Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness

Introduction

The early concept of supervision of instruction and teacher evaluation began in 1700s and it was under the guidance of clergy until mid 1800s. After the development of school systems, teachers realized the need for more specialized supervision as well and this was the first step to emphasizing the importance of pedagogy at that era. According to Marzano, Frontier, & Livigston (2011), between 1800s to Pre-World War II, which was called “The era of scientific management”, two educational theories were introduced. The first theory was the use of education to promote democratic ideals and the second one was the positive effect of scientific management on schools’ function. The theory of teacher’s development and increasing supervisors’ responsibilities were introduced after World War II. From late 1960s to early 1970s, “saw the phenomenon of clinical supervision—one of the most influential movements in supervision and evaluation” (Marzano et al., 2011). In mid 1990s, the Danielson model was introduced, which includes four dimension; Planning and Preparation, the Classroom Environment, Instruction, and Professional Responsibilities. Finally, in 21st century we see a lot of changes have applied to the old models and theories of supervision of instruction and teacher evaluation and it is still going through development processes for more improvement.

How does supervision of instruction relate to teacher evaluation?

As we know teachers’ evaluation depends on many criteria and scholars have introduced so many methods and theories related to this topic that can be used to evaluate teachers performance. In previous teacher evaluation models, students’ achievement was the major indicator to evaluate teachers, but Mazano (2011),...

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...for measuring teacher performance. Students’ performance or achievement plays a major role in evaluation system and “significant factor” in determining teacher effectiveness (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). They also use indicators such as students test scores as a quantitative measurement to evaluate teachers’ performance. Teacher observation is another trend that has been used by principals and educators to evaluate teacher’s performance in the classroom. The other trend is analysis of teacher artifacts or portfolios, which includes a review of classroom portfolios. These documents include; “teacher planning, instructional, and assessment artifacts, teacher self-reflection portfolios, examples of student work” (Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness, 2010). We will definitely see more emerging trends in teacher evaluation as the education system develops.