Teacher Evaluations: What's the point?

If a teacher evaluation was optional, would you volunteer?  I’m sure that many of you have already answered with an emphatic “no,” but you should probably reconsider.  Why?  Research consistently shows that effective teaching is the single most important factor contributing to student academic achievement. It’s such a game-changer that many states require performance-based teacher evaluations, focusing on a teacher’s planning, teaching, assessing, and quality of student learning.

Ideally, a teacher evaluation is performed by a well-trained, qualified observer and is meant to provide constructive, actionable feedback that accurately identifies a teacher’s strengths as well as areas in which they need to improve.  These opportunities help all teachers to become good teachers and good teachers to become even better.  But, not every teacher has the opportunity to go through scheduled and unscheduled visits designed to review and rate teacher performance and effectiveness. 

So, how do you know if you’re up to par and contributing to student academic success without a teacher evaluation?  What about self-evaluation?

Unfortunately, we are not in the best position to evaluate ourselves.  It’s true.  While it might be easy to point out the things we do well, it’s a lot more difficult to identify and correct our weaknesses and our blind-spots!  According to Gallup research in StrengthsFinder 2.0, a weakness is defined as an area where less talent exists.  We usually don’t enjoy activities that require our areas of lesser talent, so we creatively avoid them, work around them, or stay away from them all together.  (Example:  I’m not a language arts expert, so I avoid giving my students writing assignments.  I wouldn’t know how to grade them or provide useful feedback anyway!)  Another dilemma we all face is called a blind-spot.  Gallup defines a blind-spot as a trait derived from one of our natural talents that causes us to overlook important considerations.  Simply put, a blind-spot is the over-use or abuse of a talent, and it can have an adverse effect on the individual and others.  (Example:  I love teaching science, but I spend so much class time talking about the lesson that my students often don’t have time to ask questions or complete their assignments.)  Since weaknesses and blind-spots can stand in the way of effective teaching and student learning, partnering with a qualified observer can help you identify, manage, and improve them in order to grow as an individual and become more effective in the classroom.

If you have the opportunity to receive periodic teacher evaluations, consider yourself fortunate and carpe diem!  These opportunities serve to develop your skills and help you master the art of effective teaching!  If you don’t have the opportunity to be evaluated, ask your school administrator for help.  Homeschool educators might consider locating a licensed, certified evaluator in your state to provide valuable input. Keep in mind that there are many helpful tools available online, including research-based teacher evaluation rubrics and/or frameworks to follow.  Making yourself aware of your strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots is just the beginning.  Proven guidelines and professional evaluations will help you achieve success!

Adverb or Adjective?

When my third graders were first learning the parts of speech, some of them would mix-up adverbs and adjectives.  I found a great process that would move my students from definitions, through Bloom's Taxonomy, and towards application. Let me show you...

Step 1: Definitions

Remember, an adverb modifies verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. An adjective modifies nouns or pronouns. As you well know, definitions can be hard to remember. Why not introduce your students to language arts jingles? (There is plenty of research on this subject, that you can read about here and here.) Below are two jingles to help you with adverbs and adjectives.

Step 2: Questioning Strategies

Next, move towards application with questioning strategies. By asking the right questions, students can identify the word as an adjective or an adverb.

If the word answers, “HOW? WHEN? WHERE?” it is an adverb.

If the word answers, “WHAT KIND? WHICH ONE? HOW MANY?" it is an adjective.

By using this two-step process, students can move from simple quoting of definitions to application of facts.

Do you want more language arts jingles? Check this out!

Being Smart, Getting Smarter

Did you know that there is more than one way to be smart? According to theorists, educational psychologists, and professors, such as Howard Gardner, Carol Dweck, and Thomas Armstrong, evidence suggests they’re right.

Howard Gardner developed the Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory about 35 years ago. I stumbled upon his theory when I was earning my graduate degree. I was immediately entranced by it because I had been teaching to my students’ intelligences for some time prior to knowing what such pedagogy was actually called. I had not received formal training in MI theory, but I had learned how to teach Shurley English, using the Shurley Method. When I began to realize the potential of what MI could do in my classroom, it delighted me to realize that I was already half-way there because I was teaching Shurley English daily to my first and second graders. Almost every new concept I taught in the Shurley Method began with a jingle. The jingles became a one-stop shop for my kids’ multiple intelligences. Gardner described the various intelligences with some fairly lofty terms that Dr. Thomas Armstrong has simplified. Here’s a quick run-down of the intelligences. I thought you might like to see a side-by-side chart of Gardner’s original titles and Armstrong’s simpler version:

I won’t go into all the particulars about the intelligences at this time, but I encourage you to research them. For now, let it suffice to say that I am unabashedly biased when it comes to teaching the language arts with Shurley English, but the excellent research available about MI makes me appreciate it even more.

Take the Shurley English Reading Jingles for example…say you want to teach your kids about their multiple intelligences and then to help them discover their unique combinations of smarts. Shurley jingles bring Word Smarts, Picture Smarts, Body Smarts, and People Smarts to the table every time. Using the brightly illustrated, text-rich Jingle Posters, I point out the one-to-one correspondence of the text to the words I am teaching students in the jingle. The illustrations help create a memory marker for the students to associate with the particular jingle. That’s the Picture Smart and Word Part component. As the jingles are learned to a rhythm or a tune, students tap into their Music Smarts. To help them lock down the memorization of the jingle, I have my students make specific choreographic movements to jingles, bringing in their Body Smarts. It’s amazing to watch how students’ coordination improves simply by rehearsing the same movements every day in the jingles! Finally, my students’ interpersonal skills get a workout as the jingles are mastered. Since the jingles are recited or sung aloud chorally, a sense of community saturates the classroom. When someone bobbles up a jingles, everyone can giggle freely without risk of feeling “called out.” Jingle Time generates a perfect opportunity to help kids develop risk-taking skills under the careful community support of their peers. Of course, this gave me the opportunity to help students learn HOW to support, self-correct, and peer-correct without creating a sense of shame for making a mistake.

This is where the work of Dr. Carol Dweck comes in. Her Growth Mindset theory is all abuzz right now, and for good reason. I love how her research defines the possibilities for every learner. Basically, her theory posits that our smarts are not necessarily a fixed quantity of intelligence, talent, or aptitude—we are not just a bundle of inherited genetic traits that spell out fame and fortune for our future. Simply stated, her theory explains how we can help students (and people, in general) to perceive themselves as potential learners of anything new they would like to know. Unfortunately, empty praise for a child’s looks, smarts, or athletic ability can promote a lack of motivation. Whereas, a systematic mindset of “My smarts are not fixed—I can become smarter if I apply myself” seems to have a remarkable impact upon student learning.

As I taught systematically the structures behind the Shurley Method, I was doing just what Dweck prescribes in her research…more time on task learning the tougher parts, practicing systematically every day the various aspects of the lessons—it all makes sense. I was “accidentally” stretching my students’ self-awareness and their self-esteem by teaching them to have fun while learning the hallmark concepts of our language. This daily practice had a profound influence on my students, and now that they are grown and pioneering their own careers, I still hear from them. They tell me how they believed they were smart when they were in my class. Their underlying beliefs, as Dweck puts it, were directly influenced in a remarkable way because they actually believed they could get smarter with hard work.

My hat’s off to these gifted researchers, whom I consider mentors, for making public such important, evidence-based theories that helped me achieve success in my teaching. And a special thanks to Brenda Shurley for developing a curriculum for teaching English that enabled me to apply these theories naturally!

Listen, Move, and LEARN!

TPR (Total Physical Response) has its roots in second language acquisition, but it found its way into Shurley English too. TPR was first incepted by a psychology professor from San Jose University, CA, James Asher. He developed the idea almost fifty years ago, but it has truly helped students to acquire new languages with great facility.

What is TPR (Total Physical Response)?

The strategy Asher developed first involves teaching students to just sit back and listen attentively, much the same way that babies typically acquire their first language. Then, a requested response is modeled repeatedly until the student has connected the response to the request. The request is focused upon helping students acquire new vocabulary and associating the word to a movement, to a gesture, or to a repeated meaningful practice of some kind. When the movement is linked to a specific vocabulary word, students acquire the word easily. With lots of practice, the new word moves into the student’s long-term memory.

How can I integrate TPR into my ELA day?

Integrating TPR can be a fairly simple task; let's start with language arts definitions. In Shurley English, our grammar and reading jingles tap into the TPR philosophy. In fact, any kind of action song or jingle is basically a TPR event with added music. The jingles we teach in Shurley English introduce students of any language to a whole host of vocabulary and help them lock in the new academic language through music and movement. (Here's an entire article about it!)  Even if students merely chant the jingles, it’s the cadence, rhythm, and rhyme, along with the movement, that enable students to make strong connections between the movement and the vocabulary. This ultimately helps students lock down important language concepts that will stay with them for a lifetime. 

If you haven’t checked out our ELA jingles yet, you can listen to a sampling of them on our YouTube channel. Enjoy!