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SchoolSpring » Entries tagged with "teacher testing"

Videotaping Classroom Instruction – New Evaluation Models

December 7th, 2010 | Add a Comment

Videotaping Classroom Instruction – New Evaluation Models

Going by the wayside are the days of a single administrator visit to the classroom with a check-list of classroom conditions and teacher behaviors used to evaluate teachers.  These type of evaluations make it very easy for teachers to receive high marks but provide no feedback. New (some controversial) models emerging are: A group of education reformers suggest evaluating teachers primarily on the basis of their students’ standardized test scores, since teaching is ultimately about helping students … Read entire article »

Filed under: Education Reform, high school, School Communication, teacher evaluation, Teacher motivation, Teacher skills, technology in education

Kindergarten Red-Shirting.

November 4th, 2010 | Add a Comment

Do you know the guidelines of “Red-Shirting” in Kindergarten? A few words from Mary Beth, SchoolSpring’s Program and Community Manager about her experiences getting children into schools. “I was in the latter position.  My middle son missed the cut-off date by 10 days.  The entrance date up until the year he was to enter kindergarten was January 1st (5 yrs old prior to 1/1), so he had already completed two years of pre-school, with the expectation of entering Kindergarten the next fall.  Mid-way through the school year, we were informed that the entrance date was now to be September 1st beginning the year my son was to enter kindergarten.  That meant, he would not be able to go.  There was no entrance exam and the kindergarten readiness tests that his pre-school had … Read entire article »

Filed under: curriculum, Education Reform, parent teacher conferences, Student Health

Technology use and teacher technology assessments

June 21st, 2010 | 2 Comments

Edweek News had a very interesting article directly connected to education, technology and the difference it has not only made within certain school systems, but with education as a whole. Below we have pulled a direct quote from a recent Digital Directions section from the Tech Trends article: “Expect a big jump in cloud computing, an embracing of students using cell phones, better and faster mobile devices for educational use, and so much specialization that you generally can’t keep track, say Tom Greaves and Richard A Milewski, authors of the study and partners at the educational consulting firm The Greaves Group.  A cell phone in every pocket.” Greaves and Milewski expect most of this to occur within the next five years, which if you look back at … Read entire article »

Filed under: Books, Future of Education, Teacher motivation, Teacher skills, technology in education

No child left behind… in the United States of… Finland? What happened to America?

April 22nd, 2010 | 1 Comment

The American educational system is based on fair and equal educational gain among all students in the classroom. It is thought that by changing classrooms each year, a student will progress further.  It is also thought that this system will enhance a child’s way of learning by being surrounded among a variety of students each year with various skills and strengths. This however, is not the belief in Finland, where the curriculum is relaxed, children are honored among classmates for their academic strengths and helped with their weaknesses in the same classroom. Finnish children grow together, in the same classroom, with the same teacher for the first 5-7 years of their education while many American schools tend to separate students with weakness from the stronger students in specific subjects like reading, … Read entire article »

Filed under: curriculum, Future of Education, size of schools, Teacher motivation, Teacher skills

Framework for Teaching Not Quite Enough

April 7th, 2010 | 5 Comments

Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching is, according to ASCD, “a benchmark for thousands of school systems and educators around the world.” Popularized in her 1996 book, Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching (1996, 2007).The Framework for Teaching is “a research-based set of components of instruction…grounded in a constructivist view of learning and teaching” in which the act of teaching is broken down into 22 components. Danielson identifies several purposes for the Framework, emphasizing its value in promoting professional conversations among teachers. Most commonly, however, it appears to this educator that her construct is being used as a foundation for teacher evaluation. While no doubt a powerful structure for analyzing and assessing the main facets of what teachers do, the Framework does not quite get to the core of … Read entire article »

Filed under: Books, curriculum, Future of Education, Rick Detwiler, Teacher motivation, Teacher skills

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