Principal Candidates’ Reflective Learning During a Full-Time Internship

In this case study, we explore how principal candidates made sense of their internship by analyzing their weekly reflections during a school year. We found that candidates’ views of leadership developed from viewing leadership solely through the lens of making decisions and providing direction, to recognizing that much of the work of a school leader came from building relationships and delegating leadership responsibilities. Candidates’ experiences managing student discipline, conducting classroom walkthroughs and teacher evaluations, and leading professional development and professional learning communities (PLCs) were especially developmental. We conclude with implications for preservice training programs and future research.

Psychological adjustment in children and fencing: A descriptive research

The aim of research is describe the psychological adjustment levels of fencing students at ages 6-11 through their parents and teachers. 42 male and 38 female fencing students participated in the research. In order to determine the psychological adjustment level of the participants, a personal information form and Hacettepe Psychological Adjustment Scale filled out by the parents and teachers. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and Mann Whitney-U analysis were applied to the data set. As a result of the analyzes, it was found that there was a negative correlation between sport age and psychological maladjustment levels (p <0.05). It is thought that fencing positively affect children’s psychological adjustment level. However, there was a significant difference between parent and teacher evaluations (p <0.05). It can be mentioned that teachers see children more flawlessly and in harmony while evaluating, or that children exhibit behavioral problems in the school environment at a lower rate than in the home environment. It is thought that the obtained data can be a guide resource for longitudinal and experimental studies to be conducted on the potential of fencing sports to effect the psychological adjustment levels of children. ​Extended English summary is in the end of Full Text PDF (TURKISH) file. Özet Araştırmanın amacı, 6-11 yaş aralığında eskrim sporu yapan çocukların nevrotik ve davranış sorun boyutları ile bunların bileşkesi olan ruhsal uyum düzeylerini, ortaya koymaktır. Araştırmaya eskrim sporu yapan 42 erkek ve 38 kız çocuk katılmıştır. Araştırmaya katılan sporcuların ruhsal uyum düzeylerini belirlemek amacıyla ebeveyn ve öğretmenlerine kişisel bilgi formu ve Hacettepe Ruhsal Uyum Ölçeği uygulanmıştır. Elde edilen veri setine, tanımlayıcı istatistikler, Pearson kolerasyon çarpımı ve Mann Whitney-U analizleri uygulanmıştır. Yapılan analizler sonucunda, spor yaşı ile ruhsal uyumsuzluk düzeyleri arasında negatif yönde orta düzeyde ilişki olduğu tespit edilmiştir (p<0,05). Eskrim sporunun çocukların ruhsal uyum düzeylerini olumlu yönde etkilediği düşünülmektedir. Bununla birlikte ebeveyn ve öğretmen değerlendirmeleri arasında ise anlamlı farklılık olduğu saptanmıştır (p<0,05). Öğretmenlerin değerlendirme yaparken çocukları daha kusursuz ve uyumlu gördükleri veya çocukların okul ortamında davranış sorunlarını ev ortamına göre daha düşük oranda sergilediklerinden söz edilebilir. Elde edilen verilerin, eskrim sporunun çocukların ruhsal uyum düzeylerini etkileme potansiyeli ile ilgili yapılacak olan boylamsal ve deneysel çalışmalara bir fikir kaynağı olabileceği düşünülmektedir.

Making sense the teacher evaluation with the value of local culture (The voice of school principals in Indonesia)

PurposeThe voice of school principals represents the principals' thoughts and experiences because of their as teachers' evaluator. It provides principals' perception on making sense the teacher evaluation. In qualitative research, voice can provide the truth and meaning of principals' experience in teachers evaluation. Their voices in the qualitative interviews are recorded and transcribed into words (Jackson and Mazzei, 2009 and Charteris and Smardon, 2018). By listening to the voices of principals in five provinces in Indonesia, this study, a qualitative research, intends to explore the principals' sensemaking in teacher evaluation.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a qualitative approach, as it was principally concerned with capturing participants' direct experiences in their natural setting as both the teachers' evaluator and school leader (Patton, 2002). The qualitative interview and content analysis were used in this study. The qualitative interview is a type of conversation used to explore informants' experiences and interpretations; in this study, the headmaster (Mishler, 1986; Spradley, 1979 in Hatch, 2002). Researchers used the interviews to uncover the structure of meaning used by principals in making sense the policies that determine teacher evaluations and that are used to carry out evaluations within principal's local authority. The implicit structure can be discovered from direct observation, and the qualitative interviews can bring this meaning to the surface (Hatch, 2002). Therefore, by applying the qualitative interviews, it is expected that information or “unique” interpretations from the principal can be obtained (Stake, 2010). Content analysis is a research technique for making valid conclusions from oral texts into a research context. This analysis can provide new insights, improve researchers' understanding of certain phenomena, or inform other practical actions through the use of verbal data collected in the form of answers to open interview questions (Krippendorff, 2004).FindingsThere are three important findings relating to principals' sensemaking of teachers' evaluation; they are teachers' length of service, principals' perceptions of teacher evaluations and consistency in teacher performance improvement. The principals' perception greatly influences their beliefs and sensemaking of teacher evaluation. In essence, teacher evaluation has not been used to identify high-quality teachers. Principals focus more on the improvement of teachers' welfare than teacher actual performance.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research should explore principals' attitude toward the stakeholders when student achievement is not in line with the consistent increase in teachers' performance ratings. And, it is also necessary to investigate the policy makers response to see the consistent improvement in teacher's evaluation is not in line with student achievement. Finally, how to eliminate the culture of joint responsibility without causing frictions in the school environment.Originality/valueThe authors hereby declare that this submission is their own work, and to the best of their knowledge, it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material that have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma any other publishers.

Research on Student Ratings of Instruction: Implications for Teachers and Professional Development Programs

Evaluations of teaching effectiveness have taken many forms over the years, but none have been as persistent or commonplace as student ratings of instruction (SRI). SRIs have become a fundamental component of evaluating faculty effectiveness in higher education. Support for SRIs comes from end-users of the data who believe that students are uniquely positioned to evaluate faculty based on their experiences and perceptions of the instruction they received. Pragmatically, institutions tend to rely on SRI results for teacher evaluations because they reason that students learn more from faculty who are highly rated by students. However, to what degree is this enthusiasm warranted? Are SRIs reliable, valid, or trustworthy at all? The main goals of this chapter are to present an overview of SRI research, explain ways of preparing students for SRIs (both formative and summative), and present methods for teachers to use when examining the SRI data. To these ends, this chapter will briefly review the SRI research, including evidence for the value of SRI data despite commonly held misconceptions about the possible influence of factors such as class size, GPA, gender, and professor rank. Attention is then given to understanding how to improve responses to questions that tap constructs students are unlikely to be readily able to respond to, such as “Did this course improve your critical thinking skills?” and to general agreement questions about learning, such as “The pacing of the materials was appropriate.” Techniques for interpreting constructed responses from students, such as “Stop lecturing!” are also provided. Finally, the paper moves on to highlighting the connection between collecting and acting on formative classroom surveys that support positive transfer to end-of-term SRIs and offers methods to analyze SRIs individually as well as outlining an approach to teacher development with SRI data and teacher-centered consultations by PD programs.

Can Video Technology Improve Teacher Evaluations? An Experimental Study

Teacher evaluation reform has been among the most controversial education reforms in recent years. It also is one of the costliest in terms of the time teachers and principals must spend on classroom observations. We conducted a randomized field trial at four sites to evaluate whether substituting teacher-collected videos for in-person observations could improve the value of teacher observations for teachers, administrators, or students. Relative to teachers in the control group who participated in standard in-person observations, teachers in the video-based treatment group reported that post-observation meetings were more “supportive” and they were more able to identify a specific practice they changed afterward. Treatment principals were able to shift their observation work to noninstructional times. The program also substantially increased teacher retention. Nevertheless, the intervention did not improve students’ academic achievement or self-reported classroom experiences, either in the year of the intervention or for the next cohort of students. Following from the literature on observation and feedback cycles in low-stakes settings, we hypothesize that to improve student outcomes schools may need to pair video feedback with more specific supports for desired changes in practice.

The Unintended Effects of Policy-Assigned Teacher Observations: Examining the Validity of Observation Scores

Several state policies link high-stakes consequences to teacher evaluations, which tend to be heavily weighted by observation scores. However, research has only recently investigated the validity of these scores in field settings. This study examines the sensitivity of teacher observation scores to the number of observations assigned by state policy and the assignment of prior-year composite measures produced by the evaluation system. Regression discontinuity and local regression designs exploit discontinuities in both assignment processes. The evidence suggests that assignment to a lower prior-year composite score does not bias observation scores, but the assignment to more policy-assigned observations introduces substantial negative bias. The degree of negative bias is most pronounced among early-career teachers, as suggested by theory. Implications are discussed.