Evaluating and Improving Teaching Practice

February 16 --

In recent years, the push to change teacher evaluation systems—especially to include statistical measures of teachers’ effects on student learning—has accelerated. As more states and districts seek to improve their systems to evaluate and improve teaching practice, a key research project has been undertaken by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This project, Measures of Effective Teaching (MET), involves nearly 3,000 teacher volunteers in public schools across the country to improve teacher evaluations and feedback. In December 2010, the project released its initial analysis of measures of student perceptions and student achievement. And just last month, the project released a report on the implications of its interim analysis of classroom observations.

The Coalition for a College- and Career-Ready America (CCCRA) held a webinar on February 16 that provided CCCRA members with a unique opportunity to learn about the early findings of this important research and to also hear directly from a teacher participating in the project. This was a chance to better understand the critical issue of teacher evaluation and feedback, which is one that will likely affect many if not most school districts around the country very soon.

The webinar also featured a timely update on developments in federal education policy that could impact the work being done at the state and local levels. Webinar panelists addressed questions submitted by viewers from across the country.

To review the latest MET report, Gathering Feedback for Teaching: Combining High Quality Observations with Student Surveys and Achievement Gains, click here. For additional information on the MET project, click here.

Click below to launch the video player:

Panelists
Steve Cantrell, Senior Program Officer (Research and Data), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Kelly Zunkiewicz, Mathematics Teacher and MET Research Participant, Lennard High School (Ruskin, Florida)