A Framework for Effective Instruction
City Schools' instructional framework and rubric provides a structure that helps teachers design and deliver effective instruction. It also identifies the things that go into excellent teaching, so that teachers, school administrators, and district staff can recognize it and talk about it using a common language.
The framework revolves around a three-part cycle: Prepare, teach, and reflect and adjust.
Within these three broad areas, many things need to happen. For example, to plan effective instruction, teachers need to know and understand
Each student's unique needs
The content to be taught
The teaching techniques and strategies that are most effective in connecting that student and that content
Updating the Framework and Rubric
The original instructional framework was created in 2012 and was tested in collaboration with teachers, school leaders, and union representatives. It guides the district’s curricula aligned to state standards.
Since then, the district has gathered additional feedback from all stakeholders and updated the Instructional Framework Rubric to further reflect educator moves that support student learning and engagement in rigorous tasks.
Additional Resources
Key shifts from the original 2012 framework to the 2020 updated version
Narrated slide deck about teacher evaluations for BTU employees
Instructional Framework Rubric overview course on Blackboard
Instructional Framework Resources
By accessing the resources listed below, you can review our full Instructional Framework Rubric, content-specific addendums and examples of what Effective practice can look like, and access to Instructional Framework observation guidance and training materials
Reading and Resources
These resources provide some of the research and district context related to the Instructional Framework Rubric’s focus on effective teaching. While not an exhaustive literature review, we hope this provides an entry point for reading.
Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners (2019). ADA: Equity. Baltimore, MD: Author. Available here
Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners (2019). GCO: Employee Evaluations. Baltimore, MD: Author. Available here
Baltimore City Public Schools (2017). Building a Generation: City Schools’ Blueprint for Success. Baltimore, MD: Author. Available here
Chin, M., Hill, H.C. (2018, October). Connections between teachers’ knowledge of students, instruction, and achievement outcomes. American Educational Research Journal, 55(5), 1076-1112.
Durlak, J.A., Dymnicki, A.B., Schellinger, K.B., Taylor, R.D., & Weissberg, R.P. (2011, February). The Impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405-432.
Kane, T.J., Kerr, K.A., & Pianta, R.C. (Ed). (2014). Designing teacher evaluation systems: New guidance from the Measures of Effective Teaching Project. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Brand.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2014, Spring). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: a.k.a. the remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74-84.
Resnick, L.B., & Schantz, F. (2015). Re-thinking intelligence: Schools that build the mind. European Journal of Education, 50(3), 340-349.