Despite the prevalent use of observational measures in teacher evaluation systems, research has only recently begun to take into account how aspects of the instructional environment and lesson sampling design may interact with teachers' scores on these measures. Instead, one assumption guiding current evaluation systems is that the variation in…

School districts and states across the Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic Region and the country as a whole have been modifying their teacher evaluation systems to identify more effective and less effective teachers and provide better feedback to improve instructional practice. The new systems typically include components related to…

Classroom observation is a crucial aspect of any system of teacher evaluation. No matter how skilled a teacher is in other aspects of teaching--such as careful planning, working well with colleagues, and communicating with parents--if classroom practice is deficient, that individual cannot be considered a good teacher. Classroom observations can…

This "Rating a Teacher Observation Tool" identifies five simple questions and provides an easy-to-use scorecard to help policymakers decide whether an observation framework is likely to produce fair and accurate results. The five questions are: (1) Do the criteria and tools cover the classroom performance areas most connected to student outcomes?…

Observation measures of instructional quality tend to fall into two broad categories--those for use across subject areas and those intended for use in specific subject areas. The move toward content-specific measures is a result of research suggesting that effective teaching looks different across subject areas and that both content knowledge and…

Following the acceptance and implementation of the new National Standards for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education prepared this model for evaluating teacher education graduates as an aid to education institutions. The paper briefly reviews research on teachers and evaluation and places the…

This manual on teacher evaluation is limited to selected aspects of instruction that are evident in classrooms, including teaching behaviors, pupil perceptions about instruction, classroom transactions involving pupils and teachers, and evidence of short- and long-term planning. The focus is upon those aspects of instruction that research has…

Stresses the need for more research into the actual instructional behavior of English teachers and discusses current findings of research of this sort. (SW)

One half of the subjects were introduced to a professor using a written biographical description including a positive teaching evaluation, while with the other subjects a negative evaluation replaced the positive one. Following the lecture, subjects completed a teaching evaluation. The two lectures differed only in the material presented.…

The Arizona Lesson Observation and Evaluation (ALOE) system of evaluating teaching is presented. ALOE was developed from Arizona adaptations of the Georgia Teacher Performance Assessment Instruments and, with G. Taylor's "Functional Elements Analysis of Teaching Skills" (FEATS), forms an integrated observation package which allows…

Includes a brief summary of numerous existing systematic observation schemes. (RD)

Described in this article are the Teacher Performance Evaluation materials and techniques that are part of the School Improvement Model project, which endeavors to improve teacher and administrator performance with the ultimate goal of improved student learning. According to the author, this project utilizes new teacher evaluation technology…

This manual, prepared for the state of Washington, provides tools and strategies aimed at assisting building administrators in clinical approaches to teacher evaluation. The first section provides preliminary thoughts on the evaluation process and discusses the two major problems: acceptance and time. The second section discusses the sources and…

Describes the Professional Improvement Commitment, a written agreement developed between teacher and evaluator/supervisor at the end of a supervision/evaluation cycle, designed to increase teacher effectiveness. (MM)

This review surveys major currents of thought and practice in teacher evaluation. Citing recent state-mandated teacher evaluation policies and procedures, several compelling questions of accuracy, fairness, and utility are raised. In response to these questions, the document first focuses on the distinction between formative and summative…