Developing an Evaluation System

What an amazing two weeks. Sorry for the long delay in posting, but it has been a whirlwind. My big project for the past two weeks has been developing an evaluation system for the schools and teachers that we work with. My goal was to create a system that led to specific and helpful critical comments as well as allowing us to set concrete criteria for incentives and dismissal from the program.

The old system involved a list of behaviors (planning, clear instructions, etc.) with the option of getting a happy face, medium face, or sad face along with some written comments. This was problematic for several reasons. Primarily, one of our observers is, perhaps, the nicest man on earth and would avoid giving sad faces at all costs.

Also, it was incredibly general and subjective (no set criteria for what makes planning a “happy face”) and it didn’t give us a concrete way to compare teachers with one another, or even themselves from past lessons. My goal, then, was to create a system that not only addressed these problems, but included long range comparisons of lessons as well as evaluation for inclusion in the program directly in the forms.

The new format is basically divided into three sections: classroom observation , monthly performance discussions, and year-long school evaluation.

Classroom observation is based on clear, observable behaviors. How do we know if instructions are clear? If students can follow them the first time. How do we know if the lesson is well-planned? If transitions flow smoothly, materials for each activity are at the ready, and the teacher doesn’t make mistakes in how they present the language (spelling, pronunciation, etc.). How do we know if the lesson was effective? If the teacher calls on a variety of students and they can all answer confidently and correctly.

At the end of each observation, the teacher is given a score based on whether they exhibited more positive behaviors or negative behaviors. The score is concrete and, if we can achieve consistency in evaluations, empirical.

Monthly performance discussions involve calculating the teacher’s average score, classroom attendance (absenteeism among teachers is a huge problem in the developing world), and attendance in trainings and workshops. At this time they are either lauded (which may grow into an incentive program) or advised on the necessity for improvement. If teachers aren’t applying the methods from our workshops, or even bothering to attend, or not teaching their classes at all, the benefits of this program will be given to someone else.

Finally, this data is added into a spreadsheet for the school which can be used to keep track of progress for both individual teachers and the program at that school as a whole.