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Useful Feedback for Teachers
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The Dispatch reported recently that several thousand teachers received reports of how successful their students had been on state tests as part of President Obama’s Race to the Top improvement drive. These reports are aimed at helping teachers see the effect that they have on the growth of their students and where improvements in practice need to be made.
These reports are limited in scope, and look only at one factor – value added data, though they speak to our ultimate goal of better student performance. These reports point out only where we have been successful, and where we aren’t getting the results that we need.
The ultimate measure of our success as teachers is the success of our students. But, when it comes to teacher evaluation my conversations with teachers and the emails I’ve read have made it clear that test scores aren’t enough to help them grow or improve. We need to be provided with information and feedback that helps us to grow and develop in our practice so that we can be successful educators and our students can be successful learners. To guide improvements in instruction, additional data is needed. Our teacher evaluation system in Ohio needs to provide that.
I would love to hear from teachers who received one of these reports. What did you think of the data? Was it helpful? Will it have an impact on your teaching moving forward? As we continue to work on a teacher evaluation model for Ohio, what other feedback would you like to receive that might be useful in guiding your practice? |
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