examination
Cooperating Teacher reflects on how they coached clinical intern to consistently and effectively utilize student survey and student survey results to drive instruction.  

Cooperating Teacher reflects on how their coached clinical intern to utilize student survey and student survey results to drive instruction.

Cooperating Teacher reflects on how they coached clinical intern to administer a student survey and reflect on the survey results.  

Cooperating Teacher reflects on how they explained the benefits of utilizing student surveys with clinical intern.
Traditional Observation
Exemplary Adequate Approaching Needs Further Examination
Cooperating Teacher reflects on clinical intern’s classroom co-observation and identifies high-level and targeted coaching that was provided in response to key areas of strength and need. 

Cooperating Teacher reflects on clinical intern’s classroom co-observation and identifies adequate coaching that was provided in response to key areas of strength and need. 

Cooperating Teacher reflects on clinical intern’s classroom co-observation, identifying clinical intern’s key areas of strength and need.  

Cooperating Teacher reflects on clinical intern’s classroom co-observation, but does not accurately identify areas of strength and need or does not provide coaching in response to areas of need.
Student Performance
Exemplary Adequate Approaching Needs Further Examination
Cooperating Teacher uses data to provide insights about clinical intern’s progress toward academic goals and their impact toward reaching these goals while hypothesizing clinical intern’s causes for student success and strategies for addressing areas of need.  Cooperating Teacher provides insights about clinical intern’s progress toward academic goals and their impact toward reaching these goals while hypothesizing clinical intern’s causes for student success and strategies for addressing areas of need. Cooperating Teacher provides insights on clinical intern’s progress toward academic goals while hypothesizing causes for student success, but does connect their coaching to clinical intern’s causes for student success. Cooperating Teacher provides a list of clinical intern’s progress with no connection to clinical intern’s academic goals or their contributions to clinical intern’s causes for student success.
Reflection of All Sources
Exemplary Adequate Approaching Needs Further Examination
Using all information sources, Cooperating Teacher reflects on a well informed and developed strategy that was used to build on strengths and address needs in practice of clinical intern. Using information sources, Cooperating Teacher reflects on an adequate strategy that was used to build on strengths and address needs in practice of clinical intern. Using information sources, Cooperating Teacher is able to identify the appropriate strengths and needs in practice of clinical intern. Cooperating teacher is unable to reflect on information sources or identify strengths and needs in practice of clinical intern.

Depth of Focus

The requirements outlined in this guidance are intended to provide flexibility and autonomy to Highly Effective teachers and their supervisors. Therefore, the depth at which teachers focus on the requirements is at the discretion of the supervisor and teacher. Supervisors are encouraged to work with teachers to allow them the opportunity to reflect on their work in the National Board Certification process. For example, the table below provides suggested approaches for determining the depth of focus for the required components.

National Board Certification Reflective Practice Protocol

Teacher chooses to complete all components of National Board Certification.

 Teacher completes all requirements of the Reflective Practice Protocol, but is permitted to focus more heavily on comparable areas within the National Board Certification components.
Teacher chooses to only pursue Component 2 of National Board Certification, and thus will focus heavily on assessing and reflecting their students’ performance. Teacher completes all requirements of the Reflective Practice Protocol, but is permitted to focus more heavily on the Student Performance component since this aligns with the work that will be done through the National Board Certification process.
Teacher chooses to only pursue Component 3 of National Board Certification, and thus will focus heavily on utilizing video to reflect on their instructional practices. Teacher completes all requirements of the Reflective Practice Protocol, but is permitted to focus more heavily on the Video component since this aligns with the work that will be done through the National Board Certification process

Rubric

Video Capture
Exemplary Adequate Approaching Needs Further Examination

Teacher provides thoughtful information concerning pedagogical strengths and areas of focus according to the teacher practice instrument. 

They recognize the changes made in instruction and highlights the impact of those changes, along with any further adjustments needed.

 Teacher provides thoughtful information concerning pedagogical areas of strengths and areas of need according to the teacher practice instrument. They highlight some changes in instruction but should monitor the impact more.

Teacher provides basic insights concerning pedagogical areas of strength and needed focus according to the teacher practice instrument. Further work should be done connecting observation to change in practice and impact.

Teacher provides basic information concerning video capture observations but has not connected those observations to instructional change, or to the teacher practice instrument.
Student Voice
Exemplary Adequate Approaching Needs Further Examination

Teacher highlights areas of strength and need from a student survey and provides ideas for addressing areas of strength and strategies for addressing areas of need.

Teacher highlights areas of strength and focus from a sample of students that completed a survey and provides a hypothesis for areas of strength.

Teacher highlights areas of strength and focus from a sample of students that completed a survey.

Teacher provides a summary of student survey results without highlighting areas of strength or need.
Traditional Observation
Exemplary Adequate Approaching Needs Further Examination

Teacher connects insights from the classroom observation to their observations of practice with a focus on how progress has been made in key areas of strength and weakness.

Teacher connects insights from the administrator-conducted observation to observations of practice with a focus on how progress has been made in areas of focus.

Teacher connects insights from the administrator-conducted observation to observations, but lacks delineation between areas of strengths and weakness.

Teacher does not connect observation from the administrator-conducted observation to observation of practice.
Student Performance
Exemplary Adequate Approaching Needs Further Examination

Teacher provides insights about student progress toward academic goals while hypothesizing causes for student success and strategies for addressing areas of need.

Teacher provides insights on student progress toward academic goals while hypothesizing causes for student success, but does not outline strategies for areas of need.

Teacher provides insights on student progress toward academic goals but does not hypothesize causes for student success.

Teacher provides a list of student grades with no connection to academic goals.
Reflection of All Sources
Exemplary Adequate Approaching Needs Further Examination

Teacher and administrator identify areas of strength and need and agree to specific strategies that build on strengths and address needs. A plan is developed for teacher to monitor progress and discuss at the next reflective check-in, post-conference, or summative conference.

Teacher and administrator identify both prevalent areas of strength and needed focus from all sources.

Teacher and administrator identify only prevalent areas of weakness gathered from a minimal amount of sources.

Teacher and administrator have not integrated all information gathered from sources of reflection to identify prevalent areas of strength and needed focus.
Page Last Updated: 12/19/2024