Teaching Evaluation

For those who do not know me, my profession is that of a 6th grade English Teacher. At Hoover, they require new teachers to be evaluated yearly for the first three years. After those three years, a teacher is evaluated every five years. I thought I would share how this process works...

The evaluation process is very lengthy (and time consuming). It is amazing how much you need to prepare for a lesson that takes 45 minutes to teach.

First, you meet with your evaluator (usually an administrator or curriculum advisor) and he/she reviews the evaluation tool with you. The evaluation tool has 4 domains and each domain has 3-6 areas of concentration. So basically, you are graded on about "20ish" areas of the classroom.

Second, before you teach the actual lesson, you must meet with the evaluator for a pre-observation evaluation. This meeting usually takes about 45 minutes. The teacher is asked 11 questions about the lesson. Pretty easy right? 11 questions is all? To answer those questions, it took me 13 hours and 13 pages. You have to know the test scores of students, backgrounds, learning styles, IQ's, which students are gifted or need extended services, etc. Also, you must explain the objectives, goals, use of technology and resources, and learning gaps for the lesson. Like I said, very time consuming.

Third, the teacher teaches the actual lesson. Finally, the easy part! The evaluator sits in the back of the classroom with his notes from our meeting and basically observes how I teach. During that time, I have to be aware of the students off task and on task, circulate the room, ask higher level thinking questions, allow for all types of learners to succeed, make sure I'm calling on different students of different sexes with different learning styles, students who need extra help, watch my tone and speaking, provide a safe learning environment, provide a fair learning environment, and I'm sure there is more...but, I'm getting a headache just thinking about all this again.

Finally, the evaluator and teacher have a post-observation evaluation. Basically, here is where the teacher has to regurgitate the things that they noticed about the lesson from above. What would we change? What went well? What about this student and that student? Did everything align with the learning goal? And of course, much more!

That is how a teacher is evaluated. I used to fall down laughing when I heard people saying, "Ah, you're a teacher...must be nice to have a gig like that!" Oh ya, real nice. Babysitting 130 students a day. Paperwork out the wazoo. Hours of prep time each week for grading and lesson plans. The testing alone to become a teacher makes me think that I should have PhD behind my last name. However, even though it is TONS of work and headaches, it is a very rewarding profession. It is new and different everyday, and the outcomes are amazing to watch unfold.

Does this give you a new appreciation for teachers? I didn't even begin to mention the students themselves ;)

Jesus was a teacher. Jesus was a teacher. Jesus was a....sorry, I was just reminding myself. A little motivation for a hard day at work.

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