Teacher Evaluation: Systematic Process for Professional Growth - Essay Sample

Introduction

Teacher evaluation is a systematic procedure that is used for reviewing the teacher's performance in a classroom as well as analyzing the review to give constructive feedback for the professional growth of teachers. The procedures of the process vary from district to district, region to region and country to country since state laws usually govern them. Some of the main factors considered during a teacher evaluation include the student performance in terms of classwork, daily or weekly lesson plans as well as the records maintained by the teacher.

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The primary purpose of the activity is to ensure optimal student growth and learning, achieve excellence in the education of all students daily, it plays a significant role in ensuring the achievement of objectives and goals of a school comprehensive plan division, it promotes the improvement of the overall professional performance, self-growth, as well as instructional effectiveness and lastly the activity, helps in improving the quality of instructions through ensuring teacher effectiveness and accountability for class performance. The professional standards set for teachers to ensure that they effectively perform their duties include expert knowledge, instructional planning, instructional delivery, assessment of and for student learning, learning environment, professionalism as well as student academic progress.

These are the critical performance standards that are used during teacher evaluation to understand the effectiveness of the teachers. Observations are mostly used to conduct an evaluation process, and this is because they give a wider variety of contributions that teachers make in a classroom or within the school community. Administrators of a school utilize this kind of evaluation procedure most of the time by walking through non-instructional spaces and classrooms, participating in school activities as well as attending meetings. Document or observation review forms are used to give the targeted feedback on the effectiveness of a teacher based on the seven performance standards. Classroom observations include at least 20 minutes of classroom observation as well as a post-conference and, at times, a pre-conference.

Pre-Observation Conference

This is a conference between the teacher and the consulting teacher, whereby they both discuss as well as plan for an upcoming observation session. As a consulting teacher, I would involve the teacher during this session to establish or re-establish communication, meaning that the teacher updates me on the different classroom happenings and raise any questions or concerns. We will discuss the intentions and goals of the upcoming lesson. Here the teacher gives me the intensions of the lesion. We will rehearse the next lesson with the teacher to ensure that there will be no potential for a future problem during the session. During this session, we will revise the lesson plan together with the teacher, set the ground rules such as the behaviors to be maintained during the upcoming event. It is at this moment where we will choose the method of the observational instrument of data collection. It is at this moment where I will remind the teacher on the primary purpose of the observational tool to be used, which is not only for evaluation purposes but also for giving an objective way of capturing the realities of classroom life.

The questions that I will ask the teacher therefore are:

• What are the intentions and goals of the upcoming lesson?
• What materials will be used in the upcoming lesson?
• Are you well prepared for upcoming lesson?
• What are the teaching methods to be applied in the upcoming lesson?

Post-Observation Conference

After the data was collected, the consulting teacher will hold a post-observation conference. The conference will discuss the data collected as well as an analysis and interpretation of the data. In our case, the data was collected from a science lesson study about the investigation-colloquium method. The teacher on the video was well prepared and wanted to ensure that before the class ended, every student understood how the investigation-colloquium process works. The teacher used a discussion method of teaching, whereby everyone in the class participated actively during the entire class time. The teacher acted as a guide and let the students give their views on how the method works. The teacher-guided everyone and was very friendly to the students since he created a comfortable environment for every one of them. He made them feel superior and in control of whatever they were learning hence built their confidence. In the entire class session, if ranked, he allowed students to participate and be in control of about 70% of the course.

The questions that I will ask the teacher during this session is how he feels when he interacts with the students, how he chooses his teaching method as well as how he would know that the technique was helpful to his students. I will expect answers such as he feels very comfortable and free to interact with the students and that he chooses the method to use based on the topic of study and that he knows that his students understand and learn better from his method based on their responses to questions asked in class as well as personal assignments given to the students.

In my opinion, the teacher is good and does his teaching entirely. Still, I think not all students would benefit from that method of teaching because they work in groups. Some might not get it how others get it, and maybe they would fear to state it. Therefore, I would recommend the teacher to come up with a strategy that favors every student in class or improvise a way that will ensure his teaching method is beneficial to all students at the same rate in quality. The next observation will be to determine the impact the teacher had on the students and at what rate each student learned.