Building a Better Evaluation System: Tools to Evaluate Teachers
Building a better evaluation system: Tools to evaluate teachers
Although classroom observations are by far the most common form of teacher evaluation, there are several other methods that can be used to evaluation the quality of teachers. All can provide important information about teacher quality, but each has its own strengths and limitations. It’s important to understand the strengths and limitations of each in order to use these tools to provide a comprehensive evaluation of a teacher’s true performance.
A National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (2008) report provided the following strengths and limitations of each of the teacher evaluation tools (Mathers, Oliva and Laine 2008):
Classroom Observation
Strengths
* Captures information about teachers’ instructional practices. * Can be used as a diagnostic or for final personnel decisions. * Can track a teacher’s growth and suggest needed professional development.
Limitations
* Biased results from poorly trained observers and inconsistent, brief observations. * When conducted more frequently, their reliability improves. * When observations are longer, their validity improves.
Lesson Plans Reviews
Lesson plans help examine how a teacher prepares to deliver content, develop student skills, and manage the classroom learning environment. Lesson plans are typically evaluated using a rubric. Few districts use lesson plans as part of a teacher’s evaluation.
Strengths
* Student learning is correlated with a teacher’s level of planning used to drive instruction. * More likely to be positively related to improved student outcomes when the plans are able to (Stronge 2007): * Link student learning objectives with teaching activities. * Describe teaching practices to maintain students’ attention. * Align student objectives with district and state standards. * Accommodate students with special needs.
Limitations
* A lesson a plan is just a
Although classroom observations are by far the most common form of teacher evaluation, there are several other methods that can be used to evaluation the quality of teachers. All can provide important information about teacher quality, but each has its own strengths and limitations. It’s important to understand the strengths and limitations of each in order to use these tools to provide a comprehensive evaluation of a teacher’s true performance.
A National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (2008) report provided the following strengths and limitations of each of the teacher evaluation tools (Mathers, Oliva and Laine 2008):
Classroom Observation
Strengths
* Captures information about teachers’ instructional practices. * Can be used as a diagnostic or for final personnel decisions. * Can track a teacher’s growth and suggest needed professional development.
Limitations
* Biased results from poorly trained observers and inconsistent, brief observations. * When conducted more frequently, their reliability improves. * When observations are longer, their validity improves.
Lesson Plans Reviews
Lesson plans help examine how a teacher prepares to deliver content, develop student skills, and manage the classroom learning environment. Lesson plans are typically evaluated using a rubric. Few districts use lesson plans as part of a teacher’s evaluation.
Strengths
* Student learning is correlated with a teacher’s level of planning used to drive instruction. * More likely to be positively related to improved student outcomes when the plans are able to (Stronge 2007): * Link student learning objectives with teaching activities. * Describe teaching practices to maintain students’ attention. * Align student objectives with district and state standards. * Accommodate students with special needs.
Limitations
* A lesson a plan is just a