Feedback in Teacher Evaluation

I've said before that teacher evaluation is a large part of my job as well as an interest of mine. I liken it to when I was in the classroom; the tough students were always my favorite because I enjoyed the challenge of winning them over. I think it's the same for teacher evaluation - it's a tough topic to tackle. Ironically enough, I also get a fair amount of back talk when discussing it with others... similar to the tough students.

Hypocrisy anyone?

I've had this overwhelming feeling lately that educators are being incredibly hypocritical about teacher evaluations. With our students, we strive to provide (as Hattie coined) "dollops of feedback" as a means to help students realize where they are in relation to learning targets. This feedback helps students determine what areas they've mastered, while helping them focus on topics that need to improve. Why don't we do this with teacher evaluation?

Often we have teachers prepare a dog and pony show, much like the one Stephanie Wrobleski describes in her blog here.  In her post, Wrobleski points out that during the course of a school year she'll be teaching for 3,600 hours, while being judged on two of them; one in the fall and one in the spring. She goes on to say that she's vying for the part of "Highly Effective Teacher" in the production that will be her evaluation. I love it!

Then what?


Kim Marshall, in her article appearing in the November 2012 Phi Delta Kappan, describes a system that includes ten 5-15 minute classroom observations aimed at provided timely, face to face feedback that helps reaffirm that positives in one's practice, but identify and develop one's shortcomings. A far cry from the two 45 minute "formal" observations many educators see across the country. Could you imagine if educators met with and provided feedback to students for 45 minutes, twice a year? Why do we do this with teachers?

To be honest, Marshall challenged my thoughts about face to face feedback versus gadget-based-feedback. She has this to say in regards to written or electronic feedback:

It saddens me that so few school leaders take the time to talk to teachers after classroom visits. One of the more dubious practices in U.S. schools these days is administrators dropping into classrooms with clipboards, laptops, or tablets, filling out checklists or rubrics, and sending them to teachers. This kind of one-way feedback is superficial, bureaucratic, annoying, and highly unlikely to make a difference.

I'm the first to admit, I'm a geek and I LOVE gadgets, but Marshall has a point; it's one way feedback and will not lead to developing teachers, just evaluating them.

Our model should include, as Marshall points out, frequent, unannounced, brief visits with face to face, timely, and honest feedback. Isn't that what we expect from educators as it pertains to their students? In fact, she has a nice bulleted list that any principal could use to get this process going.



If we are to reform education, we must reform the way we communicate successes and failures with educators. We need to begin looking at the teacher evaluation as a formative assessment.

What are other schools doing?