As a 40-something graduate student assisting in a class of 100 first year college education majors, it’s eye opening to be working with students to learn about “how to teach” and getting a taste of teaching at the same time. The multi-million dollar question — how do you create a great teacher? And how do you evaluate how well our teachers are doing?
Check out this post from Larry Ferlazzo reflecting on the Gates Foundation’s efforts to develop a viable teacher evaluation tool and Larry’s views on promising ways to evaluate teachers and help them improve.
This all leaves me wondering about the point at which we are starting. How do we get to the point where we figure out (with our teachers, families and communities) and really get some agreement on #1) what it is our kids need to learn and #2) how do we know if they’ve learned it?
I do think we need to assess students and evaluate teachers. But don’t we need to get a bit more clarity about what we’re measuring and make sure we have good, viable tests for students?
