How Do High-Performing Nations Evaluate Teachers?

Who decides if a teacher is effective and how is that determination made? In most nations, teacher evaluation systems are essentially a “work in progress.

What makes an effective lawyer, carpenter, baseball player, surgeon?

An effective divorce lawyer isn’t necessarily an effective criminal defence lawyer. A good framing carpenter isn’t necessarily a good finish carpenter. A good baseball catcher isn’t necessarily a good third baseman. A good heart surgeon isn’t necessarily a good hip-replacement surgeon.

Put lawyers, carpenters, baseball players, and surgeons in wrong roles, test them, and a likely conclusion will be that they’re not particularly effective. So it is with teachers. Put them in wrong roles, and they probably won’t be particularly effective.

In 'global educational survey‘ OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Secretariat's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA),which ranked India 72nd out of 73 countries. In the second most populous nation on the

planet, with the second biggest educational system in the world, India's performance to be variously labelled "embarrassing," "shocking," and "disappointing.“

The number of years a person has spent in school is a dismal 4.4 years for India as compared to global average of 7.4 and 4.6 for South Asia.

 Life expectancy at birth is 64.4 years in India. In comparison, people living in countries such as Norway, Australia, New Zealand and many countries across Europe are expected to live beyond 80 years. The world average is 69.3 years. The Chinese are expected to live about 73.5 years

TEM: Teacher Effectiveness Measure Bill Gates spent $45 million trying to find out what makes a school teacher effective — and failed.

 Good teachers and effective school leaders form the cornerstone of that system. A high-quality teacher workforce doesn’t simply happen by chance or as a result of a cultural respect for teaching; it is a result of deliberate policy choices.

Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, but teachers in the countries received professional feedback.

In Denmark teachers receive feedback from their school administrators once a year.

In Norway, teacher-appraisal policies are designed and implemented at the local or school level.

In Iceland, evaluation is left to the discretion of individual schools and school boards

Finland, Singapore And China Take Teaching Seriously

Finnish children don't start school until they are 7. They rarely take exams or do homework till 15 then only one mandatory standardized test at 16. The difference between weakest and strongest students is the smallest in the World.

In Singapore, prospective teachers come from a pool of the best graduates, they enter a high-quality preparation program, and they receive a salary while they prepare. They enter a well-paid profession.

In China, billions of yen are being spent on a plan to improve millions of teachers’ preparation, professional development and working conditions. Optimum user of technology in education even far ahead than USA.

Finland as the world’s top success story in student achievement. So what’s their secret?

In high-ranking Finland, the national ministry of education plays no role in teacher evaluation. Instead, broad policies are defined in the contract with the teachers’ union.

What’s more, they took what was once a wide achievement gap between rich and poor, and reduced it until it’s now smaller than in nearly all other wealthy nations.

Finland has become the icon of classroom success, the repeat winner of top results in a global ranking of national school systems

Neither the strongest of the species

nor the most intelligent

survives, but the most

responsive to change”.

Singapore, another top-performing nation

Singapore has a rigorous professional development program which focuses on how to evaluate, mentor, and coach newer educators.

Teachers are entitled up to 100 hours of professional development every year and often work in teams–priorities that reflect the country’s philosophy that the key to a first rate teacher force is to provide educators with the right incentives.

“They’ve been able to systematically recruit high quality teachers, develop them and retain them in their system,” This benefit the students and their learning outcome.”

Dream, Design, and Deliver

When Singapore gained its independence from Britain in 1965, it was a poverty-stricken place with few natural resources. It had a population of warring ethnic and religious groups that was largely uneducated, and many of whom were malaria stricken or opium addicted. Singapore’s policymakers decided early on to invest in their human resources and to dream, design and deliver a solid education to every child.

Today, it is a gleaming global hub of trade, finance and transportation, one of Asia’s great success stories.

Its schools are high on the list of the world’s best-performing school systems. Educators from around the world now visit this city-state to see how Singapore has achieved its world-beating levels of performance in math, science, and literacy. The answer, according to Singapore educators, is simple: a coherent curriculum delivered to every school by high-quality teachers. 

Educate for the future, not just the present: Earlier the pen was mightier than the sword, in future the chip will be mightier than sword.

Many of today's job titles, and the skills needed to fill them, simply did not exist

20 years ago.

Education systems need to consider what skills today's students will need in future and teach accordingly.

We live in an age of technology where children in our schools often know more about technology than their teachers. Most teachers did not grow up with the technology that has become part of the everyday lives of today’s children.

An Idea of Edison To make BulbRemoved theDarkness of Night

Effective team work

Effective Teamwork: When Thomas Edison was asked why he was so prolific an inventor, he replied that it was a result of what he called the “multiplier effect”. He placed his team of inventors near each other to encourage them to consult with one another so that each member of the team benefitted from the collective intelligence of the group. His team not only worked better but faster.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

 

You can be a

trailblazer. Trailblazers are

leaders who see and create new paths in

achieving professional goals and personal

dreams.

Schools, classrooms, and school systems can and do improve, and the factors facilitating improvement are neither so unusual, nor expensive that they are beyond the grasp of … ordinary schools.

“Everyone has different financial situations, but … we decided to remain on the job as professionals.”

We need the students to know that we’re here and we’re not abandoning them

“Anything that hurts revenue hurts the kids.”

“Children won’t just go hungry for an education better They’ll go hungry physically.”

Good teaching can't happen without student learning.

“We must build a professional community of teachers if we are all to thrive, There needs to be more respect, more trust, more space for teacher autonomy.”

Accountability based on testing is insufficient and without the necessary empowerment and training of good teachers, the desired outcome for student learning would not be achieved.

What makes a teacher effective?

Research indicates that teacher preparation/knowledge of teaching and learning, subject matter knowledge, and experience, are all leading factors in teacher effectiveness.

Well prepared teachers produce higher student achievement

Two components are critically important in teacher preparation: teacher knowledge of the subject to be taught, and knowledge and skill in how to teach that subject.

Unprepared teachers often end up blaming the students for their own lack of skills. 

Challenges you typically face :

Students come to school not ready to learn. Students are verbally or physically abusive. Parents are openly hostile to your efforts. Parents disregard the importance of school.

Don’t expect that your

child will be as obedient as your pet

is.

Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions.

teaching is to make learning contagious, to

have one idea spark another,

means children learn how to learn

Teaching today is a more complex, more demanding profession than it ever was in the past

Subhash Jain