Wednesday, April 01, 2009

survey about my teaching

i just had a pretty painful experience that caused me to question everything about my job. then i had to calm myself down a little bit. i took this odd, obtuse survey. an example of a question on the survey is something like this:
Which of the following causes of student failure most impacts teachers?
a. poverty
b. lack of parental involvement
c. curriculum that is not relevant

what the F, right? so i decided to be honest when i could and just choose whatever i thought was the best answer. the question above was asked about four times, with three different answer choices each time. The survey probably had a total of about 40 questions, and at least half of them seemed pretty vague like that one. it felt like a kind of deceptive situation--i wasn't given any information about how the survey would be used or what type of results it would produce. so here are my results:
*************************************************************************************

Specific Areas Assessed

(Explanation of categories follows below)

Persistence: Average
Organization and Planning: Low
Values student learning: High
Theory to Practice: Average
At-Risk Students: Low
Approach to Students: High
Survive in Bureaucracy: Low
Explains Teacher Success: Low
Explains Student Success: Average
Fallibility: Low

Explanation of areas assessed by the Haberman Star Teacher Pre-Screener:


1. Persistence predicts the propensity to work with children who present learning and behavioral problems on a daily basis without giving up on them for the full 180 day work year.
2. Organization and Planning refers to how and why star teachers plan as well as their ability to manage complex classroom organizations.
3. Values student learning predicts the degree to which the responses reflect a willingness to make student learning the teacher's highest priority.
4. Theory to Practice predicts the respondent's ability to see the practical implications of generalizations as well as the concepts reflected by specific practices.
5. At-Risk Students predicts the likelihood that the respondent will be able to connect with and teach students of all backgrounds and levels.
6. Approach to Students predicts the way the respondent will attempt to relate to students and the likelihood this approach will be effective.
7. Survive in Bureaucracy predicts the likelihood that the respondent will be able to function as a teacher in large, depersonalized organization.
8. Explains Teacher Success deals with the criteria the respondent uses to determine teaching success and whether these are relevant to teachers in poverty schools.
9. Explains Student Success deals with the criteria the respondent uses to determine students' success and whether these are relevant to students in poverty schools.
10. Fallibility refers to how the teacher plans to deal with mistakes in the classroom.
****************************************************************************************
Persistence: I think that I'm pretty darn persistent in dealing with my kids. I don't always make sure that they all learn every day which may be what this is referring to, because I don't have high enough expectations for them. I'm too realistic for this survey.
Organization and Planning: It said low, and I would refute that and say average. This is one of the hardest parts of my job and I get little support in this area.
Values student learning: Yeah, okay, I do value student learning. But I don't always think my students learn very much.
Theory to Practice: I am average at theory to practice which is probably pretty good because I don't actually know what that means.
At-Risk Students: I'm not sure how the At-Risk students category can be low while the approach to students category is high, but I fundamentally disagree with this "Low" score. As do all of the people who have ever seen me teach--most people tell me that this is one of my strengths. Or maybe I just don't understand the difference.
Approach to Students: High. Cool. I got high at something that I value. Okay.
Survive in Bureaucracy: I am pretty tolerant of bureaucracy. I complain about it way less than everybody else at my school and in general I am good at following directions and listening to my bosses. Yes, I also close the door to my classroom and don't always do what I am supposed to but I believe that I'm making the best decisions for my students.
Explains Teacher Success: I think getting low in this category bothered me the most because it sounds like such a definitive statement. Actually, it pretty much feeds on the negative messages I feed myself, that I don't really advance my students' learning because I sometimes prioritize other things.
Explains Student Success: Yeah, I'm probably about average on this.
Fallibility: I think that a low score here is unfair. I am super patient, I do a lot of problem-solving on the spot, I think of new ways to explain things, I have learned to think quickly on my feet when the situation calls for it. Sure, I get discouraged like everyone else, but "low"? I disagree.


so i called the folks who gave the survey and left a message to say that i wanted to learn more about how this information would be used before i made my info available to potential future principals. i don't think that these are results that i want floating around out there, unless everybody's results basically look like this. i always hate when other teachers get defensive about their teaching, because i'm really into refleciton and improvement. so when i got defensive, i got angry and worked up and then i recognized my defensiveness as a red flag and had to catch myself and say to myself "practice what you preach." it's true--i want to be a different kind of teacher than i am and maybe this will jumpstart me into that. but i feel like it would be a lot easier to make certain improvements to my teaching if i didn't feel like i was working in an isolated bubble, trying to swim upstream at my school. but...excuses, excuses? if i was a truly good teacher i could work my magic anytime, anywhere, on any group of kids?

i guess the thing that most bothers me about this is the blow to my self esteem, which i don't think i need. i think i'm reflective anyways and i've been really thinking about making some major changes to my teaching and classroom for next year. i've also been building up some good units this year which i'm excited about. at the same time, standardized testing always makes me feel like a total failure. not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. let's just say it's been the subject of more than one therapy session.

okay. enough ranting. what do you think about all of this?

1 Comments:

Blogger Hannah said...

Here are MY outcomes from that wack-o test:

Persistence: avg
Organization and planning: high
Values Student Learning: high
theory to practice: high (yet I've had NO theory)
at-risk students: avg
approach to students: high
survive in bureaucracy: low
explains teacher successes: low
explains student successes: low
fallibility: low

this last one is the one that pisses me off the most, because I KNEW as I was taking that test which questions would score for that area, and what the f***, I'm not going to call a child's parent to explain that their child got a question right that I'd marked wrong and grovel.

AND it was totally the kind of test I could have faked, like any test, you just have to know what they're asking.

it has nothing to do with how great of a teacher you are, and it won't keep you from getting hired as a teacher in the future. you do a damn good job at your job.

love,
hannah

6:27 PM  

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