teacher evaluation

How are teachers evaluated? | Raymond Sheehan | October 15th, 2002

I'm working on this issue at the moment and am curious, given the very wide range of contexts Aston CPs work in, to find out how teachers are evaluated.

For example, where you work:

•  Is there a supervisor or equivalent who observes your class? By appointment? By surprise? How often? What form does the feedback take? What consequences do positive and negative evaluations have?

•  Does 'formal' evaluation never take place because everybody knows everybody else and 'evaluation' might be seen as threatening to the community of teachers?

•  Do you sometimes/never invite a colleague into your class to give you feedback? If so, what form does the feedback take?

What would you see as the main difference between observation/feedback from management and from colleagues?

•  What role does student feedback play in your teaching context? How do you deal with it? How does 'management' deal with it? Is it seen as a valuable source of teacher-development information or as an administratively convenient teacher check or as a loathsome evil???

Too many questions, I know, but if any one of these strikes a chord, I'd really appreciate a gut-response as I try to piece together some kind of picture of what teacher evaluation means to teachers.

Rayomond
UAE

Re: How are teachers evaluated? | Evan Frendo | October 16th, 2002

Hi Raymond,

Our teachers work in companies all over Germany, mostly alone and unsupervised. Evaluation is mainly done in the initial interview and then via feedback sheets and what the sponsors think. If they like them, and the training continues, then the teacher is ok. If the sponsor asks us not to send a particular teacher back, then it is unlikely that we will use them again- anywhere (depending on reasons). Possible reasons have included not being able to speak German well enough (to deal with course admin in the company), teacher's attitude / style (treats us like children), and reliability (punctuality etc).

At the end of the day teaching is a commercial enterprise. There's a lot of competition out there. As a management guru said (I think Michael Hammer), professionals are paid not for what they do, but for their results.

Evan

Re: How are teachers evaluated? | Raymond Sheehan | October 29th, 2002

Thanks, Evan and Mike,

These are precisely the kinds of teacher-situated replies that I can learn a lot from. Interestingly, they represent total opposites. In one case, evaluation is a high-stakes process that can cost a teacher his/her job. In Mike's case, formal evaluation is practically non-existent (which makes me wonder what informal newsgathering processes exist).

Teacher evaluation is one of those emotive situations that, I think, richly deserve teacher-investigation: whether in the context of management, teacher development of interaction in a professional context.

I don't want to do a formal questionnaire, but if anybody on the list would like to read again the questions above and give a gut-response to the issues, it'd be great! Given the huge range of our teaching situations, based on two responses alone, it'd be fascinating to discover areas of commonality as well as unimaginable differences.

Raymond
UAE

 

 

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