Teacher Effectiveness

[Saint Jade IV]

The problem is that testing is not effective in assessing how much students know, nor how well they apply the knowledge.

the sat's are a pretty good predictor of sucess in college, so i disagree about that testing students is ineffective.

besides the thread you started is about measuring teacher effectiveness. and testing the students and comparing those results is a meaningfull measure. as i said before, it should not be the only means of grading a teacher, but it should be one of the measures.

I would argue that if teachers are implementing ineffective methods of assessment, then they cannot be called effective.

[Dazchan]

We don't have tenure here. Withdrawal rooms are sometimes an unfortunate necessity to protect both teachers and other students.

No. If a teacher must be taken to a rubber room to 'protect students', they ought to be fired.

So if a student makes an allegation about a teacher, it should result in immediate dismissal instead of an investigation to ensure that the allegation is in fact correct?

[Saint Jade IV]

We don't have tenure here. Withdrawal rooms are sometimes an unfortunate necessity to protect both teachers and other students.

No. If a teacher must be taken to a rubber room to 'protect students', they ought to be fired.

I'm sorry - withdrawal rooms are for students with destructive behaviours to be placed while they calm down. I assumed that is what you meant by the ridiculously biased "rubber room".

You stated that we should hire the top 10% of graduates as teachers. Here, I'll show you:

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=231886&p=13550420#p13550420

I stated that we should limit hiring to the top graduates, not that we should draft them. Similar to Finland's system.

Where the fuck did I say they would be drafted? Explain this to me? I still think hiring graduates in content is one highly ineffective idea. The problems are that if you are hiring a maths or English major to teach early primary school, they are going to find it remarkably difficult to scale down their knowledge. Further, each juncture has a specialised knowledge and skills set in order for teachers to be effective.

Content knowledge is almost irrelevant. Most English teachers who achieved a satisfactory grade in their teacher education program could quite easily teach Social Sciences and vice versa. Asking a sociologist to teach any age of student is substantially more difficult.

The problem, is that people think that teaching is content knowledge alone. It's not. It's knowledge of content and how to get that content across. It's understanding how knowledge is formed, how to design a lesson to maximize this, how to best assess this, how to identify learning needs from student responses. Just because you know that 2+2=4 does not mean you understand how this knowledge is formed in the brain, nor the best way to get that across to students.

As I previously stated, there would also be training for the job.

How much? Four years worth? Because that's what's really required.

Nowhere did you discuss weightings for teachers teaching in different contexts. All you said was that the argument was absurd, and flimsy.

What I said was that any arguments against merit pay based on the 'context' of their classes is absurd,

Nice that you finally admit what you said. Again, it's not absurd. How many teachers are going to teach in poorer areas, or accept difficult students, if it can affect their pay packet? You know, the kind of kids who need it most?

and, due to the fact that teachers have signifigant numbers of students, averages eliminate any complaining about context.

No it doesn't.

I also said that teachers in different areas that cannot be fairly compared directly would not be held to the exact same grade standards.

How would you determine this? Seriously, have you even thought this through?

I nowhere stated that the US was the specific context for my OP, merely that the arguments raised in that thread prompted this one.

Still a branch off, as I saw it, at least, and regardless, if it only applies to the U.S., so be it. It's still a good idea for the U.S., so let's debate based on that.

Let's not.

Why should teachers bother learning new techniques if the basis for their rating is on cumulative, standardized testing? Why shouldn't teachers focus solely on rote and repetition, in order to boost their ratings? Why should they be expected to disadvantage themselves by using classroom techniques which may actually detract from their results in these tests?

Firstly, my suggestion was to add some extra time for the teachers to try new techniques. They'd still have the same time for rote memorization, if that is actually the best way to teach to the test.

Why wouldn't teachers use that extra time to drill their students? Since their results are based on standardised testing, extra time to rote learn the content would be extra time to improve the students' ability to parrot back the knowledge they need to pass the test.

Secondly, how would trying a new method detract from test results?

Why take the chance, when you can't get rewarded for it, and if it's a bad method, will adversely impact results?

_______________________________________________________________________

1. Add a free period(class timespan) where every teacher and student is free, and students can get extra help in their classes that they have questions for.

You have lunch breaks and before and after school. If you are too lazy to seek out assistance, then your failure is your own fault.

From experience, coming in early is generally too much of a bother for a lot of students to do so(plus, as many studies tell us, getting up on time is bad enough, let alone early).

Then they deserve to fail.

My math teacher is especially bothered by this, my class(honors, though I suspect most of the offending members are write ins) often has absolutely noone attending extra help, and through aside glances(and hearing some rather audible distress), I've seen there are some kids who really should.

Obviously, he is a shit teacher.

Making it more convenient should help at least a few kids. I suppose it could also be mandatory for those who do very poorly.

Or those students could you know, not be lazy.

2. Listen to the highest performing students. Ask them how things are going, and how their teachers are, through an anonymous survey.

Usually, the highest performing students are those who are least impacted by poor teachers. If you're going to ask students their opinion, ask the worst ones.

If someone has the integrity to be a good student, they can likely be exempted from your distrust in students, and they likely care enough about their education to do what is asked of them to improve it.

Or they are cheats. Or they are simply privileged. Or they are gifted. Again, ask the kids who are at-risk, if you want a good idea of what is wrong with education.

3. Have teachers in common subjects meet to discuss teaching, share information, etc.

Because they don't already, of course.

4. Allow teachers to anonymously report other teachers for extreme incompetence, mistreatment, or other such things, and pay closer attention to those reported. Establish a system for this, and it should at least do something to reduce the above.

They can, and do. However, since a teacher is alone in their class, often one does not know whether the students are complaining because the teacher really is shit, or whether the students are complaining because they don't like the teacher.

[Greed and Death]

I think Teacher effectiveness should be an issue, but not in the standardized testing sense.

Instead have a teacher's peers grant or deny tenure, those denied tenure should be encouraged to look elsewhere for employment.

[Ethel mermania]

No. If a teacher must be taken to a rubber room to 'protect students', they ought to be fired.

I'm sorry - withdrawal rooms are for students with destructive behaviours to be placed while they calm down. I assumed that is what you meant by the ridiculously biased "rubber room".
(snip)

.

no, rubber room in the US eeucational system has a very different meaning.
we would call what you are talking about a "time out" room (and it may very well have padded walls).


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb ... 69749.html

[Saint Jade IV]

I'm sorry - withdrawal rooms are for students with destructive behaviours to be placed while they calm down. I assumed that is what you meant by the ridiculously biased "rubber room".
(snip)

.

no, rubber room in the US eeucational system has a very different meaning.
we would call what you are talking about a "time out" room (and it may very well have padded walls).


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb ... 69749.html

Thanks for the clarification - here, teachers are suspended without pay in those instances (in my state at any rate). Their pay is backpaid if the hearing turns in their favour.

[Tekania]

IMHO the only way testing would be useful as a gauge to teachers is if testing was analyzed on a per student performance (rather than pass/fail level) direct to teachers to see the effect individual teachers have on individual students as far as academic performance. As no one has any interest in actually paying the large sums of money that would entail to analyze at that level, I say it's a moot point. Overall the biggest problem with education is that, on average, we want much more education than we are willing to pay for. And those who ultimately pay for our communal stupidity are our kids and educators.

[Bottle]

I think part of the problem is that people don't all agree on what exactly teachers are supposed to be doing. Kind of hard to measure "effectiveness" without clarifying that.

For instance:

My AP American History teacher taught me more, in terms of facts and concepts, than any other teacher I can remember.

But my AP Lit teacher taught me writing skills that I have used more than just about anything else I picked up in school.

My Chemistry teacher did the best job of preparing me for what college courses would be like.

My Physics teacher was by far the most effective at getting me interested in a subject area I hadn't previously cared about. (My biology teacher, meanwhile, almost managed to turn me off from the field that I was planning to study in college...even though I consistently got better test scores in Bio than I did in Physics.)

My Spanish teachers were good, but not great, even though they each taught me immensely useful vocabulary and language concepts which I still use today.

So what, exactly, do we want to measure? What is the "mission statement" for teachers? Is imparting facts the most important role for a teacher? What about repeatable skills, is that more important? How about motivating kids to stay in school and pursue various career paths, is that valuable to us?

[Ethel mermania]

no, rubber room in the US eeucational system has a very different meaning.
we would call what you are talking about a "time out" room (and it may very well have padded walls).


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb ... 69749.html

Thanks for the clarification - here, teachers are suspended without pay in those instances (in my state at any rate). Their pay is backpaid if the hearing turns in their favour.

in the US it can be different from district to district, the big cities tend to be like NYC where the teacher is pulled from the class and put into a rubber room, and paid till the case is decided. in other districts, it can be as you described, or the teacher is put into an administrative position untill the decision is made.

part of the push for standardized teacher evals is the big systems like nyc have a way to get poor teachers out of the classrooms and systems quickly, the current system in place can take years, to remove poor teachers,and in places like nyc pension benifets accrue during the time period, which adds up to millions of dollars in total, not to mention the harm a poor teacher does to a kid.

[Jamzmania]

As a follow-on from the educational reform thread, I notice a lot of people advocating performance-based pay and getting rid of "poor performing teachers" as two methods of helping to reform the system.

Being a teacher, I also hear this a lot in media circles. Typically the measure advocated is some kind of standardised test scores being used as the basis. I also hear much complaint about teachers' unions being opposed to this.

From a teacher's perspective, I think standardised tests are an abominable way to measure teacher quality, especially if you are simply pitting the results of one teacher against those of another, with no consideration for the context in which they are teaching.

Furthermore, the amount of assessment that teachers do in their classrooms, which is available for scrutiny, should eliminate the need for additional standardised testing. Teacher effectiveness cannot possibly be determined by outcomes on a standardised test, when students do not commence school on a level playing field. Students come with varying levels of knowledge, experience and ability, that teachers have no control over. A point-in-time test can give indications of a student's knowledge and ability at that point in time. It does not give any indication of the success or failure of that teacher's teaching strategies, or ability.

So I'm wondering, what do people think teachers should be rated on? How do you grade a teacher?

Teachers need to start punishing student more.

[Sociobiology]

As a follow-on from the educational reform thread, I notice a lot of people advocating performance-based pay and getting rid of "poor performing teachers" as two methods of helping to reform the system.

Being a teacher, I also hear this a lot in media circles. Typically the measure advocated is some kind of standardised test scores being used as the basis. I also hear much complaint about teachers' unions being opposed to this.

From a teacher's perspective, I think standardised tests are an abominable way to measure teacher quality, especially if you are simply pitting the results of one teacher against those of another, with no consideration for the context in which they are teaching.

Furthermore, the amount of assessment that teachers do in their classrooms, which is available for scrutiny, should eliminate the need for additional standardised testing. Teacher effectiveness cannot possibly be determined by outcomes on a standardised test, when students do not commence school on a level playing field. Students come with varying levels of knowledge, experience and ability, that teachers have no control over. A point-in-time test can give indications of a student's knowledge and ability at that point in time. It does not give any indication of the success or failure of that teacher's teaching strategies, or ability.

So I'm wondering, what do people think teachers should be rated on? How do you grade a teacher?

Teachers need to start punishing student more.

how?

specifically what punishments do you want to see that teachers are actually allowed to do.

[New Libertarian States]

One word:Finland.

[Sociobiology]

Thanks for the clarification - here, teachers are suspended without pay in those instances (in my state at any rate). Their pay is backpaid if the hearing turns in their favour.

in the US it can be different from district to district, the big cities tend to be like NYC where the teacher is pulled from the class and put into a rubber room, and paid till the case is decided. in other districts, it can be as you described, or the teacher is put into an administrative position untill the decision is made.

part of the push for standardized teacher evals is the big systems like nyc have a way to get poor teachers out of the classrooms and systems quickly, the current system in place can take years, to remove poor teachers,and in places like nyc pension benifets accrue during the time period, which adds up to millions of dollars in total, not to mention the harm a poor teacher does to a kid.

except it doesn't get rid of poor teachers, it gets rid of a random sample of teachers. if a teacher is stuck with several disruptive students, several special needs students, or a group of students that outright refuse to do anything why should the teacher be punished for that?
why should the teacher with 30 students in a class be punished, just because they have more students (which will bring their scores down).

schools really need some authority again to tell parents how things are going to happen in schools instead of the other way around.
If little Timmy doesn't do the work, little Timmy should get held back.

oh and the teacher should choose the textbook not some ignorant administrator.

[Ethel mermania]

in the US it can be different from district to district, the big cities tend to be like NYC where the teacher is pulled from the class and put into a rubber room, and paid till the case is decided. in other districts, it can be as you described, or the teacher is put into an administrative position untill the decision is made.

part of the push for standardized teacher evals is the big systems like nyc have a way to get poor teachers out of the classrooms and systems quickly, the current system in place can take years, to remove poor teachers,and in places like nyc pension benifets accrue during the time period, which adds up to millions of dollars in total, not to mention the harm a poor teacher does to a kid.

except it doesn't get rid of poor teachers, it gets rid of a random sample of teachers. if a teacher is stuck with several disruptive students, several special needs students, or a group of students that outright refuse to do anything why should the teacher be punished for that?
why should the teacher with 30 students in a class be punished, just because they have more students (which will bring their scores down).

schools really need some authority again to tell parents how things are going to happen in schools instead of the other way around.
If little Timmy doesn't do the work, little Timmy should get held back.

oh and the teacher should choose the textbook not some ignorant administrator.

the evaluations are against the same cohorts, special ed teachers are compared to special ed teachers, not reg ed teachers. teachers from title 1 schools (poor districts) are compared to other title 1 schools, not teachers from rich suburban districts.

i agree with your second point. As to your third i have found folks in my local district anyway quite competent in curriculum developement, which is where the textbooks used are selected.

[Sociobiology]

except it doesn't get rid of poor teachers, it gets rid of a random sample of teachers. if a teacher is stuck with several disruptive students, several special needs students, or a group of students that outright refuse to do anything why should the teacher be punished for that?
why should the teacher with 30 students in a class be punished, just because they have more students (which will bring their scores down).

schools really need some authority again to tell parents how things are going to happen in schools instead of the other way around.
If little Timmy doesn't do the work, little Timmy should get held back.

oh and the teacher should choose the textbook not some ignorant administrator.

the evaluations are against the same cohorts, special ed teachers are compared to special ed teachers, not reg ed teachers.

regular teachers have special ed students.
the fact you don't know this proves you are not familiar with the US education system.

teachers from title 1 schools (poor districts) are compared to other title 1 schools, not teachers from rich suburban districts.

wrong
the divisions are based on population only.

i agree with your second point. As to your third i have found folks in my local district anyway quite competent in curriculum developement, which is where the textbooks used are selected.

good for you, do you know what anecdotal evidence is?

[Ethel mermania]

the evaluations are against the same cohorts, special ed teachers are compared to special ed teachers, not reg ed teachers.

regular teachers have special ed students.
I the fact you don't know this proves you are not familiar with the US education system.

teachers from title 1 schools (poor districts) are compared to other title 1 schools, not teachers from rich suburban districts.

wrong
the divisions are based on population only.

i agree with your second point. As to your third i have found folks in my local district anyway quite competent in curriculum developement, which is where the textbooks used are selected.

good for you, do you know what anecdotal evidence is?

shame you had such a poor education and do not know what a title 1 school is.

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg1.html

when you learn what your talking about, get back to us.

[Ostroeuropa]

Inspire the kids to give a shit about the subject.
Then you are 90% done.

10 years of science classes ->
I didn't learn anything, I was right all along!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz7dtIE6kQA

1 dawkins book ->
Absorb ALL the science!
/begin the wiki binge



Similarly, my english teacher waffled on about shakespeare and bored me stiff.
My second english teacher gave us The Crucible, and The Road.
Now I love english, and i've read shakespeare in my spare time.



Kids have absurd goals normally. They do not give a shit if being good at subject X opens up lucrative career paths, they want to be a rock star, the president, an astronaught etc.
You need to pitch it to them in terms of self-improvement that can be useful in any field.

[Sociobiology]

regular teachers have special ed students.
I the fact you don't know this proves you are not familiar with the US education system.


wrong
the divisions are based on population only.


good for you, do you know what anecdotal evidence is?

shame you had such a poor education and do not know what a title 1 school is.

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg1.html

when you learn what your talking about, get back to us.

I know what a title one school is, I want your source that says their test scores are not compared to non-title one schools.

[Ethel mermania]

shame you had such a poor education and do not know what a title 1 school is.

http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg1.html

when you learn what your talking about, get back to us.

I know what a title one school is, I want your source that says their test scores are not compared to non-title one schools.

in the city the union rejected a system that compared the teacher's students to themselves and not other students or schools.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

page 2 describes the system that the union fought.

[Sociobiology]

I know what a title one school is, I want your source that says their test scores are not compared to non-title one schools.

in the city the union rejected a system that compared the teacher's students to themselves and not other students or schools.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

page 2 describes the system that the union fought.

The article doesn't say what you think it says, first it does not say the results of the conflict, second it says nothing about already standing laws, which do compare schools, such as No child left behind.

[Ethel mermania]

in the city the union rejected a system that compared the teacher's students to themselves and not other students or schools.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

page 2 describes the system that the union fought.

The article doesn't say what you think it says, first it does not say the results of the conflict, second it says nothing about already standing laws, which do compare schools, such as No child left behind.

the result of the conflict is the union rejected it and the state and city did not get the money.

you asked to show a teacher evaluation system that did not compare students from title 1 schools to better schools, the article did that.
if you are asking about a current system. there are none, that is what the fight is about.

no child is about students achievements, this thread is about teacher effectiveness, and how to measure it, they are different topics.

[The Emerald Dawn]

I'm not familiar enough with the American public education system to speak to it, but teacher effectiveness is best measured in terms of student attentiveness, in my opinion.

If the teacher can engage the students enough to get them to absorb what level of the material they can, they are typically a good teacher.

If the teacher only gives a shit about the students paying attention, and leaves the other 20 students to rot, that's not a good teacher.

[Greed and Death]

I think part of the problem is that people don't all agree on what exactly teachers are supposed to be doing. Kind of hard to measure "effectiveness" without clarifying that.

For instance:

My AP American History teacher taught me more, in terms of facts and concepts, than [...] I can remember.

If you can remember them all your teacher did not do a good job better get him fired.

[Sociobiology]

The article doesn't say what you think it says, first it does not say the results of the conflict, second it says nothing about already standing laws, which do compare schools, such as No child left behind.

the result of the conflict is the union rejected it and the state and city did not get the money.

you asked to show a teacher evaluation system that did not compare students from title 1 schools to better schools, the article did that.
if you are asking about a current system. there are none, that is what the fight is about.

no child is about students achievements, this thread is about teacher effectiveness, and how to measure it, they are different topics.

except it is the current leading method in the US, and compares students and teachers irregardless of title one status.
I fail to see how it is not relevant.

[Salandriagado]

Why wouldn't teachers use that extra time to drill their students? Since their results are based on standardised testing, extra time to rote learn the content would be extra time to improve the students' ability to parrot back the knowledge they need to pass the test.

What on earth gave you the idea that rote-memorisation was a good way to teach people to pass tests?