Most grading done at high schools in the United States results in a single grade for a single class on a report card or transcript. A single number or letter lacks context and cannot effectively communicate a student’s proficiency in content or skills. Altering or expanding a school’s grading scheme may originate at the district or school level, but that is not where the work is done. A student’s grade is often solely constructed by the individual teacher for the individual class. As such, any change to an assessment system must start with teachers. This action research project was designed to involve teachers in an innovation investigating the utility and efficacy of using a competency-based assessment system to assess the school’s core skills of collaborating, communicating, observing, questioning, speculating and hypothesizing, evaluating, and applying knowledge. The complimentary study associated with the research questions analyzed faculty attitudes, self-efficacy, and collaboration during the innovation. Quantitative data was collected from a single survey taken at three different times throughout the study. Qualitative data was collected from two focus group interviews and seven individual interviews. The results of the study highlight the important role of student feedback, the tension between a latent versus active curriculum, the need for flexibility when working with faculty, and the promise of professional learning communities. Finally, implications for practice and suggestions for further study and next steps are discussed.

Growing popularity of alternatively certifying teachers has created challenges for teacher preparation programs. Many non-traditional routes into classroom include no full-time mentor teacher. Absence of a mentor teacher in the classroom leaves teachers with a deficit. This study follows ten teachers on the intern certificate enrolled in both an alternative certification teacher preparation program and the Teach for America organization as they pursue a master's degree in education and state teaching certification from a large southwestern university. The five randomly chosen for the treatment group and the control group contained 1 male and 4 female teachers, some of whom teach at public schools and others at charter schools. All were secondary education language arts teachers ranging in age from 22- 29. The treatment used in this study is a job-embedded, professional development, software tool designed to help teachers track their classroom practices called MyiLOGS. The purpose of this action research project was to study the effect using MyiLOGS had on six of the nine areas evaluated by a modified version of the Teacher Advancement Program evaluation rubric, alignment with Opportunity To Learn constructs, and the tool's influence on the efficacy of these first year teachers. The data generated from this study indicate that the MyiLOGS tool did have a positive effect on the teachers' TAP evaluation performances. Also, the MyiLOGS tool had a large impact on the teachers' instruction as measured by the constructs of Opportunity to Learn and their teaching self-efficacy. Implications suggested the tool was an asset to these teachers because they tracked their data, became more reflective, and self-sufficient.