bls@cs.purdue.EDU (Brian L. Stuart) (01/27/89)
In article <1461@trantor.harris-atd.com> ferguson@x102c.harris-atd.com (ferguson ct 71078) writes: > >On the issue of teacher competence, I have a sister who is a school >teacher outside Houston, TX and she has some interesting observations >on the subject. She claims that few "incompetent" teachers really >exist or at least the competency exams are ineffective in identifying >them. She points out that most teachers have passed several >competency exams by the time they begin their teaching careers and >that additional competency exams will prove nothing. The worst >teachers are generally able to pass competency exams without >difficulty. > I would believe that bad teachers can pass the competency exams. After all those exams are written by the same people that taught the bad teachers to teach. They then generally test what the teacher learned in getting an Ed. degree. However, I'm not convinced that passing such a test establishes competence. This is really a part of the question about whether or not teachers are given sufficient education to teach well. My experience leads me to think not. >She claims that the real problem with "bad" teachers is lack of >motivation. Basically, some teachers just don't give a hoot. The >teacher's performance appraisal process is ineffective at identifying >such teachers. The teacher performance appraisal is Texas consists of >a once-a-year visit to the classroom by the principal. E.g., one day >a year the teacher has to perform admirably and the rest of the year >he/she can take a mental holiday. I can remember teacher appraisal >day well from my days as a student in Texas. It was hilarious to see >a football coach/part-time history teacher try to become Socrates for >a day. > >Chuck Ferguson Harris Government Information Systems Division >(407) 984-6010 MS: W1/7732 PO Box 98000 Melbourne, FL 32902 >Internet: ferguson@cobra@trantor.harris-atd.com Maybe its time we discussed ways of determining who is doing a good job of teaching and who is not. Clearly, most existing systems are not working. This may seem like hearesy to some, but how about using the students' evaluation of teachers are part of the process. After all, it is the students who are the "consumers" of the teaching "product." My undergraduate alma mater (the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology) used the student evaluation of professors as one of the primary parts of teacher evaluation. I have seen professors whose contracts were not renewed largely as a result of the recognition on the part of the students that they were not up to the Rose standard. What do the rest of you think about this? Do you have any ideas about how we can better evaluate teachers in all levels of education? Brian L. Stuart Department of Computer Sciences Purdue University
larry@jc3b21.UUCP (Lawrence F. Strickland) (01/27/89)
From article <5908@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, by bls@cs.purdue.EDU (Brian L. Stuart): > In article <1461@trantor.harris-atd.com> ferguson@x102c.harris-atd.com (ferguson ct 71078) writes: >> >>On the issue of teacher competence, I have a sister who is a school >>teacher outside Houston, TX and she has some interesting observations >>on the subject. She claims that few "incompetent" teachers really >>exist or at least the competency exams are ineffective in identifying ... > Maybe its time we discussed ways of determining who is doing a good > job of teaching and who is not. Clearly, most existing systems are > not working. This may seem like hearesy to some, but how about using > the students' evaluation of teachers are part of the process. After > What do the rest of you think about this? Do you have any ideas about ... > how we can better evaluate teachers in all levels of education? While I agree with Brian in concept, i.e. that student evaluations are an important guideline, I have found that basing a teachers job just on these evaluations can also cause EXTREME incompetence to form. The teacher is put in the position of "...if you don't give me a good grade (regardless of my performance), I will trash you on your evaluation..." I have personally seen this done by nearly an entire class to a GOOD instructor (well, hard but good). Secondly, you put the instructor in a position of being an entertainer for many of the basic classes. Consider a MATH 101 or ENGLISH 103 class which are required classes (and generally pretty boring). If the instructor doesn't do a good job of entertaining (rather than teaching), many of the students think he/she is doing a bad job because the class is boring. The solution, of course, is to entertain rather than teach. Now the class is less boring. If the two could be done together it would be great, but it is usually the teaching that suffers. Finally, many students find it hard to distinguish a bad class from a bad teacher. Certain classes (the ones above for instance) are required by the college or university or accrediting agency. Some one must teach these classes. If the class is ridiculously difficult (one local university used to make all engineering majors take a class in Algebraic Topology in their junior year. It was designed to limit the number of engineering majors!) or ridiculous (one local college requires an 'ethics' class for graduation that is mostly busy work), the students often do not distinguish this from the question of whether the teacher was competent. This is an exceedingly difficult area. We are NOT doing a good job now, but it is also hard to determine how to EFFECTIVELY do a better job. -larry -- +--------------------------------------+-- St. Petersburg Junior College --+ | Lawrence F. Strickland | P.O. Box 13489 | | ...!uunet.uu.net!pdn!jc3b21!larry | St. Petersburg, FL 33733 | +--------------------------------------+-- Phone: +1 813 341 3321 ---------+
ferguson@x102c (ferguson ct 71078) (01/27/89)
>maybe its time we discussed ways of determining who is doing a good >job of teaching and who is not. clearly, most existing systems are >not working. this may seem like hearesy to some, but how about using >the students' evaluation of teachers are part of the process. after >all, it is the students who are the "consumers" of the teaching "product." >my undergraduate alma mater (the rose-hulman institute of technology) >used the student evaluation of professors as one of the primary parts >of teacher evaluation. i have seen professors whose contracts were >not renewed largely as a result of the recognition on the part of the >students that they were not up to the rose standard. > >what do the rest of you think about this? do you have any ideas about >how we can better evaluate teachers in all levels of education? > >brian l. stuart >department of computer sciences >purdue university some suggestions for improving teacher appraisals: o appraisal by students -- this option could yield questionable results since some students will dislike their teachers and score them badly. the appraisal could be an opportunity for some malcontents to "even the score" with the teacher. high school students can be very immature. a student appraisal process probably wouldn't work at all for grade-school students. o appraisal by other teachers -- i suspect many teachers know which of their peers are doing the job and which are just along for the ride. o appraisal by student improvement -- teacher appraisal would be determined by the cumulative percent improvement of their students on some standardized achievement test. the measurement of interest is the percent improvement over the previous year as opposed to achievement of a minimum score. the objective is to measure how much the students learned vs. how much they know. o increased classroom monitoring -- a basic problem with the existing appraisal system is that the principal only attends class one day a year and that day is known by the teacher in advance. impromptu visits by the principal on an irregular basis might give a more accurate picture of teacher performance. the high-tech, big-brother variation of this approach is to install video cameras in the classrooms to allow unintrusive observation. comments? chuck ferguson harris government information systems division (407) 984-6010 ms: w1/7732 po box 98000 melbourne, fl 32902 internet: ferguson@cobra@trantor.harris-atd.com Chuck Ferguson Harris Government Information Systems Division (407) 984-6010 MS: W1/7732 PO Box 98000 Melbourne, FL 32902 Internet: ferguson@cobra@trantor.harris-atd.com
skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Patricia Roberts) (01/28/89)
In article <5908@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> bls@cs.purdue.edu (Brian L. Stuart) writes: >This is really a part of the question about whether or not >teachers are given sufficient education to teach well. My >experience leads me to think not. Right now I'm teaching a class to people who will be teaching high, junior high, and elementary school. They are not prepared. They'll be okay English teachers. I shudder to think about those elementary school teachers teaching math or science, however. >This may seem like hearesy to some, but how about using >the students' evaluation of teachers are part of the process. After >all, it is the students who are the "consumers" of the teaching "product." (I assume you mean heresy and not hearsay? Both would apply in this instance.) I was involved in the decision whether or not to retain a Stat prof. His evaluations were _incredible_. Two of us wanted to retain him. The other person didn't want to. That third person had no trouble completely ignoring the fact that this prof had received unheard-of evaluations. Student evaluations can be very deceptive. There's always a bad one. There's always a good one. (No matter how good or bad the teacher.) From that point on, you can get a lot of bad ones because it was a bad group of students, or a lot of good ones because the teacher was an easy grader. Places that I have seen that put a lot of emphasis on student evaluations tended not to have any demanding teachers. "Demanding" just isnt' a positive adjective for most students--until years afterwards. In other words, I'm all over the place when it comes to the benefits of student evaluations. They can be very useful or totally useless. And that can mean that they will be interpreted however is politically convenient. -- -Trish "...cleansed (919)230-0809 of oratory, formulas, choruses, laments, static skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu crowding the wires..." -A. Rich
shankar@haarlem.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Son of Knuth) (01/29/89)
In article <1470@trantor.harris-atd.com> ferguson@x102c (ferguson ct 71078) writes: >some suggestions for improving teacher appraisals: > o appraisal by students -- this option could yield questionable > results since some students will dislike their teachers and score > them badly. ... Additionally, this can lead to appraisal results based mainly on the grade distribution of the teacher. > o appraisal by other teachers -- i suspect many teachers know which > of their peers are doing the job and which are just along for the > ride. I think this should be weighted most heavily among the four, since peers are the best judge of a teacher (as well as in jobs in industry). > o appraisal by student improvement -- teacher appraisal would be > determined by the cumulative percent improvement of their > students on some standardized achievement test. Nah. Simply encourages teachers to teach from sample tests. Surest way to deter any creativity and original thought left in the student. Not to mention the difficulty in constructing such an achievement test. > o increased classroom monitoring -- a basic problem with the > existing appraisal system is that the principal only attends > class one day a year and that day is known by the teacher in > advance. impromptu visits by the principal on an irregular basis > might give a more accurate picture of teacher performance. the > high-tech, big-brother variation of this approach is to install > video cameras in the classrooms to allow unintrusive observation. Hmm, if I were a teacher I wouldn't take too kindly to such an intrusion. I also wonder if this doesn't violate tenure rules/guidelines. --- Subash Shankar Honeywell Systems & Research Center voice: (612) 782 7558 US Snail: 3660 Technology Dr., Minneapolis, MN 55418 shankar@srcsip.uucp {umn-cs,ems,bthpyd}!srcsip!shankar
trish@brillig.umd.edu (Tricia Jones) (02/02/89)
In article ferguson@x102c (ferguson ct 71078) writes: >Chuck Ferguson Harris Government Information Systems Division >(407) 984-6010 MS: W1/7732 PO Box 98000 Melbourne, FL 32902 >Internet: ferguson@cobra@trantor.harris-atd.com > >some suggestions for improving teacher appraisals: > > o appraisal by students -- this option could yield questionable > results since some students will dislike their teachers and score > them badly. the appraisal could be an opportunity for some > malcontents to "even the score" with the teacher. high school > students can be very immature. The `best' (that is, the one who knew the material and did not give out "easy A's ") history teacher at the high school I attended fell prey to this very thing--one group of students decided they hated her, and as a result of their bad evaluations, we future generations were stuck with football coaches who never intended to be history teachers. I'm sure it has happened in numerous other locations, also. > > o appraisal by other teachers -- i suspect many teachers know which > of their peers are doing the job and which are just along for the ride. I think this should be a very important part of the process, as long as the personality biases can be factored out somehow. > o appraisal by student improvement -- teacher appraisal would be > determined by the cumulative percent improvement of their > students on some standardized achievement test. ... the objective is > to measure how much the students learned vs. how much they > know. Someone else mentioned that this would lead to teachers teaching the test. Back to my high school experience---my 10th grade honors geometry teacher spent most of the year teaching us very interesting mathematics, but no plane geometry. Then, for about a month around the time of the basic skills tests, we got geometry. It was amazing how much of our homework problems showed up on that test... I think we even did better than the class on the other side of town, whose teacher had taught them geometry all year long. Of course, to this day I can't bisect an angle, or do any other geometric proof. And I had to self-teach myself how to write a formal proof in more advanced math classes. The history teachers also taught the tests (even the one non-football coach). In other words, I would be afraid to tie teacher competence to their students' performance on standardized tests, unless perhaps there was some way to make the tests without the teacher's knowing what the questions/specific topics covered were. > > o increased classroom monitoring -- a basic problem with the > existing appraisal system is that the principal only attends > class one day a year and that day is known by the teacher in advance. > I took (half of) an education class as an undergrad (in Texas). The following information comes from one of our class discussions : A lot of the teachers get exceedingly uptight about these evaluations. It is very possible that this leads to worse performance. I think that some kind of silent monitor (closed-circuit TV, whatever) would also lead to nervousness. And who is going to watch all the monitors? The evaluation sheet that the principal use is very long, with many minute details --- a lot of the principals don't even know how to evaluate someone in the areas given. It's a farce, even if a one-shot evaluation COULD give a good overall picture. If anyone is going to do classroom monitoring, it should be specialists in field, not administrators. I guess I didn't add many constructive ideas to the discussion. It should be fairly easy to determine which teachers do not know the material, and are thus candidates for `remediation'. However, I'm not sure I understand why some people make great teachers and others are lousy, given the same background knowledge of the material. I don't think it is entirely linked to personality traits, either. If there were some foolproof way to target these people early in their career, and help them improve, a lot of the problem would go away. --------- Tricia Jones University of Maryland