Teacher observations may be less helpful afterall
During the height of debate on value-added modeling and using test scores to evaluate teacher performance, I was a champion for the tried and true teacher observation. Objective measures of teacher performance are elusive because of all the variables outside of our control. This is the same reason why physicians, for instance, would refuse evaluation based on patient variables, like BMI or cholesterol, because they can’t control what a patient does outside of their offices.
Thus, rather than look at an excel spreadsheet of my students’ performance to evaluate my effectiveness, which seems cold and impersonal, come in to observe my practice. See me interact with students. Before you pass judgment, observe the conditions in which we work, the context in which we are teaching and learning. So much of what is missing with quantitative information, like test scores, is a meaningful qualitative context to situate those numbers.
But there are tremendous limitations to doing teacher observation correctly. Relationships are key, and repetition. Pre and post conferences are essential to understanding subjective interpretations of practice. And we all should know that hanging a score on one isolated chunk of time, without context, is just as bad as hinging a score on test data.
This, however, seems to be how most teacher observation is implemented, and we are finding that it is just as unhelpful for teachers as test score data. For the moment, there really is no argument about the use of Teacher observations may be less helpful afterall – @ THE CHALKFACE
