Teacher Evaluations

Teaching Evaluations
I have been at my current school for almost six years (I hit that mark next month!). In all these years, I have only been observed in the classroom three or four times. And that was in the first two years that I was here. Like most people, I was worried. What if I make a big mistake? What if I am not good enough? Even though I was nervous, I was also very excited. Why? Well, you see, I love teaching! I love it! So, I want to grow and become a better teacher, educator, whatever word you want to use. And one way to grow is by being observed and have my "skills" evaluated.

After my observations, I realized that I was worried over nothing. I love my school, however, the observation and evaluation process is not very thorough. I felt like I did not really learn that much about myself and my teaching abilities.

For my latest homework assignment with Teach Now, I saw a video about teacher observations and (one of) the evaluation process(es) that is involve. You can find the video here. I had a similar experience to it, but also a very different one. (That will be a post for another day.)

While working on this homework assignment, not only did I watch that video, I also learned a lot about some of the different approaches to teacher evaluation there are out there. I would like to briefly talk about two of them for now. Maybe in a future post I can go into more details about some other approaches that are used.

One of the best approaches I have seen is the system used by The New Teacher Program (TNTP): Teacher Evaluation 2.0. (Link here.) After reading it, I felt like this is (more or less) what I am looking for for me. Some of its main highlights are:

• Annual Process
• Clear, Rigorous Expectations
• Multiple Ratings
• Regular Feedback

I think every single one of these points is very important in a teacher evaluation!

A second system I looked at was the Texas Teacher Evaluation & Support System (T-TESS). Texas being my home state (go Houston!), I was curious about what it does in regards to this topic. With T-TESS, I not only like it because it is from my home state, I also like it because it meets what I said I was looking for in the above system. It has things like:

• Clear, Rigorous Expectations: I should add, very detailed as well!
• Multiple Ratings: 5 to be precise, from improvement needed to distinguised

A copy of their rubric can be found here. (The Texas Education Agency uses this system.)

Teach-Now Clinicals

I am not going to lie, there are, what seem like, a million criteria in most rubrics. However, for me personally and my clinical practice with Teach Now, the main areas I will be concerned with will be:

• Is there a nice atmosphere in the class? Is the environment good for learning? Does the teacher have a good rapport with the students?
• Are students engaged in the class? All? Most? Some? A few?
• What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses?

In other words, I want useful feedback. Going back to the beginning of this post. The problems I had with my observations/evaluations at my current school, is that I felt like I did not receive useful feedback. After leaving the meeting, I did not feel like I learned something new about myself or my teaching style. I did not learn what areas I am doing well in or what areas need improvement. My school employs a very common rating system that is used throughout many schools: satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

I can honestly say that I am NOT a fan of this style of evaluation. I need a system that can help me know what my strengths and weaknesses are. What areas am I strong at, so that I can continue to do those things; what areas am I weak at, so that I can improve them. So, it seems to me, that I am looking for a system similar to the one used by T-TESS. After my clinicals, the thing I will look for the most will be if I was able to grow thanks to the feedback my mentor and teacher give me. I am greatly looking forward to the process!

Using Pre-Assessment for Differentiated Instruction

Even though my students are young, they are kindergartners after all, it still follows that they are just like their older peers when it comes to having knowledge on a particular subject. Just like in any other grade, there are some students who for some reason or another have already mastered the subject the teacher is about to go over (in my case, they already know the alphabet). Then there are students who know a great deal about the subject (the alphabet) but have not mastered it yet. And then, there are the students who are learning about this subject (the alphabet) for the first time (more or less).

As mentioned above, my current unit for my Korean Kindergarten class is covering the alphabet, from A to Z. Surprisingly, some of my students have already mastered it! They not only know the whole alphabet, they know all the differences between uppercase and lowercase letters. The second group, knows the alphabet song and most of the letters, but there is still some room for improvement. The third group, either have no idea what "alien" writing they are looking at; or, they know a few letters here and there. As you can see, there is a vast gap between the groups.

But how did I come to these results? By using pre-assessment! As the word itself states, it is an assessment that is done before (thus the "pre" in the word) the subject is taught. There are many different ways to do pre-assessments. This particular time, I chose to use the Kahoot website to create a quiz (sample quiz in the link). (See references at the bottom for a link that provides 27 different ways to pre-assess your students.)

With a pre-assessment, I as a teacher, can see what is already known about the alphabet, how ready my students are for the new instruction they are about to receive, and more importantly, helps me to present the subject at appropriate levels for all my students. In other words, I am not trying to make sure my students are all on the "same page." Instead, I am trying to make sure I know what "page" THEY are on.

After the pre-assessment, as mentioned above, most students fall into one of three categories. For the sake of simplicity, I will label them: Advance, Intermediate, and Beginner. After going through their results, I will separate their scores into those three groups. I can then beginning my second step in preparing lessons for them. For this part I can use a mind map, such as this one (which I prepared specifically for this alphabet unit). This mind map can guide me in making my instruction.

"Ok, these students are advanced, then they can do this and that. This group is beginners, ok, then I will be more involved with them, and they will do this and that."

Thanks to pre-assessments, I am able to not only help my students learn the alphabet, but I am better able to do it in a way that meets their needs.


References
5. Pre-assessment Ideas - Differentiation & LR Information for SAS Teachers. (2018). Sites.google.com. Retrieved 21 January 2018, from https://sites.google.com/site/lrtsas/differentiation/5-preassessment-ideas

27 Ways To Assess Background Knowledge. (2018). TeachThought. Retrieved 21 January 2018, from https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/27-ways-assess-background-knowledge/