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Thursday, April 14, 2011

teacher evaluation

I talked to a high school teacher last weekend who told me teachers are being evaluated on:
  • arrangement of furniture in the classroom (desks not in rows)
  • presence of group work
  • students sharing personal details of their lives with the teacher
I didn't get the sense that 'personal details' meant inappropriately personal. It seemed to mean students sharing biographical detail with the teacher during class time.

I think that is a dreadful criterion - and I would bet a modest sum that students sharing biographical detail with the teacher during class time would be associated with lower achievement, not higher.

I don't want to see students in, say, a U.S. history class talking about themselves.

I want to see students in a U.S. history class talking about U.S. history.
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5 comments:

  1. LynnGApril 14, 2011 at 8:22 AM

    I've spent a lot of time talking to teachers about this topic as well. Any attempt to evaluate teachers fairly has got to involve the teachers themselves. Classroom observations are ridiculously ineffective as a predictor of "good" teaching.

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  2. ParkerApril 14, 2011 at 8:23 AM

    But levels of narcissism are too low in our society; we need to encourage it more in our young people.

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  3. Catherine JohnsonApril 14, 2011 at 8:26 AM

    Parker - lolll!

    That reminds me of a great moment: one of my neighbor's kids, asked to write yet another memoir in 8th grade, told his mom: I'm running out of memories.

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  4. Catherine JohnsonApril 14, 2011 at 8:27 AM

    Lynn - I am a HUGE fan of Japanese lesson study (which is very similar to "professional learning communities" here).

    Japanese lesson study incorporates a 'natural' form of teacher evaluation in the sense that the teachers continually go over student achievement.

    Trying to remember if I posted the terrific Stigler article on Japanese lesson study...

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  5. UnknownApril 18, 2011 at 7:49 AM

    OK, I'm posting a link to a video our principal made on interviewing at our school and posted to youtube last week. I've posted previously about the types of questions we've asked at high school teacher interviews.

    Additionally, the school was mentioned in an Issue Paper on Teacher Pay Innovations: Pioneering Teacher Compensation Reform: K-12 Educator Pay Innovation in Colorado.

    ReplyDelete