I truly believe that feedback is one of the most important ingredients for success. If teachers could give students five minutes of good feedback a day I think it would make a huge difference in student performance. If teachers received five minutes of feedback a day I think it would make a huge difference in our performance. We give students a report card at the end of each quarter and just to be fair I want students to grade me.
What I am going to ask you to do is to reply to this blog. What are five qualities that teachers should be measured on. For example should teachers be measured on content knowledge. When I compile the five categories that students think are the most important I will then make out a report card that you can fill out anonymously.
When I think about my evolution as a teacher, the best suggestions have come from students. From high fives to most improved board 95% of the things that I do were told to me from students. So here is your chance to form my report card. What five things do you think teachers should be judged on?
These are all general (to me, that's the point of this)
ReplyDelete-Engagingness (honestly, if it wasn't for this and for questions, I would just watch MIT OpenCourseWare, etc and earn a GED that way in much less time)
-Return on Work Put In(this is an odder one but, after 12 years of spending >6 hour days working for a grade, teachers become very paternalistic/materialistic figures (which some teachers do not understand. If you talk sharply to us, or bet a dollar and we don't get the answer, it is not like a boss yelling at you, it's like your parent telling you they are disappointed that you were not good enough). If I study for 3 hours for a test and do well on it, it's extremely nice to see some approval from that parental figure besides just the 'materialistic' satisfaction of the grade itself. You writing "nice" on a test goes farther than you might think)
-Questions/extensions (One of my biggest pet peeves is feeling like the teacher is just reading the curriculum. I once dug up a recommended curriculum from the college board and was a little sad to see that my teacher went absolutely no farther than that. I get the time crunch but, seriously, I could read the curriculum myself in less than a year if I needed to)
-Time management (this is a fine line. I've had teachers that didn't do anything until 1/2 hour before the period ends and others that worked every possible minute. I like the every-minute one better but, when things go down hill and my attention wanders, it's hard to devote absolute attention for 90 minutes)
-Willingness to stay after (I don't think you know how much we appreciate and notice when you stay after and before school (and the smaller things like not hole-punching the tests so nothing is obscured). It poses a really stark contrast to the teachers that aren't in their room at 7:30 and leave at 2:15)
Bonus: Enjoyment of your job - I've had teachers that were open that "I'm not paid enough to do ___". If I'm putting 3 hours to study for a a test, I really don't want to think you don't care and are just doing it for a paycheck
Knowledge of subject matter: I've always thought that teaching is the demonstration of your own in-depth knowledge of the subject. Conversely, in order to be an effective teacher, you've gotta know your topics front to back, to understand them so thoroughly that you can even predict where people will go wrong.
ReplyDeletePersonality- When you're dealing with inattentive kids, I think that the one thing that can keep them interested is your personality. All of the teachers I regard as really good, are also really funny. They have personal quirks that make them enjoyable to listen and talk to, and in addition they're very accommodating and are good with people.
Communication: This is really important on several levels: 1) Students have to understand what you're saying in order to understand the material. 2) It's very helpful to us when teachers let us know when things are, what's on their mind or their schedule, or any other things that may impact us. It let's us plan around their schedules as well. 3) Communication is two-way, so letting students make more suggestions and give more feedback is also really good: gives the teacher potential ideas, and gets students to do more critical thinking.
Individual effectiveness: Just how effective the teacher is at treating individual issues. A very subjective and general subject.
Group effectiveness: How effective the teacher is at teaching the entire class. Some teachers may be really good individually, but have trouble getting everyone on the same page. This is basically the counterpart to Individual Effectiveness.
I hope this is coherent, as I'm pretty tired and I might not have been very concise. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.
Since you have been a teacher for quite a few years, you may have seen this video, or heard about this topic:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce
It is around 15 minutes long. The gist of it, if you have too little time to watch it, is how different people have different tastes for certain foods, specifically spaghetti sauce, and yet variations on products only came about in the '70s. This was because businesses had this view that there is only one type of perfect sauce, when in truth some people enjoy a certain sauce, while others hate it and like another type.
However, what I found most interesting in this was not that "not one method is best for everyone:" this is a message that in our very individualized society has almost become cliche: But, the fact that, even though 33% of Americans prefer a chunkier sauce over all other types, hardly anyone revealed this when they were surveyed. That is to say, many people don't know what they want, and the only way to find that out is by experimenting, not just surveying. I personally am not an expert on educational methods; I am not sure what five categories I would say. I don't really know what my "chunky sauce" teacher is.
That said, what you have been doing in class, with using different methods recommended to you, using resources like this blog and Facebook, and seeing what works, seems to be working fine on rooting out those methods that work. Although Economics is stressful at times, I feel your class might possibly be the best operated class I have ever taken.
You should send this reply to the superintendent of schools. While he would probably agree I do not think he realizes how teachers are getting to feel that one sauce is for everyone. You should become an educator
DeleteThanks for the comments, it will help as I start to develop categories for my own report card. I think when this becomes a job for a paycheck I will find another way to earn money
ReplyDelete(1) Knowledge of material (and ability to explain it in different ways if a student isn't understanding one explanation)
ReplyDelete(2) Willingness to help (willingness to put in the time to help students individually or hold study sessions before or after school when they - the students - put show the initiative to ask; when a student spends hours studying for a test and fails, it's obviously not enough to just tell them "try harder next time" - they need help)
(3) Ability to engage class (how focused a class is - which is partially out of the teacher's control, but some teachers seem to not care at all if the class is paying attention or understanding what they're saying, which definitely doesn't help)
(4) Communication (information on what's coming up as well as feedback on how a student is doing and what a student can do to do better; this also ties in to how well a teacher can explain information)
(5) Attitude/demeanor (this might be a personal issue, but some teachers act very angry and fed-up all the time, which not only makes it hard for me to learn, but also deters me from asking questions in class or asking for help outside of class)