Why teacher’s assessment?

According to OECD, evaluation can play a key role in school improvement and teacher development (OECD, 2005)

Thus, evaluation is the whole educational process: school, teachers, students, goals, resources, etc. However, researches (Measures of Effective Teaching, metproject.org) show that by understanding what great teachers do and by improving the ways teachers gain insight into their practice, we can help more teachers develop their practice and achieve success for their students.

A teacher’s contribution matters more than anything else within a school. More than class size. More than school funding. More than technology. For decades, most initiatives to improve public education have focused on improving poor performing schools. But studies show that there are bigger differences in teaching quality within schools than there are between schools. This means that in the same school, a child taught by a less effective teacher can receive an education of vastly different quality than a student just down the hall who is taught by a more effective teacher. And the way evaluations are currently conducted don’t provide a teacher who is struggling with a roadmap to improve.

Now, we may agree that teacher’s assessment is important and there is a benefit. Imagine that you are working but at the end you don’t get any feedback and support, will you improve?

I see the idea of teacher’s assessment as a tool to improve, a guideline to improve and reflect this improvement in our students. Nevertheless we need tools:

• Teacher standards (a guideline to follow)

• Indicator (what do I need to improve)

Spain needs to create «standards in teaching practices»(UK teacher standard 2013), with these standards, school evaluation and teacher appraisal and feedback will focus on maintaining standards that ensure an identified level of quality of education. They should aim to influence the development and improvement of schools and teachers.

Teacher appraisal and feedback occurs when either the school principal reviews a teacher’s work, an external inspector or the teacher’s colleagues. This appraisal can be conducted in ways ranging from a more formal, objective approach (e.g. as part of a formal performance management system, involving set procedures and criteria) to a more informal, more subjective approach (e.g. informal discussions with the teacher)

School evaluation with a view to school improvement may focus on providing useful information for making and monitoring improvements and can support school principals and teachers (van de Grift and Houtveen, 2006)

Source:

Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: TALIS 2009

Measures of Effective Teaching, metproject.org

José Antonio Marina, Libro Blanco sobre la profesión Docence 2015