Many policymakers have recently come to believe that the way to truly measure a teacher's effectiveness is to measure the improvement in students' scores on standardized tests in mathematic and reading. These policymakers feel that these test scores (showing improvement or lack of same) can then be relied upon heavily when it comes to evaluating, rewarding and/or removing the teachers of the tested students. This approach to teacher evaluation is called "value-added modeling" VAM and is being advocated by many state legislators as well as "gurus" in the field of education. On the other hand, there are those who maintain that test scores alone are not suffiiciently reliable and valid indicators of teacher effectiveness and should not be used for high-stakes personnel decisions. Do you believe that the use of student test scores can help identify more or less effective teachers? What camp are you in with regard to this issue? Why do you take this position?
In addition, what do you consider to be some of the characteristics of "an effective teacher?" What is the final determination of effectiveness in the classroom.............in your opinion? Dr. Ries
I am attempting to put in a comment on my own blog. Hope this works. Dr. Ries
ReplyDeleteStandardized test scores do not fully determine the effectiveness of the teacher. By using the test scores as a way to measure the effectiveness of the teacher, the school system is only hurting the students. Teacher will try to improve the scores by only teaching to the test. The problem with teaching to the test is that students do not fully understand why they have to know what is on the test. The information is not applicable to them in their everyday lives. Students need information that they can use or otherwise it is memorization. By determining a teachers job on a standardized test, the district is saying that they just want to look good on paper, but do not truly care about the students. An effective teacher is a teacher who can adapt and teach the students using many different techniques. But the standardized test is rote memorization and guessing. The teacher should be judged on a yearly basis for the students’ improvement in the classroom from September to June. Using the standardized tests is ultimately going to hurt the students and force the teachers into a more aggressive outlook on the “high-stakes tests”. The final determination of an effective teacher in the classroom is a teacher who can engage the students and keep them engaged.
ReplyDeleteThe standardized tests affect teachers’ capability of being creative and limit the use of other techniques and material connected with outside the classroom into the real world. Many students fear not to do poorly on the test so their studying results in memorization. To be a progressive citizen, a student should be able to apply the material they have learned once they go into the real world. However, since most of the students learn with memorization the material they have learned after the test is forgotten. In my opinion an effective teacher is somebody that will help the students understand the material and for it to remain within them. An effective teacher not only has a full understanding of the material but also has a pedagogic knowledge. An effective classroom is a classroom whose students are engaged in activities and they all participate in learning as well as helping each other understand the material in a fun, creative but effective way.
ReplyDeleteStandardized tests cannot always show the effectiveness of a teacher. The material that a teacher teaches should not be based around what is assessed on a test, but rather the test should focus on what the students have learned. Just as a teacher can only teach what is on standardized tests in a manner in which the students will forget the material after the test is complete and be judged an effective teacher, so can a teacher teach the content without regards to the material that is featured on standardized tests and have the students successfully retain the material and still be regarded as an ineffective teacher if the students do not pass the test. It is for this reason that the results of the teacher's students' standardized test scores are not an accurate assessment of the effectiveness of the teacher. A teacher must assist the students in learning and understanding the material. I feel that some students have difficulty taking tests, even if they understand the material. I feel that teachers should be measured on the development that they have brought about in their students, rather than the students' standardized test scores. An effective teacher teaches students so that they will understand the material and be able to use and remember that information in the future. This can be done by holding the students' interests and directing it towards the material. An effective classroom makes the students feel comfortable, so that they can focus on learning without having any stresssful factors distract them from learning.
ReplyDeleteI believe the use of student test scores can't help identify the effectiveness of a teacher. Tehre are students who are just poor test takers. These students will have trouble with the tests whether they know the information or not. Some students have trouble with timed tests. I have observed a teacher who gives the students extra time to complete her tests. This may be a good way to assess them for your class, but are you preparing the students to take a timed test like the SATs? Because the students are doing poorly on the tests, the teachers may start to teach to the test. An effective teacher is a teacher who knows how to teach all different types of students and uses them (differentiation). They have a positive effect on the students and they have a positive relationship with the students. The effective teacher is supportive to the students. When the students are having trouble, the effective teacher will support the students and work with them until they get it.
ReplyDeleteI believe that student test scores will not help identify effective teachers. A test only tells about the book knowledge the students learned not the overall learning experience the students have. I feel that there should not be a state wide standardized test on these subjects. Teachers, because of the tests have to make sure that each student is able to learn all the material before the test, even when the tests is months before the end of the year. Teachers are forced to teach to the book with very little wiggle room of other important subject material. I believe an effective teacher is someone who know the material very well and can answer the students questions or look them up in order to answer them at a later date.
ReplyDeleteI do not think VAM is fair. I have seen very good teachers get a group of kids that are difficult to teach and it is not by the teacher's fault that the scores are low.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I know two 4th grade teachers in a certain district that is very close to an urban setting. The group of students that they received one year were very far behind, some at a 2nd grade reading level. Many had IEPs, so the difficulty was heightened. Try and try as they might to get through to the students, the standardized scores were not desirable. Yet, the year before the scores were higher for the class they had. All in all, sometimes a teacher gets a group of students one year that is a difficult group to teach. A teacher should not be paid less because of that, especially if they are doing their best but the scores do not reflect that.
Aside from that, sometimes students are just not good at standardized tests. Teachers are told not to teach to those kinds of tests and many times students are just not prone to do well on them for various reasons. It does not mean they were not taught the material or do not understand it. It does not mean the teacher is ineffective. It means that the students just do not do well on those kinds of tests, plain and simple.
And in regards to teaching/not teaching to the test. What if a teacher decides to teach to a standardized test? Yes, the scores may go up, but does that mean that teacher is effective just because the scores are higher? No. VAM is absolutely flawed. And if VAM is required and gauges payment, I can foresee many teachers going this route, not for the students sake, but for the sake of their paychecks (which are bad enough in some cases).
In my opinion, many of these policy makers do not know what it takes to teach a classroom. They sit in the capital of their state and make decisions like these without really getting to the heart of the matter, or actually stepping foot into a classroom to gain the experience. They looks at statistics and paper. That's not good enough and a teacher's pay should not be waged on what statistics say. If one is not there to witness it, how do they know?
An effective teacher is on who works to the best of their ability, who is their for his or her students, who takes into account the environment in which the students are in, what their lives are like, how they learn, what/how they think, and what they do inside and outside of school, and prepares them for what's to come in the future. If they can make a difference in their lives, something that the student will keep with them, then in my opinion that's an effective teacher. Not all students will succeed with grades. Teacher's want them to, but sometimes it does not happen. What is more important, in my opinion, is that the students learn something about life and take that with them. If a teacher can do that, touch a life in someway that is benefiting, than that's effective.
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ReplyDeleteI believe that students’ test scores doesn’t show or identify how effective the teacher is. Through the test scores, we can only verify whether the students are learning the material or have they read their book but not if the teacher have taught them the right way. In other words, we can’t judge a teacher based on the students’ scores. For example; a student can have a bad day and will reflect that on the test score because he didn’t studied or just couldn’t concentrate on the exam. Another thing is that there are poor test takers and even if they try their hardest they will still don’t do well on test. Finally, one of the major problems on the standardized test could be the time. Most students ran out of time when taking a big test that’s one reason for why students score poorly but it’s not the teacher fault, it just that the test is too long to be complete it in short amount of time. An effective teacher is the one who comprehends the students and their needs. The effective teacher always tries her best to fulfill the students’ needs and make them improve on their knowledge skills. Also, she is supportive to the students when they have trouble understanding the material.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to have something so concrete and black and white as standardized tests to determine a teacher’s effectiveness. There are just way too many outside factors that can influence how a student performs on a test. The teacher can only give the students the knowledge, and then it is up to the students to use that knowledge effectively on the test, and some students are just not as good at doing that as others. There are also other things that need to be factored in as well, such as remedial students and classified students. If you have a few classified students in an inclusion class, how can the scores be looked at as a whole? Also, unless the student has had the same teacher for two testing years (for example 7th and 8th grade), the student is getting differing instruction. High stakes personnel decisions should not be based solely on the students testing scores because they are not a completely accurate assessment of what the student has been doing all year (as much as the government wants to believe that). Some students are just simply not good at taking tests.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few key characteristics of an effective teacher that cannot be judged based on standardized tests alone. An effective teacher has good classroom control and makes use of classroom time, space, and materials. They should make the class a place where students want to learn, instead of feeling like it is a chore. They inspire students to ask questions and explore ideas that they are unfamiliar with. They effectively prepare lesson plans to ensure the students are getting the most out of the lesson (for example-they make use of available media resources). They keep the classroom an organized and safe place for students. They set expectations that are challenging yet achievable. They care about their students and want to ensure that each child is working to the best of their ability. Can ALL of this be judged by a test alone?