Measures of Effective Teaching

The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation recently outlined the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study which calls for educational researchers to collect public school data on a voluntary basis for the purpose of uncovering the indicators of a teacher's impact on student achievement.

The primary goal of this study is to "develop objective and reliable measures of effective teaching." The researchers will focus upon the following indicators:

• student feedback through surveys
• looking at student work
• supplemental student achievement assessments
• recorded classroom lessons
• teacher reflections of the recorded lessons
• assessment of teachers' ability to recognize and diagnose student learning problems
• teacher surveys on working conditions

More information regarding this educational research can be found online at the following website.

A's for Good Behavior?

The New York Times recently published an article titled "A's for Good Behavior" (11/27/10) that focused upon the widely divergent grading practices that result in student report card grades. The idea of standards-based report cards has been around for a while, yet this article questions the value of including homework, participation, effort and behavior scores as contributing factors into a student's academic report card grade. The central idea here is that report card grades should accurately reflect student learning and mastery of academic content and educational skills.

The article examined Ellis Middle School, located in Austin, Texas which has shifting grading practiced to reflect student learning. The school uses calculates academic report card grades for students by averaging the scores on end-of-unit tests. The article states "those tests can be retaken any time during the semester so long as a student has completed all homework; remedial classes that re-teach skills will be offered all year." Additionally, the school doe not factor homework into the academic report card grade as homework is considered a formative assessment, or practice. Ellis Middle School provides students with a "knowledge grade" and a separate "life skills grade" for students.

The entire article is available online here.