Our training & calibration tool for classroom evaluators, Observation Engine, is a networked streaming video application. For a period of four school years, until we sold the software and business this year, we worked in over 700 school districts. We provided software support to the whole networking, creating a practice environment for training and calibrating the micro-credentialing classroom observers. Videos were collected in the Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, and initial software development was supported by the Foundation. Working on the MET project brought us into the analytics on which observation systems are based. Further work with observations as data has been through the Regional Education Labs where we provided services to states.
Through the RELs, we have been involved in large-scale randomized studies including as many as 80 schools done on behalf of the state agencies. Our continuing work in Alabama shows how we can build trust with people on the ground.
