Jacob+-+In-Class+evaluations


 * Research Question: What are the types and forms of Teacher Evaluation in the Class Room?**
 * Author: Jacob Santos**

This article is focusing on teachers and schools focusing too much on testing and scores. It speaks about how students are taught how to past the tests so that the nation can rise in ranks because America sees test scores as the most important thing. This brings forth the idea that the goal is not real education, but simply to know the test. The article continues by comparing America's system to Japan's. Japan is one of the leading nations in test scores, but it is doing something fundamentally different than America. It is teaching with the goal of learning, not passing a test. The teachers are well respected and paid just as much as scientists because they are considered to be an incredibly important part of the society. This system costs more than what America is spending, but the end result would be more than worth it.
 * __Beyond Testing:__**

I feel like this article is more general about the education system and not so much Rhode Island specifically. This deals mostly with the general idea of teachers and students being taught and evaluated based on test scores. This is a huge debate in the world of education and it is one that does not seem like it will be going away for a long time. I think that it applies everywhere in that the education system needs to change. We need to teach for the sake of learning, not tests. I feel like everybody in the reform movement should read this so as to get a clear sight on what needs to be done. A link to the article: []

Beyond Testing. [Editorial]. (2009, June 6). __ Journal of Chemical Education __ Vol. 86 No. 6


 * __ R.I Wins High Marks for Use of Teacher Evaluations (Providence Journal) __**

This newspaper article was about teacher evaluation reforms in Rhode Island. It spoke about how Rhode Island has some of the best methods of teaching evaluation. The three evaluation models it follows are test scores, in class evaluation, and student work. The article also emphasis re-educating old teachers and helping to prepare new ones. It speaks about how new teachers now need to have 12 weeks of training before being entered into the schools. Those seeking to become teachers also need to have high Praxis scores, Rhode Island has some of the highest of these scores. Deborah Gist is very excited about all these new reforms.

This article has a lot of Gist in it and I do not agree with a lot of what it has to say. First off, test scores shouldn't be a part of teacher evaluation because test scores are not what matters. The point of education is to make sure the students learn information that will benefit them in life. It is not to pass a test. Yes the tests may be important, but it's not the point. Teachers should be evaluated by how well they engage the students and bring new life and lessons to a class room. A class should be more than just power point slides. It should be interactive in such a way that the students are learning the material.

Borchers, K. (2013, November 3). R.I. wins high marks for use of teacher evaluations. __Providence Journal__

__** Teacher Evaluation Rubric, NY **__

This document goes through 6 fields covering all the aspects of a teacher's performance. Those fields are: Planning and Preparing for Learning, Classroom management, Delivery of Instruction, Monitoring assessment and follow up, Family and Community Outreach, and Professional responsibilities. The teachers are graded based on four different levels: Highly Effective, Effective, Improvement Necessary, and Does not Meet Standards. Each different field of a teachers performance has certain qualifications that need to be met. For the sake of length, they are not all included here, the link is provided at the bottom of this section should you wish to read the specifics.

Overall I feel like these are some good evaluations, but in some ways unrealistic. Each day in a classroom is different than before. Some days are more lecture and discussion based, others are activities. If a teacher is evaluated during an activity day, then the person evaluating them won't see a lot of the things on the list. However, this is an end of the year evaluation packet so it would include things you would not find in a simple classroom evaluation. This takes the year as a whole. I think this would be a good rubric for Rhode Island schools to use. Some of the expectations are a bit high, but they make sense. They are things I would be trying to do in a class room. There is never any guarantee that things will turn out the way you want, and not all class days are going to be perfect. However, I feel like these are standards that can be met and make sense

Link below: []

Marshall, K. (2011, August 21). Teacher Evaluation Rubrics. Retrieved from http://usny.nysed.gov/rttt/teachers-leaders/practicerubrics/Docs/MarshallTeacherRubric.pdf

__** Race to the Top at a Glance **__

Race to the top at a glance is a research report which has information gathered to help the Reform Support Network (RSN) It looks at eleven states which are Race to the Top grantees, they are: Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Louisiana, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. This article covers information on state policies for specific topics in teaching and teacher evaluation. This document covers the number of times teachers should be evaluated, whether their observations should be announced or unannounced, how the teacher should receive feedback, and requirements for class room evaluation rubrics.

I do not agree with a lot of the decisions they have made when it comes to when to evaluate teachers. In Rhode Island, a teacher must be notified at least once of when they will be evaluated, the other times they shall receive no warning. That is ridiculous. The problem with this is that the evaluator could be coming to evaluate on a day when the students are doing an activity, so the teacher wouldn't really be teaching so much as supervising. I think the teachers and the evaluators should agree on certain days to be evaluated. I understand why they would have unannounced evaluations so as to catch any body off guard, make sure they are doing their job. Though, it is hard to evaluate them on days when their schedule does not have a good day in a certain week where the topic of the class would be fit for evaluation. I feel like teachers should be evaluated on days when they have an actual lesson planned, they should be evaluated on how well the students do in the class. They should not under any circumstances be evaluated based on how well a student can take a test. That is idiotic. They should be evaluated in a lot of the things they are evaluated on, but it should not include test scores. The evaluators should also take into account that not all classes are the same. There are different activities and not all days are going to be clear cut following standards. It should be up to the teacher what they teach in their topic without being constricted

Race to the Top at a Glance: Evaluations of Teacher Effectiveness: State Requirements for Classroom Observations. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation-support-unit/tech-assist/evaluations-teacher-effectiveness.pdf

__** Principles on Evaluating Teachers **__

This is an article which looks at principles and how they can aid teachers in different ways. They do this through how they assign and hire the teachers. What they look for in regards to that. They also discuss how they evaluate teachers as well. Another element is trying to help develop the teachers into better teachers. This article argues that teachers are one of the greatest influences on their students and the principles need to make sure they have good teachers in their school. The way this article is set up is that the author presents research they have found on the topics they are discussing, then they go to various schools, including charter and interview the principles asking them about these issues. The researcher evaluated two states, labeled as states A and B.

This was an incredibly long report of which 90% of the information was not really part of my topic, but it added to it. I felt like the most interesting part of the article was the interview section. I liked this part the best because it was answers from people who were dealing with this every day and they know what the problems are and they can see them. My focus is teacher evaluation in the class room. In the section where the researcher interviewed the principles, they brought up some very interesting points I had never really thought of before. The first of these points was that there was no time. The principles were always busy and something would always come up, whether it was a screaming parent or some other issue around the school, they would bet side tracked and not be able to have time to evaluate the teacher because they are so busy doing their job. To me, that makes sense. If an issue comes up, than the principle needs to address it, they can't hold it off, so, the evaluation gets put aside. The second point that they made, which almost goes hand in hand with the first was that they didn't have opportunities to visit the teacher. One of the problems they noted, was that they could not observe tenured teachers. Some tenure teachers had not been evaluated in ten years. I think a teacher should be evaluated constantly. This is the only way you can really tell that they are doing a good job, and frankly, enjoy the work they are doing. Though, the only problems that stand in the way are being busy and a lack of opportunity. The third and final point they made was that the principle lacked the proper tools. They mentioned that the tools their district provided were often long, complex, and required a lot of paper work. They wanted a system that was user friendly and easier to use. They also felt it was unfair in some cases because new, relatively inexperienced teachers may not do as well as they are expected at first. Overall this was an incredibly interesting article about teachers and how principles work with them.

I highly recommend reading this article, the link is provided below: []

Donaldson, M. (2013). Principals’ Approaches to Cultivating Teacher Effectiveness: Constraints and Opportunities in Hiring, Assigning, Evaluating, and Developing Teachers. //Educational Administration Quarterly //, //49 // (5), 838-882.

__**Evaluations: A blog post**__

This post was set up in story format. The scenario is what appears to be a substitute teacher covering for another teacher. The students have just received a math quiz and they declare that they did not do as well as they thought they had. The sub then proceeds to ask the students to evaluate her as she would be there for another week or so. Each of the students had different answers, not many of them very good. She then worries that she is failing her kids and is not a good teacher because of these scores.

Most of teacher analysis is done by a superior member of the faculty. However, in some cases, the student evaluates the teacher. Generally speaking this is done by the teacher more for their benefit than anything else. I personally feel like it can be both a good and bad form of evaluation for the teacher. In some cases, the students do not take it seriously and just write silly things, and sometimes the students do take it seriously and actually say what they do and don't like. I personally was never very good at this form of evaluation as I felt like I would hurt the teachers feelings if I was harsh, which generally I didn't have to be, but the feeling was there.

Evalutations. (2 years ago). //The Snarky Sub//. Retrieved from http://thesnarkysub.tumblr.com/post/9938331435/evaluations

Overall Reaction to Your Research
Overall I was expecting what I found in my research. The article that I found most interesting was the article written from interviewing the principles of different schools. The evaluations were interesting to look at as they demanded a lot of things that a evaluator would not see in a standard class room. These evaluations are also so complex and filled with so many things that they can not all be filled in a 30 minute evaluation. Based on all the research I have done, I would say that the best teacher evaluating that could be done would be that the teacher and the evaluator would have to sit down, talk about the teachers schedule and plan for teaching to come up with a good day to evaluate the teacher, and they should spend time going over the evaluation afterwards, noting how they could improve for the next one. When it came to students evaluating their teachers, this is a less official form of evaluation and is more for the teachers benefit and less for an official report.

Relevance in Rhode Island Schools
My research relates to Rhode Island Schools in the sense that two of the articles, the providence journal, and and the Race to the top article. Both of these had references to Rhode Island and the way they are reforming teacher evaluation. One of the things I still do not like about the way teachers are being evaluated in Rhode Island is that they are focusing on test scores. According to the Race to the Top Article, in Rhode Island, teachers should be evaluated 3 to 4 times a year, with only one of them being announced. Following the examinations their should be a 30 minute meeting period to discuss the results. I like this idea, but, reading the article from principle's point of view has brought something that I think Rhode Island needs to see. There isn't always the time. Supervisors have busy jobs, yes they can schedule meetings and they should, but people who walk in and need or want to talk to a supervisor sometimes don't care, they want it to be on their time. Another thing with Gist's view was having the new teachers have a vigorous 12 week program of student teaching. This is not the best of ideas because they are probably working with the best and the brightest, so they can't deal with the troubled kids who need the good teachers the most. Every school should have good teachers, but the schools that are suffering need it the most.