Suggestions for Improving Teacher Evaluation

In this Harvard Educational Review article, Heather Hill (Harvard University) and Pam Grossman (Stanford University) raise three concerns about recent state and district innovations in teacher evaluation. First, they believe most classroom observation instruments are generic and don’t focus on important content-specific aspects of teaching. Second, they say evaluations are mostly done by generalists and seldom include content experts (for example, math instructional coaches). And third, they don’t think teachers are observed often enough to get the kind of specific, actionable feedback necessary to improve daily instruction (few principals make more than two or three classroom visits a year, so months pass before a follow-up visit is made).

What are the alternatives? Hill and Grossman suggest evaluating struggling teachers more frequently and effective teachers only once every two or three years. They also call for improving the content expertise of principals and enlisting instructional coaches and department heads in the process wherever possible. Finally, they suggest focusing evaluation on a limited number of skills and practices that need improvement and delivering prepared “feedback bundles” to teachers in post-observation conferences – rich descriptions of a desired practice, perhaps a video clip, curriculum materials, and the names of other teachers who might be helpful.

“Learning from Teacher Observations: Challenges and Opportunities Posed by New Teacher Evaluation Systems” by Heather Hill and Pam Grossman in Harvard Educational Review, Summer 2013 (Vol. 83, #2, p. 371-384), no e-link available

From the Marshall Memo #496