Robert Marzano on Using Learning as Part of Teacher Evaluation

(Originally titled “How to Show Student Learning”)

In this Educational Leadership article, author/consultant Robert Marzano lists the problems with using test scores to evaluate teachers and suggests better ways “to demonstrate that students taught by a given teacher have learned”:

• Use common assessments. For example, a second-grade team creates a pre- and post-test for a unit on plant and animal survival needs, with items at three levels: basic, proficient, and advanced. Teachers can use the results to measure growth and follow up as needed. 

• Use common student surveys. When students are asked questions like these from the Tripod Project…

• I’ve learned a great deal in this class.
• My teacher pushes us to work hard and think deeply.

… teachers get valuable feedback on motivation and learning.

Race to the Top requires that measures be comparable from teacher to teacher. Marzano says this can be managed by having teachers score each others’ common student assessments. “Doing this for both the pre- and post-test gives each student a relatively reliable growth score,” he says, “which one obtains by subtracting the pre-test from the post-test scores.” Before-and-after student surveys can be used in the same way.

How about small districts where there’s only one teacher per grade level? Marzano recommends going online to create and score common assessments with nearby districts. 

“How to Show Student Learning” by Robert Marzano in Educational Leadership, October 2013 (Vol. 71, #2, p. 82-83), www.ascd.org 

From the Marshall Memo #506