This paper explores school principals' and teachers' views of the Italian teachers' appraisal system and related indicators. In particular, the research aimed at examining the opinions of school principals and teachers regarding the domains to be considered for teacher appraisal purposes. An investigation involving 37 school principals and 868 in…

Valid and reliable measurements of teaching quality facilitate school-level decision-making and policies pertaining to teachers. Using nearly 1,000 word-to-word transcriptions of fourth- and fifth-grade English language arts classes, we apply novel text-as-data methods to develop automated measures of teaching to complement classroom observations…

Despite growing interest in formative assessment of teacher practices, research on rates of change in teachers' practices is sparse. This is the first study to examine the characteristics of observed change in classroom practices using the Classroom Strategies Assessment System (CSAS) across alternative schedules of data collection during…

Valid and reliable measurements of teaching quality facilitate school-level decision-making and policies pertaining to teachers, but conventional classroom observations are costly, prone to rater bias, and hard to implement at scale. Using nearly 1,000 word-to-word transcriptions of 4th- and 5th-grade English language arts classes, we apply novel…

Quality professional development (PD) can be a great benefit to teachers who need help with classroom management implementation. PD programs have better outcomes when there is follow-up after skill instruction. Providing PD within a multitiered support (MTS) framework can make PD delivery more efficient for schools. We describe an MTS-PD program…

To meet the demands of living and working in the 21st century, it is critical that every P-12 student in every classroom have an effective teacher. Yet, each year, thousands of new teachers enter the field unprepared to meet the challenges of today's classroom. Recent federal policies such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have made…

This paper describes the confirmatory factor analysis, validity, and reliability data collection stage of the development of a scale to measure mainstream teachers' self-efficacy beliefs for teaching ELL (English Language Learner) students. Data were collected from 708 K through 12 teachers and pre-service teachers with varying degrees of…

The stakes are getting higher for teachers to provide evidence that suggests their students are meeting the goals set forth by national and state standards. The stakes are also getting higher for administrators at the state and local levels to provide evidence that their teachers are "highly qualified." Currently lacking in many areas is an…

The investigation examined relationships among scales for observing and rating teacher performance. Beginning teachers with varying levels of professional experience (2, 9, and 16 months) were rated by pairs of observers on two occasions. Intercorrelations across occasions fell between .5 and .8. Interrater agreement ranged between .5 and .9.…

Highland Park Elementary School (Manchester, Conn.) aligns its professional development with teacher evaluations and the school improvement plan to create a comprehensive system that achieves results. Data tie the pieces together by helping school teams select school improvement goals, helping teachers choose their own professional growth…

"Context-Related Characteristics of Expert Science Teaching" is one of the projects funded through the Center for Research on Educational Accountability and Teacher Evaluation (CREATE). This description of the project's data collection and field implementation provides an update on research on the science teacher as facilitator of…

This report examines the nature and extent of professional development activities, assesses the current National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) collection of professional development data, and recommends ways to enhance that data collection. Section 1, "Overview and Background," introduces the subject. Section 2, "Linking…

Since 1972 Western Kentucky University has been evaluating graduates from the teacher education program via the Teacher Preparation Evaluation Program. Participants were identified during student teaching and followed for five years with extensive data collected during the first, third and fifth years. Part of these data included a new scale, the…

Issues in collecting data on the classroom performance of teachers are discussed, with a focus on written descriptions of teacher behavior in contrast with videotaped observations. The central issue in this comparison is the comparability of the information when it is observed live and when it is simply recorded on videotape. The fundamental…

The research design is described for the study of instructional time, conducted as part of the Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study. The premise of the study was that certain teacher behaviors are related to student achievement; however, if all teacher behaviors are equal, the students who spend the greatest amount of time in learning activities…