Teacher Evaluation is Broken
Show Description:
Assuming you were a teacher, and assuming you were evaluated from time to time:· Did your evaluations ever result in termination?· Did the ever result in you getting a big raise or promotion?· Were they part of a process that helped you grow into a better teacher?For me, the answers are no, no, and no. If your experience is similar, then we need to ask ourselves, “what’s the point of the teacher evaluation process?”
The Big Idea
· My experience
· Teacher evaluation is a broken waste of time
· Two options:
o Go through the motions, wasting as little time as possible and doing as little as possible to frustrate teachers
o Leverage an irrelevant proves by creating some relevancy:
§ Let teachers set a teaching goal before the observation
§ Collaboratively identify the elements of the observation that provide important data related to the goal
§ Focus you observation on the agreed upon elements to the greatest extent possible
§ In a post conference, collaboratively debrief the relevant data and help the teacher develop some strategies and a path for meeting their goal
· Caveats:
o If you don’t trust your teachers’ professionalism, there is nothing you can do to help them grow. Except to begin believing your teachers want to enjoy teaching and treating them as if they did.
o You don’t know as much about your teachers’ teaching as they know about their own teaching.
o Critical feedback, unasked for, and with a lack of consistent support, is counterproductive. (
o Acknowledge that past observations may (probably?) have ben traumatic for teachers.
· Closing thought: Would you leave a job where your principal trusted you, where they helped you continually grow as a leader, and where you increasingly experienced making a positive impact on the people around you?
Summarizing (The big takeaway)
Sponsorship:
I want to thank IXL for sponsoring this podcast…
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Close
· Leadership is a journey and thank you for choosing to walk some of this magical path with me.
· Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
· Have a great rest of the week, be present for others and, more importantly, take time to reflect and recover so you can continue to live and lead better.
· Cheers!
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