Teacher Evaluation

No matter your profession, when it comes to evaluations, it’s easy to get caught up in a stream of anxiety that insists the evaluation comes has the final piece of evidence someone needs to dismiss you from your job. We can very easily see evaluations as tools to deliver punitive measures, and why wouldn’t we? There is research that suggests teachers can go for years without being observed, and that school districts begin an observation and evaluation process only I f they are seriously considering dismissing the teacher in question.

Of course, this can’t be the pure and true aim of professional evaluation. In order to grow within the profession, you have to be able to observe, reflect, and find a direction or set goals for expansion of skills and knowledge base. To me, this is perhaps the key objective of teacher evaluations. But how does this get delivered? And on what set of unifying standards or guiding principles is it based? These are questions I’ve never really asked myself before, content as a new teacher to let someone take the reins on determining the quality of my performance.

The reference materials included in this activity contained a stand-out piece of literature from The New Teacher Project (TNTP) called Teacher Evaluation 2.0.Combing through and analyzing this document, I find many instances in which TNTP and my own philosophies align to create an honest, multi-faceted, and open approach to evaluating teacher performance.

The first design aspect from TNTP that fits my vision of quality teacher evaluation is that of “Clear, Rigorous Expectations.” As important as it is to impart in our students the idea of a Growth Mindset, and the construction of high expectations and a standard of high academic performance, teachers should be given these expectations from their administrators as well.  Expectations that are delivered clearly and demonstrated through training and practice will enable teachers like myself to become something bigger and better as they progress in their careers. I also like the idea of clear, rigorous expectations because this allows for growth and flexibility, and the ability to tailor expectations to a teacher’s specific field, or even teaching style.

Another element that I feel is important for quality teacher evaluation is using Multiple Measures. Again, TNTP outlines several different areas of performance that can come together to create an overall rating for the teacher. This will of course include, to some degree, student achievement, and while that can be a tricky area to correlate with teacher performance, I expect this facet is always going to be present in a career as a teacher, as your goal is probably very closely aligned with getting your students to succeed.

Finally, the TNTP tenet of Regular Feedback is another element to evaluation that I would like incorporated into my performance ratings. Teachers can be busy running in several directions, working to deadlines, managing the heavy work of assessment and grading and classroom management and practicing fairness, and administrators can likely find themselves in similar situations in their roles. It is easy to see how teacher observation, evaluation and feedback can get swept aside in the business of everyday school life.

However, I find that regular feedback helps me stay on course. As we cycle through our respective duties in the education, it’s all too easy to become lost in our classrooms, analyzing and over-analyzing, pouring over material and Pinterest boards, learning programs and re-assessing our learning management platforms until the day you realize that you haven’t really seen or talked to any of your colleagues for a few weeks. In other words, it’s easy to become isolated, and when one is working in isolation, flash decisions and quick problem-solving can take a bit of a warped turn. It’s meaningful to everyone to maintain social connections, but also consistency observe, share, provide, and receive feedback about performance, and any attendant helpful tips or suggestions.

In looking ahead to the clinical portion of the TEACH-NOW program, I think I can say that I am highly anticipating the regular feedback the most as I continue to craft my teaching style and practices. Though I have to admit, the near-constant observation element is more than a little intimidating.

Sources for this post:

1. The New Teacher Project (2010). Teacher Evaluation 2.0 [PDF File]. Retrieved: https://platform-user-content.s3.amazonaws.com/resources/M4U4A3_Teacher-Evaluation_2.0-20150707115740.pdf

Pre-Assessment for Differentiation

In Module 5, I selected a rather challenging standard to unpack, map, and plan for different types of learners in my school. The standard I selected was from Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.8

Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

My classroom, by default, is an ELL classroom. Classes have been sorted by school according to specific English-language proficiency, and within those classes lies a subtle differentiation of learners within a supposed strata of English-Language Acquisition. As with any classroom, some students will know and understand the material rather easily, others will have some knowledge but lack the precise skills to lead them to success in the Unit's outcomes, and others still will have very little prior knowledge of the material and need more intensive support in order to be successful.

Selection of the above standard comes with it an almost immediate need to differentiate, as it is reasonable to assume that many students will not be familiar with English-Language conventions for conducting research, and quoting and citing data. I would expect to approach this Unit with baseline objectives for all students, and then differentiate the most for students who struggle with English proficiency, likewise for those student who will easily grasp the information.

We'll start with the pre-assessment: A 10- question "Blind Kahoot!" that can be played individually.  You can find the Kahoot! quiz here.

The pre-assessment Kahoot! is designed to be a lead-in to the first lesson of the Unit: "Introduction to Internet Search." Students will learn how search aggregates work in this lesson and complete the first of two Digital Scavenger Hunts that ask them to identify their source material. Information to seek in this session is going to be pretty straightforward to accommodate for all student learning abilities, and to allow students with accelerated knowledge of the topic time to "play around" with internet search--specifically in the realm of "asking Google" subjective questions, which they will discover still yield results.

The second lesson in the Unit is much more crucial to the overall understanding of the Unit's aims--determining validity of web-based resources. In my plan for this lesson, students will be asked to explore and create a hypothesis about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus: Real, or Hoax?

In the original lesson plan, I designated Learning Stations for students at different stages of English-Language Acquisition. As such, I feel this design can easily accommodate students based on their pre-assessment results as well, by tweaking the original plan to include a more focused sort of Jigsaw Classroom experience.

As the website itself is dense with information, it seems an expedient way to determine credibility by using a division, and in the case of Jigsaw, specialization of Labor.

For the (5) students who answered the most difficult pre-assessment questions correctly, they will be asked to review and summarize the frontpage of the website, and then to explore recent news and media, as well as generate other sources to corroborate information on the website. They will find rather easily that the website is a hoax, since media links will bring them to an NPR story about the website's notoriety. Once they've determined the validity of the source, they will explore the rest of the webpage to answer targeted questions about investigating valid sources to complete their "report."

Next, the 12 students who have "some" knowledge but may need to develop higher-order thinking skills will engage in another part of the website--Activities, and Links. They will be asked to explore both parts of the webpage, and attempt to explain how to build a habitat for the PacNW Tree Octopus (this should lead them to understand how ridiculous the activity is). Links will provide more exposure to hoax/joke websites, allowing them to build their conclusions about the site to report in their mixed groups.

And finally, the students that may have struggled the most with the pre-assessment concepts and materials will be asked to review the frontpage of the website, along with a Vocabulary/glossary companion to help them with the complicated language. They will be asked to report about the PacNW Tree Octopus "FAQ's," including all of the different names for the Tree Octopus in World Languages. They will be asked to investigate pronunciation of the various languages, which should lead them to using Internet Search. Once they reach the "Sasquatch" and "Yeti" translations of the word, the nature of the website should be revealed to them. They will report basic facts back to their mixed groups.

Through pre-assessment, an introductory lesson, and a differentiation of instruction technique for more difficult authentic material, my students will hopefully be able to understand the importance of finding trustworthy sources of information on the internet. It is possible to differentiate this activity even more-- having the top 5 students exploring a more devious sort of fake news site, the middle 12 students inventorying famous internet hoaxes and visiting appropriate webpages, and the lower 5 students using the Tree Octopus site. In the end, it will depend on knowing and recognizing the needs of my specific classes.

High Stakes Assessments

I have been an educator living and working in Vietnam for over 5 years. As an English teacher, the span of my experience here has been diverse, as the country is experiencing a boom in economy and younger population, giving way to a rather healthy education--and English--economy. I've been involved in educational employment experiences in everything from preschool to University, from private internationally-minded businesses to cram schools and commercial enterprises, from Universities established and maintained by government enterprises to my current employer, a joint-charter Taiwanese/Vietnamese Middle School.

As far as the pendulum of my experience has swung here in Ho Chi Minh City, there have always been assessments. The nature of these assessments can be trivial--as in commercial customer-service based situations where courses and tests are designed for everyone to succeed--and, even if they fail, students still move on to the next-level fee-based course. It can be difficult to manage expectations across such a range of educational environments, but I have never been faced with a reality of high-stakes assessment as I have in my current employment.

To give an example, in the previous school year 2015-2016, my school decided to highlight its English program by sorting students and classes into proficiency level--across all subjects--according to an English placement exam. Students sat this exam one time, and received their homeroom designation based on their proficiency results. The school's English program is the only program instructed in English, and while students spend the majority of their timetable in English classes -- 8 periods a week as opposed to 4, or less, in other subjects--it is reasonable to entertain the idea that English proficiency alone does not an accurate projection of a student's academic skills make.

What followed, as one can imagine, was a lot of displacement and outcry. A student with a proficiency score in B1+ CERF, but at the bottom of the list due to alphabetization, was arbitrarily routed to class with other students whose average scores placed them in B1, or even A2. Classes whose students were on the cusp of a CERF proficiency level were placed in a CERF level class that befitted the lowest-performing members, thereby offsetting the effects of the exam and incorporation of new textbooks. In short, the implications and results of this high-stake assessment were not really put to work in a way one might expect.

Still, as incredulous as that policy decision may seem, it didn't break spirits too badly or cause resentment among students and their parents. One thing about the pressure of education in Vietnam is, it's so tightly interwoven into the educational experience that it's rather taken as a naturally occurring part of it. An outsider like myself may look at the practice of sorting academic-level classes by English proficiency as being hideously unfair, but there seems to be a sort of acceptance of these things all as part of the very prioritized, and therefore valuable, experience of being a student in Vietnam.

Take for instance a prominent example of high-stakes testing in Vietnam: just last year, the government consolidated High-School exit exams and University entrance exams into one exam, taken in the senior year of High School by students enrolled. The exams lasts for three days in July. In many more democratic societies around the globe, this would be challenged and criticized immediately, but in Vietnam it's something more like a National Holiday, and the collectivist--and enterprising--nature of citizens here show how high of a priority receiving, and excelling in, a quality education actually is:

Many students arrived at Thuy Loi (Irrigation) University early in the morning of July 1, 2015 for the first two subjects, math and foreign languages, despite the 39-degree Celsius heat in Hanoi. --Tuoi Tre News

A traffic police officer takes a student to his exam venue in the central city of Da Nang. The activity is part of local traffic police's program to help students during the exam. --Tuoi Tre News

Students from the south-central province of Binh Thuan taking the exam at Ton Duc Thang University in Ho Chi Minh City watch a children’s show in District 7, where they have stayed for free during the exam period. --Tuoi Tre News

A group of students in Bac Tu Liem District, Hanoi enjoy ice cream to ease stress the night before the exam. --Tuoi Tre News

Ly Thanh Huy from Binh Phuoc Province treats his son to a good dinner one day before the exam at a goat meat eatery on Le Loi Street in Go Vap District, Ho Chi Minh City. --Tuoi Tre News

While these photos and the accompanying News Article don't speak much to the implications of high-stakes testing on teachers in Vietnam specifically, it's pretty clear to see the implications such a test can have on everyday life in general.

As part of activities required back in Module 4, I took a look at Vietnam's head-turning performance internationally in the 2012 PISA assessment. (You are invited to read this report here)

There's a lot of international commentary that surrounds this report, usually originating from a variation on the same query: How could a country with a significantly smaller GDP than the world's leading educational systems display such proficiency in these exams?

Revisiting the PISA 2012 results report for the purposes of this activity has posed some of the same difficulties in really being able to understand how the report draws its conclusions. PISA publishes data matrices indicating quality of school programs and quality of life in general, but it's difficult to understand the indicators specific to Vietnam, either because participants in the exam didn't participate in that particular data point, or they may have easily answered such questions positively and automatically, as befitting their role in society where speaking frankly or perhaps critically about their experience is seen as somewhat radical.

If we compare the implications of high-stakes assessments in Vietnam to the United States, you will see a lack of critical-thinking on the part of Vietnam--as evidenced above, high-stakes examinations are simply a part of the responsibility of the student, and the student's role in society. Teachers are directly implicated in this, and there's not much dissent among people in these respective roles because their roles are not merely occupational--rather, they are directly involved in the well-being of society, and by extension the nation. Opt-out, dissent, or failure is not an option.

There's very little such sentiment like this to be found in the educational environment of the United States, where opinion is very easy to come by. Educational policies can be made, directed, and tweaked by individual states, and then even school districts--and these policies can change drastically with a new presidential administration. The George W. Bush administration implemented No Child Left Behind to bring accountability directly to schools and teachers, while the Obama administration's Every Child Succeeds Act sought to undo some of the more structurally damaging tenets of NCLB. According to an article in the Miami Herald that we reviewed in VC, the Trump Administration could very well do away with public education altogether--a rather drastic projection, surely, but never before have I witnessed such commentary against what I consider a fundamental right to human beings, not only in my country, but around the world--universal access to education.

The point is, while the United States can swing drastically from policy to policy, and course-correct swiftly according to new--or legislative majority--approaches to its public education system, a country like Vietnam can be considered much more stable in its policy, and that stability -- while not without its own systemic flaws-- provides a solid base of operation for students, teachers, families, and administrators existing within that framework.

Using the PISA results as a basis for comparison between the two countries poses a lot of problems for me because of the apples-to-oranges comparisons that would be made within the two countries' educational systems, and the lack of available and transparent research on the side of Vietnam, whose government dealings and policies are notoriously kept ambiguous if not altogether secret.

So while I struggle to draw the comparison so readily, I can speak to things about the Vietnamese system and its place in global education that I stand to learn more about.

1. How do organizations like PISA and OECD approach the selection of test participants in non-OECD countries, especially those that have non-universal access to education? How are the tests administered? Who is briefed about them, and how far in advance? What contingencies do PISA/OECD have in place to guard against corruption of data?

2. Do either organizations take into consideration the socio-economic profile of learners when conducting their assessments--that is, profiles pertaining specifically to the learners themselves and not in terms of the country's GDP?

3. What is keeping a fast-growing economy like Vietnam from universalizing its secondary education and improving educational infrastructure to reach a majority rural population?

4. How can we learn the reasoning behind such drastic and strenuous policy changes, such as the consolidation of assessments for High School exit/ University entry?

5. How are our judgments about these educational systems, as outsiders, best put to use?

In conclusion, the best judgments I can draw come from my own experience, and it's one very easily questioned as an outsider in Vietnamese society. I'm relieved of many responsibilities, by virtue of being a foreigner, that my Vietnamese counterparts are not--whether because this is more expedient for Vietnamese schools, or it minimizes dissatisfaction from foreigners hailing from more free-thinking societies, or because this is a part of process we're not meant to see, can't ever be precisely determined outside the realm of perspective. I have seen the strenuous standards to which my colleagues are held, however, and to me it is indicative of a demanding, competitive, high-pressure workplace culture, but also one that comes from a place of hard-work being its own reward.

Sources:

1. Tuoi Tre News (01-July 2015) Vietnam School Students and the Exam of Life in Pictures. Retrieved: http://tuoitrenews.vn/education/29000/

2. Tran, MTA (01-Oct 2014). Vietnam: Can One National Exam Test All? [Blog Post] Retrieved: http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/vietnam-can-one-national-exam-test-all

3. PISA test results: The Programme for International Assessment (PISA). PISA 2012 Results in Focus: What 15-year olds Know and What They Can Do With What They Know. (OECD, 2014).[PDF file] Retrieved from: https://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results-overview.pdf

4. High-Stakes testing and Effects on Instruction: Research Review. (n.d.) Retrieved: http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Instruction/High-stakes-testing-and-effects-on-instruction-At-a-glance/High-stakes-testing-and-effects-on-instruction-Research-review.html