State departments of education throughout the United States are generating new teacher evaluation standards, partly to ensure that all students have a chance to learn from highly effective teachers. But this good work leads to a challenging question: Now that we have instructional standards, how should we determine whether teachers are meeting those standards?
Some suggest that school districts use student achievement data, often in the form of test scores. Although these data have a place in measuring teacher effectiveness, there are limitations and flaws inherent in relying heavily on test scores.
States also recommend renewed focus on classroom observations. Certainly formal and informal classroom observations, whether done live or through video, reveal much about teachers' instruction. They should continue to be a rich source of evidence for assessing teacher performance (and, ideally, leaders should use this evidence to provide feedback for teacher growth, rather than just for rating teachers).
But classroom observation also has significant limitations. For one thing, many of the research-based characteristics of effective teaching that are detailed in the powerful instruments now available for assessing teachers' performance<FOOTNOTE><NO>1</NO>These tools, which provide criteria and scales for assessing teachers' performance, include those developed by Charlotte Danielson and Robert Marzano among others.</FOOTNOTE> can't be measured well through the lens of classroom observations. An overuse of classroom observations could distract educators from using other sources of accessible and compelling evidence that tell us much more about the classroom: classroom artifacts and students' voices.
What Artifacts and Student Voice Reveal
A classroom artifact is anything produced for or by a student. Artifacts include student-generated journals and notes, writing folders, tests, daily assignments, and returned papers. Many teacher evaluation instruments make multiple references to evidence or indicators that include looking at these artifacts, but school leaders haven't tapped their potential.
Students' views are another rich source. Given the right prompt in a safe environment, students can provide incredible insight into what happens in the classroom. Many teachers know this and, thus, elicit student feedback to improve their instruction. Schools should make the same commitment to responsibly use student surveys and interviews to learn about teacher effectiveness.
We might frame analysis of these features as "virtual observations." Such evidence provides a clear, comprehensive, authentic view of the classroom, even though it doesn't rely on a supervisor's presence. But because achievement data and classroom observations have been dominating the national dialogue, examination of artifacts and a close analysis of students' perspectives simply haven't been given the kind of attention that would make them integral to teacher supervision.
Let's consider four instructional standards that represent the kind of standards found on most frameworks and see how classroom artifacts and listening to students could shed light on how well a teacher meets each one.
Instructional Standard: Create assessments aligned with essential knowledge in the curriculum.
Even multiple, perfectly timed observations might not be able to provide evidence of meeting this standard. However, a collection of teacher-made tests administered in the classroom over a specific period of time would speak volumes. These artifacts show whether, for example, assessments often focus simply on recalling details from every chapter of a class novel or, instead, require students to apply important learning targets, like understanding how literature helps people understand societal trends.
Instructional Standard: Engage students in long-term, cognitively challenging, and meaningful tasks.
Systematic examination of student-generated projects, through actual work samples or photographs or copies of projects, enables an evaluator to judge how often the students are cognitively challenged and how often they're just required to display information.
This examination might also reveal the extent to which students' parents are, at times, the ones challenged—to visit the craft store.
Instructional Standard: Provide feedback that motivates and guides learning.
Both reviewing artifacts and seeking students' perspectives can show how well a teacher is meeting this standard.
Classroom artifacts reveal the type of feedback students are receiving, from simple scores and comments to ratings on detailed rubrics. It's not until supervisors talk to students, however, that they can determine how students are using that feedback. Even general prompts, such as, "Tell me what you are good at and what you still need to work on," will indicate the extent to which students are drawing on feedback to pursue learning goals—or the extent to which they're just "doing school."
Instructional Standard: Create a respectful classroom environment with high expectations.
It's hard to imagine monitoring this standard without hearing from students, whether through surveys or interviews. Although many schools often conduct some sort of student survey, taking this instructional standard seriously requires that the schools systematically elicit student input in a safe environment and regularly use that input to monitor the kind of environments different teachers foster. School leaders can then sustain what is working and change what is not.
Scenarios and Caveats
So how might schools fruitfully use classroom artifacts and students' perspectives to assess teachers' skills and to contribute to teacher growth? I can imagine multiple scenarios. For one, teachers might individually reflect on these evidence sources. Teacher teams or learning communities could also collect artifacts or elicit students' feedback with a focus on what these signposts show about a particular goal, such as whether every student shows clear improvement over a semester. Teachers could discuss what this evidence reveals to help them assess their effectiveness, celebrate strengths, and set new goals in a continuous cycle.
Alternately, a principal or other supervisor might choose an instructional focus, collect artifacts from each teacher, and elicit student input as a way to examine the experiences of the students throughout the building. After analyzing this evidence, the administrator would share overall perceptions with the faculty. He or she could review what patterns surfaced as a result of this analysis without targeting any single teacher for praise or criticism.
These evidence sources are appropriate to include in individual evaluations. As a supervisor and teacher examine artifacts and survey responses from that teacher's students together, they will identify areas of strength and weakness for this educator. Such analysis helps make evaluation a process of evidence-based reflection, which the teacher joins.
The extent to which a teacher engages authentically in evidence-based reflection can also be a major criterion for that teacher's evaluation. The purpose of a supervisor and teacher together examining artifacts and student input is not to settle on some rating in each area of expertise but to help teachers identify and sustain their areas of strength and set goals for improvement. For example, if a teacher sees that her students don't perceive feedback as motivating, she might begin to craft a plan for improving in this area, including when and how she will collect evidence to determine whether her feedback has become more motivating. Such professionalism should significantly and positively affect the teacher's overall rating.
We should keep a few caveats in mind. Just as with classroom observations, we shouldn't draw final conclusions from a small amount of evidence but should collect enough artifacts and student responses to show a pattern.
Schools must use caution, of course, when analyzing evidence of students' interviews and surveys. Students might be on the warpath with a teacher and distort reality as a way of getting revenge. Or, students might so admire a teacher that their perceptions won't be an accurate indication of areas of expertise. Even given these cautions, systematic processes for eliciting student input, along with collaborative analyses of results, can provide strong indications of areas of strength and weakness.
Three Advantages
Evaluation should influence instructional practice. Shifting from overreliance on classroom observations to a mixture of observation, artifacts, and student voice has three major advantages in terms of such influence.
It's fair. Notice that in each of the examples above, there are no hidden agendas or "gotchas." Although supervisors rarely intend unfairness, classroom observations can feel arbitrary, especially when—wouldn't you know—a teacher's kids act weird right in front of the observer. Using evidence that represents teachers' practices over time is a much more accurate representation of instructional expertise than relying on one or two observations.
It improves teacher-supervisor relationships. Classroom observations sometimes frame the supervisor as an authority who will draw from what he or she observes to coach the teacher. The goal is for the supervisor to have an effect on that teacher's practice and thus affect student achievement. When artifacts and student perspectives are the focus, the supervisor and teacher analyze the student evidence side by side. The goal becomes to have an effect on the students' learning and thus affect the teacher's practice. Both approaches have a common purpose—to improve instruction—but they create very different relationships.
It focuses on student learning. Examining artifacts and students' voices reveals what instruction looks like from the viewpoint of learners. A supervisor can better evaluate whether a teacher has pursued professional goals to improve his or her teaching practice by perusing classroom-based evidence than by simply checking the number of workshops or book studies the teacher has participated in.
Classroom observations have long provided good evidence for evaluating teachers. But I believe a renewed commitment to using classroom artifacts and students' voices will enhance those observations. Refocusing on these important signposts makes us work to improve our students' learning.
