Teacher Evaluations

Teacher Evaluations

Teacher evaluation is a way for teachers to grow in their profession and for administrators to ensure that they have amassed a staff that best serves their student populations.  Effective teacher evaluations which provide meaningful feedback can make a good teacher great but also identify a teacher who might need to leave the profession or make serious overhaul of their practice. Either way, it greatly benefits administrators to have a teacher evaluation system that is more than just punitive.

Teacher Evaluation at the Heights Charter

At the school I work at, teachers are evaluated once every year.  The evaluations are conducted by a master teacher who is both methodical and fair.  While the process is incredibly nerve wracking, I have never walked away from an observation without having some real concrete advice to improve my teaching.  Our master teacher does a wonderful job of highlighting what we do well and then gently moving to what could be improved.  It’s exactly the tone that we want to convey to our students—it’s modeling in action. 

Our process begins with a self-assessment questionnaire. It’s a multi-page document that is then filled out as well by the master teacher after our observation.  Once we have the survey filled out and a lesson plan written, we have a pre-observation meeting where we talk about the lesson and the mentor gives advice based on what we have presented to her.  We don’t typically talk about class dynamics because our school is so small she is aware of any “characters” or issues that might arise. We do: however, review our scope and sequence for the class and look at how grades will be determined. During the observation, she watches the lesson and makes notes on the teaching as well as what is happening in the classroom.  After the observation, the master teacher writes an observation report that reviews everything that went well and provides feedback on how to improve on the areas that didn’t.  At a post-observation meeting, we discuss all these topics, she asks questions, and she gives more detailed explanations for her recommendations.  It should be noted that student achievement is not taken into consideration for our formal evaluations.

Ohio Teacher Evaluations

In contrast, public school evaluations in the state of Ohio have a two-pronged approach.  Half of teacher evaluations are based on teacher performance on standards.  This part of the evaluation is based on formal classroom observations and walkthroughs/informal evaluations.  These appear to be completed twice a year.  The second half of teacher evaluations in Ohio are based on student growth measures.  These can be based on teacher assessment, outside vendor assessments, or LEA measures.  While I understand that teacher effectiveness is tied to student achievement, there must be some wiggle room in this second half of their evaluation process.  The eighth-grade class I had last year is completely different from the one I have this year.  Standardized test scores for last year’s class were extraordinary.  I could take discussions deep into topics and writing techniques because the students were ready when they walked into my room.  This year’s eighth graders were not ready from the moment they walked into the room—20% of the students have IEPs based on learning disabilities and most of these are pulled out for reading and math instruction.   This class will post growth, but no where near what the students last year achieved.  Does that mean my teaching diminished this year?  No, I’m actually working harder to get less from these students.  It’s not bad.  It’s just different, and I hope that evaluation systems that use student growth as an indicator has some sort of mechanism to deal with these differences in student population.

What I’d like to see in my evaluations

Because I’ve been doing this a few years, I think I have a solid handle on the material.  I’d like feedback on how to continue to present material in new ways, how to improve classroom management, how to encourage reluctant learners, and how to better control behavior in collaborative learning experiences.