Achieving top-quality teaching, as determined by merit and significance, requires subject specialization from both teachers and evaluators. Michel Scriven defines teacher evaluation as “the process of determining merit, worth or significance.” Merit refers to the quality of the work. Worth is the value of the individual to the organization, which may be greater or less than his merit. In a …
Teacher Evaluations: Merit, Worth and the Courage to Act
One of the greatest influences on my thinking about evaluation is the work of Michael Scriven. Currently Director of the Claremont Graduate University Claremont Evaluation Center, he has a research, teaching and consulting career extending more than 60 years. I first encountered his ideas when writing my doctoral dissertation in the 90’s, and, after all these years, still find hiswork, whether …
Conversation is essential to evaluation
Conversations make the evaluation process rich, meaningful, and credible. When evaluating teaching, the evaluator must work to understand and appreciate, what the teacher is doing, and the reasons for the choices the teacher has made. While the reasons for some may seem obvious, many will not be. It is in the post-observation conversations that these will be explored. Teaching is …
Boards and teacher evaluation: the do’s and don’t’s
In independent schools, the evaluation of all faculty and staff is not a board responsibility. Boards hire, evaluate and dismiss their Head of School, who is sometimes described as “their only employee.” This, of course, is not strictly true: all school employees are employees of the board. But the point is that when the board is a governing body and …