Model of Student Learning – Model 1.1 in the text is an excellent conceptual model for the classroom. Teacher evaluations and professional development experiences impact teacher performance. Their performance along with the efforts by students are what show up in student learning results. This model reminds me of the formative assessment process definition where it discusses adjustments being made in the learning process either by the teacher or the student based on the feedback that the student receives. I feel that many times we forget the importance of the role of the student.
Organizational Effectiveness – One of the points I took away from this section is that essentially, educational programs change focus based upon the public’s expectations. If they are pushing achievement, that becomes the focus. There are several pieces that encompass a solid organization, efficiency, human relations, equality, and quality. All of which have had their own day in the limelight of the public eye where the politicians and policymakers thought that they were going to be the person to reform education by focusing on one of these things in education.
School-Based Management – This was one attempt at school reform by trying to give back to schools the power to make decisions based upon their expertise and experience. Unfortunately, again, with all of the pressure from policymakers to be accountable for student’s scores, it has become less popular.
NCLB – This is probably the reform movement that most people can speak to. Again, led by policymakers and politicians. Like most reform movements, it has it strengths and weaknesses. One strength is its requirement for highly qualified teachers. This keeps schools from bringing in people that are not trained to be teachers and are not knowledgeable about the content. One weakness is that it totally relies on test results with cut scores that are inconsistent across states and that with the focus on results it pressures schools to do less experiential teaching and may even be accused of teaching to the test.
Transfer Policies and Student Learning – In regards to transferring teachers, I am reminded of a scenario in the movie Waiting for Superman. Up until I watched that movie I had no idea of how districts will transfer poor performing teachers from one building to the other that they are unable to get out of the system due to tenure or other issues. Our textbook states that principals admitted moving a poor performing teacher to another building with the hopes of obtaining a more effective teacher. This to me is similar to playing Russian roulette. It is a chance; you could actually be obtaining a teacher from another building or a brand new teacher with even greater performance concerns than what left the building.
Nature of Work Motivation and Job Satisfaction in Teaching – Seyfarth states that a teacher with unsatisfactory results has either a lack of motivation, lack of knowledge or both. Interestingly enough I have had this conversation with my deans several times. When we discuss low performing teachers we talk about if the issues that they have a coachable. Are the areas of concern regarding motivation to follow through with the strategies, techniques, practices, etc. that are being provided to them; or is it that they want to do those things, but they really don’t have the skills to be able to implement the advice. It becomes the responsibility of the administrator to try and determine where the problem lies and then whether or not they will be able to work with the teacher to fix the problem. There are certainly several things that can increase job satisfaction and may be used to motivate teachers if it is determined that the skills are present to raise scores. Those include rewards and security, working with other people, the nature of the work, the working conditions, ability to exert influence and structure. Any changes that can be made in these areas are likely to motivate the teacher.
Purposes and Types of Induction – Orientation programs, performance improvement programs and state mandated induction programs are three different types of teacher induction programs. With the exception of the state mandated program, the orientation and performance improvement programs are most common. Orientation tends to be incredibly overwhelming for new teachers as they try to absorb all of the information that is thrown at them in a few short days and hasn’t proven to be overly effective. Performance improvement programs tend to be related to professional development sessions focusing on strategies or instructional practices. These programs could be more effective if they were spread out through the year instead of what most schools do, trying to pack everything in a few days before school starts and then asking teachers to run with them.
Functions of Professional Development and Characteristics of Effective Professional Development – Implementing curricular change, improving instructional practices and enabling teacher growth are three important reasons for implementing professional development. Teachers are going to be apprehensive about change if they don’t fully understand what it involves. Research is constantly taking place to improve instruction and help teachers improve. It is important to understand that professional development doesn’t have to only come in the form of a classroom or conference. We can learn from conversations and observations of others as well.
Reasons for Low Salaries, Single Salary Schedules, Forms of Incentive Pay and Containing Costs – A common reason for why teaches make less money is that they have summers off. While it isn’t entirely true, Seyfarth states that teachers do work 9% fewer days and this is one reason they are paid less. It can also be attributed to the fact that predominately women professions will overall pay less than professions where there are more men. This seems unfair and the single salary schedule was proposed to try and alleviate that problem. It has its pros and cons. A pro would be that it gives more generous raises to teachers in their beginning years to help offset teacher attrition. A con being that it may not be what is best for teachers but principals liked it because it avoided evaluations being tied to increases and salaries. Incentive pay comes in many forms such as for performance, and alternative pay plans. We use forms of incentive pay in my building with performance pay for those that meet or exceed student growth standards. We also offer tuition credit for classes toward graduate work. Containing costs by being financially responsible is critical for an administrator so as to ensure that they are recruiting appropriately. Again, I feel that working in a public district with unions makes this piece more critical since in my organization teachers are not eligible for paid for overtime or unused sick/personal days.
Psychological Success and Work Environments – It is crucial that administrators are aware of work conditions and how they may be affecting the performance of their staff. While they may feel that they have provided teachers with all of the necessary tools to do their job effectively, there may be other pieces they are not aware of. This is why it is critical for administrators to have an open door policy and to encourage staff to give them feedback about what they need. Surveying staff periodically throughout the year would be another way of reaching out to staff and letting them know you are interested in what you can do to support them.
New Forms of Collective Bargaining – Collective bargaining is something that started in the business sector and was brought into the educational setting. It hasn’t been as effective since boards don’t have the amount of resources and freedoms available to them that the business world does. Therefore, different approaches of bargaining have been explored such as win-win, expedited, and progressive.
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