What is InterLEAD Connector™?

InterLEAD Connector™ is a very simple to use on-line cloud based system. The system has evolved over the last five years as educators continue to suggest innovations and improvements; it’s never static. If someone has a great idea we will try and make it work for the betterment of all users.

 

InterLEAD Connector™ provides a number of benefits:

  • Saves time, reduces paper and simplifies what is a complex process;
  • Strengthens teacher inquiry, action based research and improvement initiatives;
  • Generates rich personalised high quality teaching practice data for on-going teacher inquiry and reflection;
  • Makes it easy for teachers to analyse, evaluate and engage in critical conversations around their teaching practices and those of others;
  • Strengthens a school/centre’s social capital by becoming a knowledge information sharing system;
  • Supports intrinsically driven teacher self improvement;
  • Enables teacher collaboration to go beyond ‘contrived collegiality’;
  • Expedites the development of workplace culture where intelligent failure is embraced and subsequently supports teacher innovation;
  • Empowers teachers to lead their own appraisal conversations with insight, honesty and critical thinking;
  • Enhances teachers’ decision making at the planning and execution stages of the teaching and learning process.

 

Using InterLEAD Connector™ each teacher is provided with a personal secure on-line appraisal folder. In it they take control of their appraisal.

In the same same way a house has different rooms designed for different purposes and furnished with different types of furniture so too does the InterLEAD Connector™.

In the Home room teachers are able to access templates for self review purposes and complete their self reviews. If they have been asked to provide feedback for colleagues these vital practices are accessed here too.

The Student Voice platform (for primary and secondary schools) resides in here too. Here, a teacher is able to set themselves up to receive feedback on five areas of their teaching practice – Safety & Well Being, Teacher Standards & Expectations, Teaching & Learning – Relationships; Teaching & Learning – Communication and Teaching & Learning – Motivation. Students’ feedback is confidential and teachers can set themselves up with as many student reviews as they like throughout a year.

Every time a teacher completes a self review of their teaching using the Vital Teaching Practices and/or receives feedback from others, the information becomes available once the deadline date has past, in the My Reports room. Teaching Practice Reports generated by Appraisal Connector™ provide powerful opportunities for teachers to formatively assess their practice. Data is displayed in multiple ways – dials and tables – and accumulates over a year allowing teachers to monitor progress. The system requires teachers to drive the process themselves.

Feedback and self-evaluation of teaching practice is presented in ways allowing teachers to critically evaluate and synthesis their effectiveness in Classroom Management, their Curriculum Knowledge, Instructional Practices and Formative Assessment.

In the Journal room teachers:

  • Set goals and/or their inquiries;
  • Share their reflective journals with others and also access their colleague’s;
  • Invite teachers from other schools into their on-line journals;
  • Save and store evidence that they are achieving their goals and/or making a difference to outcomes through their inquiries;
  • Professionally journal and create threads with important themes (e.g. curriculum development, planning, student motivation and relationships);
  • Share their critical thinking with colleagues;
  • Archive in folders important websites or embed links within written reflections;
  • Upload within written reflections images from websites and also photographs taken from hard drives.

Leaders have access to additional rooms. The Staff Reviews room allows leaders to set teachers up with review cycles using the Vital Teaching Practices, the Staff Reports room allows leaders to view each teacher’s Teaching Practices Report and to obtain school/centre wide data for school self review purposes, and the Manage Staff room allows leaders to add new staff and to manage existing staff.

All these functions when combined allow teachers to confidently take the crucial step to effectively self-directing their learning. For leaders they provide a platform for teachers to demonstrate a multitude of new behaviours and practices that result in significant culture change.