The deer-in-headlights look I adopt during an evaluation.
You’ve no doubt been evaluated a few times this year by your principal, and it’s probably gone something like this:
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You turn in your proposed lesson in a particular format.
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A time is scheduled for your evaluation.
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You pray that your students will behave.
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The principal sits in your room and scribbles notes while you teach.
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t learn very much during my teacher evaluations. Afterward, I would think about what went wrong and what went right; then I would move on. So I was excited when I saw this article about a new way to evaluate teachers that’s based on student-led conferences. This isn’t rocket science—so why didn’t we all think of this sooner? We’re all learners, thus it makes sense to have an evaluation system that allows for setting goals and reflection. It might make evaluations more productive instead of just an annoyance to get through.
Just out of curiosity—how many times were you evaluated this past school year?
My school district has allowed veteran teachers to be evaluated on several standards one school year and then several the rest of the standards two years later. Then you have five years of no evaluations. I am on year four of no evaluations.