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Embrace careers full of evaluation
Bringing in processes for consistent, non-punitive feedback is the key to getting the measures of teacher performance the sector craves.
By Janet Clinton
The national teacher education review captured headlines for promoting literacy and numeracy testing for incoming student teachers. But fixating on entry testing misses the point of what teachers need, and what will truly drive education reform: rich, deep, career-long professional development. If this is supported by a positive evaluation framework, teachers will be empowered to improve and to embrace evaluation, rather than see it as punitive.
The report, by the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group, identified the need for evidence-based assessment of teachers’ readiness for the classroom. This is a positive statement but it falls short. What’ s needed is an evaluation and information-gathering system in which teachers receive feedback throughout their careers – from the moment they enter university to the moment they retire – that supports, rather than penalises them. By putting such a system in place, the education sector can move beyond fragmented improvements and find its holy grail: the ability to measure the impact teachers have on their students.
Of course, there are existing professional standards, set by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership( AITSL), which teachers must meet. But more detailed, better quality information must be collected and fed back to teachers so continuous enhancement can occur. This way teachers will know where they are in relation to the standards and can set career goals accordingly. Just as importantly, this information can be collated for higher education institutions to provide an authentic view of successful teaching. It is this information that education providers need to better tailor a curriculum to the needs of pre-service teachers and the classroom. The tools for this kind of continuous feedback loop do exist, as does the technology to support it.
The TEMAG report identified two sophisticated approaches to student admissions being used in Australia: one at the University of Notre Dame in Western Australia; the other, a teacher evaluation system used by the University of Melbourne in its master of teaching program. The latter was supported by the Centre for Program Evaluation( CPE).
The CPE’ s system comprises two key parts: Teacher Selector and the Visible Classroom evaluation tool. Teacher Selector, used in conjunction with an applicant’ s academic record, assesses both cognitive and non-cognitive abilities on entry to and exit from teacher training. Literacy and numeracy are included, along with testing of character traits such as emotional stability, conscientiousness, perseverance and cultural sensitivity. The results form the initial basis for a teacher’ s professional profile and make valuable information available to education providers to support pre-service teachers. This is complemented by Visible Classroom, which can measure teaching practice progress and provide feedback for future direction in an independent, rigorous manner.
The report also recognises the importance of professional experience in the development of new teachers. This is where an ongoing, evidence-based evaluation model is crucial.
The second stage of the CPE system, Visible Classroom, attempts to address this need. It uses voice technology to transcribe what teachers say in class. Teachers can download the transcript, along with a breakdown of how they teach, from how many questions they ask to how many words a minute they speak – even what students think of their methods. This information is calibrated against an evidence-based formula comprising 30 principles of effective teaching. Teachers receive a detailed analysis of how they perform compared with other teachers in a range of areas, as well as guidance for improvement.
Visible Classroom has been successfully trialled in the UK and is being introduced at schools in the US and Australia.
Long-term evaluation tools such as Visible Classroom are at risk of being wasted in the broader educational context unless providers analyse the information they generate properly and the findings are applied in teacher-training. Happily, the capacity exists to do this. This is a world of big data. Australia has the technology and skills to become a world-leader in mining this kind of data, understanding it and applying it to the benefit of students, but a major mindset shift must take place. The fact that technology and innovation were not even mentioned in the TEMAG report highlights this glaring need.
The education sector must take a great leap forwards by both embracing long-term evaluation models designed to enhance practice throughout a teacher’ s career and making use of the data-gathering technology available. From there, providers can finally realise the long-held dream of measuring the impact their courses, and their graduate teachers, have on student outcomes. n
Janet Clinton is the director at the Centre for Program Evaluation at the Melbourne University Graduate School of Education.
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