Creating a Culture of Quality Professional Growth and Development
The 21st century has brought about many changes to our daily lives as educators. One of the largest and often contentious issues in 21st century education is how we determine the quality of professional growth. The use of professional will be used throughout the entire article, but relevant and thought-provoking is a better suited substitute in this situation. Every regional service center has workshops and trainings developed for professional development. School districts and principals cram teachers lives with seminars, webinars and conferences believing that this type of professional development is often the best option in creating quality teachers, then are
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While anyone in education could tell you the easiest way to measure student outcomes are through standardized exams, and maybe that is why we have fallen prey to its allure; accountability tests are the least effective measurement for any student population. “...School systems focus on rote memorization and measurable, predictable results” (Struss, 2006). Education is the preparation of young citizens for a world that has not been created, thus there needs to be flexibility in the designed measures. If that is true for our students, then it must be also true for our teachers. The future of teacher development is slowly becoming based a standardized testing system that is completely irrelevant to our student populations and rarely take into account the real world. In order for teachers to shift their developmental thinking about students, administrators and supervisors needs to shift their perspectives on teacher evaluations and continuous growth that takes into account creativity, curiosity, collaborative behaviors and immeasurable results.
Effective educators should consider a very hard look at what they do to provide teachers with the knowledge and understanding of teaching effectiveness, but also the time to analyze and reflect on past experiences to provide perspective and then plan for future growth. Legal jargon is often a deterrent in creating these types of environments because of the dreaded “Growth Plan.”
When I was gaining my Bachelor’s Degree, the key statement throughout my journey through the education program was “I will continue to be a lifelong learner.” As I finalized this program I have reached this goal, and this will continue throughout my journey as a teacher as I become involved with more and more school and district based county activities through which I can use the theories, methods, and strategies I have learned throughout this program. In general, it is best, as Goldhammer (69) stresses, to avoid critical dissection of teaching. Too much criticism and
Welner (2014) states that “standardized assessments are linked to curriculum standards and performance standards and tied to specified consequences” (p. 39). Welner discuses that the standard-based testing in American schools are a mess and need to be untangled because of the consequences of underperformance. Schools are defunded, teachers and principals are laid off, and schools are marked as ‘failing’. There needs to be a reform in schools that need academic improvement and the way to figure out which schools need development is by testing the students. Jones & King and McLaughlin & Overturf provide different feedback on standard-based testing. According to McLaughlin & Overturf (2012), “Using formative assessments is not only an effective way to monitor student progress, but also a viable way to glean information for planning future instructions” (p.157). In order for teachers to know if their lessons are effective or not, teachers give standard-based tests and assessments to their students. Without tests, student progress cannot be tracked in a concise manner. Jones & King (2012) agree that by building new assessments and curricula, American schools are redefining success (p.37). That success can also come at a price when dealing with more rigorous standards that are new to the
The question of assessment in the "school system, individual schools, and teachers has evoked strong and sometimes violent emotions from the educational community, the general public and their legislative representatives"(Brown & Knight, 1994). Assessment based on standardized tests has been looked at very closely over the recent years, and some people have even mentioned that they be eliminated completely. Those who feel traditional methods should be replaced by alternative methods. These people feel that demonstration, exhibition, investigation, oral response, portfolio, and written response's are all examples of
Teachers are expected to teach the students, so the test scores increase each time the test is taken. However, not every student is a great test taker, which then causes a negative reflection upon the teacher in charge of preparing the student. These results also impact the school, as they do not get funding if their students perform poorly on certain standardized tests. In school, students are taught from a young age that school should be enjoyable, they should be creative, innovative, and find a love for learning. Unfortunately, standardized tests, are not equipped to measure the above mentioned ways of learning..
Professional Development measures the degree to which teachers value continuous personal development and school-wide improvement.
When high stakes tests are used as a large part of a teacher’s performance evaluation it fails to show the bigger picture. Students come from diverse learning backgrounds and testing does not show the growth that the teacher helped the students to accomplish. High stakes testing forces teachers to focus only on subjects tested and spend many, many hours on teaching test-taking strategies. By narrowing the curriculum, testing does not allow students to focus on a deep understanding of material or develop critical thinking skills. There has also been a “trickle down” of curriculum into the lower grade levels to help prepare them for standardized testing.
To achieve this goal, this paper is organized into five different sections, each explaining the viewpoint of different authors. In the first section, there’s an account of five important facts about the negative effects of standardized testing,the amount of information standardized testing really covers, student placement, important abilities that aren’t being found, the potential of tests, and the outcomes of these tests. The second section, discusses five distinct facts about how unnecessary standardized testing is and how radical it truly is, how standardized testing affects teachers, the competition involved, what test scores really reflect, what measures students take, and how scores affect improvement within teachers. The third section, discuss an account of five other different viewpoints about the psychological effects standardized testing causes, the time teachers waste teaching about these tests, the obsession
Standardized tests are categorizing teachers based upon how their students are performing on a standardized test. The way that teachers are trying to teach is controlled by standardized tests in order to provide the student with as much help as possible to guide the student to succeed as well as the teacher. As a result, the teachers are put upon a great amount of pressure in order to meet the needs to guide students for a standardized test so that both the teacher and students is able to be successful. For those teachers who wish to teach differently, it is more of a struggle for them to receive an exemplary label due to the fact that standardized tests judge them unfairly. Standardized tests are measuring many people in an unfair manner all over the United States. “In the United States, standardized testing is one of the primary methods used to measure the performance of educational institutions (and often teachers) and to make decisions about the distribution of funding” (Issitt). Many schools and teachers are being judged primarily as to how well their students perform on a standardized test. As a result, this can negatively impact many teachers who are able to teach really well
The practice of evaluating students and teachers based on expensive and stressful standardized testing has been the focus of educational reform for over a decade and has thus far proven to be ineffective (Ravitch 51).
Ever since then standardized testing has been a huge part of education. Teachers across the nation had to teach to the curriculum instead of what they thought the students needed to learn. Nowadays colleges strictly look at ACT and SAT scores rather than classroom grades, because they believe that some teachers grade on a curve and are not giving the students a fair chance. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year tests core improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”(“Standardized Tests”). Teachers are stressed over if they are teaching “correctly”. They went to a 4-year college, some even more, to get a degree in something that they wanted to do, either for themselves or for the children, and now they have to “teach to the test”. Tests can only measure a portion of the goals of education. A pschometrician, Daniel Koretz says, “standardized tests usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement.”(Harris, Harris, and Smith).
The differences were connected with a teacher’s original preparation for the teaching profession, licensing in the particular subject area to be taught, strength of the educational experience, and the degree of experience in teaching along with the demonstration of abilities through the National Board Certification, in which all of these facets can be addressed through policy (Darling-Hammond, 2010).America has not produced a national method containing supports and reasons to guarantee that teachers’ are adequately prepared and equipped to teach all children effectively when they first enter into the career of teaching. America also does not have a vast collection of methods available that will maintain the evaluation and continuing development of a teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom, or support decisions about entry into the field of teaching and the continuance in the profession of teaching (Darling-Hammond, 2010). n order to reach the belief that all students will be taught and learn to high standards calls for a makeover in the methods our system of education in order to be a magnet for, train, support or uphold, and cultivate effective teachers in more efficient ways. A makeover that is contingent in a certain degree of how the abilities or skills are comprehended (Darling-Hammond, 2010).In the last few years there has been increasing
Although testing has been around for a long time, I instinctively believe that testing doesn’t give a clear picture of student’s achievement. Thus, I make strong connection to the following quote: “A central question has been whether accountability policies and standardized testing helping or harming those children the polices are most often designed to serve” (Skrla, p.11). For instance, when I analyzed and interpreted the TAPR of Richard J Wilson Elementary school, I found valuable information that all teachers should know at the beginning of every school year. Specifically, when I examined the categories of testing and the students’ performance on individual TEKS. This practice would allow teachers to have a clear picture of what exact skills and content knowledge students are expected to achieve throughout the school year.
Standardized tests take away from a teacher’s flexibility and creativity. With that in mind, teachers do not fit into the same mold either. Each teacher has their own style of teaching and should be given the flexibility to teach in a way that will inspire their students. Teachers are not able to be as creative in their teaching styles, when focused on test preparation. Many talented teachers leave the field of education when they lose the freedom to teach their own way. Teaching has gone from a creative art to a structured implementation as the focus shifts to standardized tests.
In trying to develop a comprehensive system, some school districts in Denver, New York, Washington DC, and Houston have started using the students’ annual test score method as a measure of evaluating teachers’ effectiveness (Wilkerson & Lang, 2007). However, many policy makers have maintained that the use of test scores in evaluating the
When I think about teachers that I have had in the past, several different ones come to my mind. Each of these educators stands out in my mind for a variety of diverse reasons. Whether it is their sense of humor, their tactfulness, their love of the subject matter, their fanatical and sporadic behavior, or their yearning to be childish themselves, I can still remember at least one quality of every teacher I have ever encountered. Every one of these teachers conveyed subject material to their students just as they were educated and employed to do. However, I trust that every professional in the world has an abundance of opportunity for improvement; teachers could discover and improve themselves merely by having