An Effective Teacher
There is lots of debate these days about how to evalute teacher effectiveness. Some people want to use scores from students' standardized tests, others want to use administrators' evaluations of teacher performance, and various other ideas also exist. So here is my question: if YOU were in charge of evaluating teacher effectiveness, what evidence would you draw upon to decide if a teacher was effective? (Keep in mind that your system needs to be applicable to teachers of various subject matters. I will make things easier by limiting your scope to high school teachers.)
posted by Crosby | 8:05 AM
11 Comments:
If I was in charge of evaluating a teacher's effectiveness, I would say that class participation and grades are the most important things to look at.
Class participation-
I have always thought that this is one of the most important things that a good student can do in their school career. When kids are asking questions, and interacting with their peers, they retain more information and frankly, have more fun learning.
Grades-
Grades are obviously one of the most important things you get out of a class. For high school, your grade can even affect college. If the teacher doesn't help you learn your material and provide a challenging, yet well-taught environment for the students, I believe that grades will be better. Teachers who just lecture students and don't help them learn things they're confused on will cause poorer grades and harm the students in the long run.*
*I know that in some cases that students will slack and not do their work, but I'm speaking for all of the Honors kids I'm with in most of my classes.
I partly agree with Janie when she says that participation and grades are a good way to evaluate teacher’s effectiveness. Participation is a good way to show that students are engaged and understanding what is going on, therefore the teacher is more effective in getting a message across.
I disagree with grades. For some kids this is a good evaluation but not for all. Some kids put a lot of effort into a class, learn a lot, and have effective teachers but grades do not always represent this. In my Spanish class, my teacher always says how having a family environment is extremely important. For me he is extremely effective because he keeps me engaged and I feel comfortable in this class. I think that by observing teachers and their ability to relate and engage their students, you can tell how effective they are. I think not by test scores but at the end of the students time with the teacher, to orally quiz them on what they have retained could give great results. Overall, observing the teacher and orally testing students to see what they have learned are good ways to test teacher effectiveness.
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I think that standardized tests and class participation is very important. Also I feel that student surveys could be good to see what the students are truly feeling. Standardized tests are good because it proves your knowledge on all the different subjects and by giving all the students the same tests you can see who is actually learning and who isn't. The only bad thing about this is that some kids might not be good test takers which could lead to false results. Class participation is good because if you have the confidence to actually discuss what you have learned then you really know what your talking about. It's like if your able to teach it then you know it. Student surveys would be beneficial because you could actually see how the student was responding to that teacher's teaching techniques. It would give us good insight on what we needed to know behind the scenes.
Like other people have said, I think that participation, student's opinions, and the general learning environment are all good ways to judge a teacher's effectiveness. With participation, it really shows how much students are actually learning and what they retain from that individual. I'm not so sure about the whole thing about grades, however. It seems that grades, though important, are just a number. It is a student's grade, not a teacher's. Though there is some correlation, I'm not sure if you can base everything on student's grades, which are often reflected partly on responsibility. Furthermore, like Rachel said, there is nothing more effective than talking to the students. Each teacher is different, so it is difficult to put a scale on effectiveness. By talking to students directly, you hear their opinions on how effective the teacher teaches. These students are eventually the ones that must make the decision, not some board.
Students' interest is the best way ,in my opinion, to tell a teacher's effectiveness. An amazing teacher will not only put knowledge into students' heads but they will make the students motivated to do something with that knowledge. Being interested in something means that you not only are paying attention to it but are willing to look further into it. If students are genuinly interested in something because of a teacher, that teacher deserves recognition.
I believe that a teacher should be evaluated on teaching strategies and relationships with their students. If you have a good relationship with your teacher, you are more likely to ask for help, and therefore more likely to succeed.
If a teacher is really in to their lectures and puts things into many perspectives, their students will have a better understanding of what they are learning.
I would view participation as a sign of an effective teacher. If the students are interested and avidly contributing, then the teacher is making the lessons engaging and applicable to areas outside the classroom. That's another sign of an effective teacher - if the students can apply the knowledge learned in class on a larger scale, rather than just regurgitating it.
If I were to evaluate teacher effectiveness, I would base it not off of tests, but grades throughout the year and like Janie said participation and how a student leaves the class at the end of the year. I think that it is important to see how much the student has grown over the year, that would be one way to evaluate a teacher. I also think that not only does the student have to have a sufficient grade but I think that the student should like the class. If someone hates the class they are in, how much are they really going to get out of it?
If I were to evaluate a teacher's effectiveness I would base it off of participation, students opinions, and the learning environment. A teacher should teach a student how to ask questions instead of asking the students questions. If a student participates then that means that they have interest in a class. That also helps create a good learning environment. Grades though important are not reflective of a teacher's effectiveness. There will always be a person who slacks off and gets bad grades. Standardized tests are also not a good indicator because of the time limits put on the tests and that some students are not good test takers. The most important thing is what the student gets out of class at the end of the year.
I think that the effectiveness of the teacher is who tries to make things easier for the students to learn. I think that grades partly reflect the teachers, but they also reflect the students. The grades show a general idea who is works hard in the class. If a student is missing assignments, it is not the teachers fault. Sometimes no matter how well teachers teach, some students don’t turn in their homework and don’t want to learn. On the other hand, the student will learn more and get betters grades when they are being taught in an effective way, so grades depend on both teachers and students.
I agree with the others that a teacher’s effectiveness is measured by the amount that the students who want to learn, learn on a daily basis and what they walk away with each day. It seems like the most effective teachers are the ones that try to accommodate all different types of learners, because each student has their own way that they learn best. When there is a combination of discussion, notes, movie viewing, hands-on activities, lecturing and other learning processes, the teaching is effective to everyone.
Like others have pointed out, methods such as tests can determine the effectiveness of the teacher, but I think that it all depends on the circumstances. Some students learn a lot, but don’t do well taking tests and some students are good test-takers but really don’t learn anything so it depends. I thought that ruthieg2013 brought up a good point about student growth being a key representation of the way that the teacher affected them. This idea is good one, because it can show the difference in student’s learning before they learned with one teacher and then again with different one. I think that it should be a combination of all these methods previously mentioned: tests, sometimes the grades (but never all the time), and student growth.
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