I had a colleague give me a copy of the January 2010 Atlantic magazine. I have had it on my desk at home for a long time because it has an article by Amanda Ripley called “What Makes a Great Teacher?” I was intrigued, but for some reason I kept only reading a the first few paragraphs. This evening, as I sat out back grilling for one of the last times this summer (mmm…BBQ in the summer) I finally took the time to read the article.
I was particularly impressed with the article because unlike many other stories I have read it doesn’t simply put Teach for America on a pedestal. My own thoughts on TFA will be saved for another post, but for now, let’s just say I don’t agree with the assertion that TFA’s methods are the epitome of modern education practice. This doesn’t mean that I think they’re not ok, just not the be all end all of education reform.
Starting in 2002, Teach for America began using student test-score progress data to put teachers into one of three categories: those who move their students one and a half or more years ahead in one year; those who achieve one to one and a half years of growth; and those who yield less than one year of gains. In the beginning, reliable data was hard to come by, and many teachers could not be put into any category. Moreover, the data could never capture the entire story of a teacher’s impact, Farr acknowledges. But in desperately failing schools, where most kids lack basic skills, the only way to bushwhack a path out of the darkness is with a good, solid measuring stick.
I think that using data is important, but I also worry about using it as the sole means of measuring teacher effectiveness so Farr (a researcher for TFA) acknowledging this point is a good thing. Unfortunately, it seems that test data, even if not used as the primary way of evaluating teachers is the part of these evaluations that people tend to focus on. Check out the furor over the LA Times Story that used value-added data (current scores used to project success) and ranked teachers. In that story, scores were what was used and that’s all.
The focus on standardized scores is unfortunate because there are so many factors outside of the teacher’s control that do impact test scores. Please note that I do not believe extraneous factors excuse the teacher from doing everything they can to help their students succeed at anything. Further, teachers should raise test scores. How do I square my belief in teacher raising test scores with my belief that those scores should not be the primary way of evaluating teachers? Probably some amount of cognitive dissonance, but primarily I believe that although test scores are very important, I know that we are not educating a nation of standardized test takers. There are so many more factors to education than the tests.
Some interesting tidbits:
Superstar teachers had four other tendencies in common: they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.
Pretty clear, but I’m glad that the data backs this up. This year I am trying to increase the recruitment of families. I’m starting with a home survey that will help me get the parents thoughts on what their children need and what has and has not worked in the past.
“Strong teachers insist that effective teaching is neither mysterious nor magical. It is neither a function of dynamic personality nor dramatic performance,” Farr writes in Teaching as Leadership, a book coming out in February from Farr and his colleagues. The model the book lays out, Farr is careful to say, is not the only path to success. But he is convinced it can improve teaching[...]
This is interesting because I think that dynamic performance is very important in the classroom. I’m not saying a teacher has to dress up as characters (ala Herbert Gower in Teachers) or jump up on desks to dive home a point (guilty) because I have had a teacher who stood at the front of the room and spoke…and the students got it. This teacher, although some people from the outside would have sen him as dull, it was his knowledge of the subject and his quirky personality (it was good though, he was super professional and most everyone responded well to this) led to a type of dynamic presentation. A dull teacher will bore the students to death. Tey have to have something that keeps the kids interested.
For years, Teach for America also selected for something called “constant learning.” As Farr and others had noticed, great teachers tended to reflect on their performance and adapt accordingly. So people who tend to be self-aware might be a good bet. “It’s a perfectly reasonable hypothesis,” Ayotte-Hoeltzel says.
But in 2003, the admissions staff looked at the data and discovered that reflectiveness did not seem to matter either. Or more accurately, trying to predict reflectiveness in the hiring process did not work.
What did predict success, interestingly, was a history of perseverance—not just an attitude, but a track record. In the interview process, Teach for America now asks applicants to talk about overcoming challenges in their lives—and ranks their perseverance based on their answers. Angela Lee Duckworth, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and her colleagues have actually quantified the value of perseverance.
That information was particularly interesting. Teachers do need to persevere in the face of adversity, so it would make sense that a person who had shown actual persistence in the past would continue to do so.
In general, though, Teach for America’s staffers have discovered that past performance—especially the kind you can measure—is the best predictor of future performance. Recruits who have achieved big, measurable goals in college tend to do so as teachers. And the two best metrics of previous success tend to be grade-point average and “leadership achievement”—a record of running something and showing tangible results. If you not only led a tutoring program but doubled its size, that’s promising.
GPA should be very important, and I tie the latter factor here to perseverance. You have to persevere in order to succeed in something.
Overall, a very interesting article. Right now I am reading Teach Like a Champion. I was intrigued by a NYT article about the author that really got around on the blogs. It has techniques (some of them pretty standard) that the author says efective teachers in his charter schools use. I’m always looking for ways to improve my practice and before too long I’ll write a review of the book before too long.
Like this:
One blogger likes this post.
