How Administrators, Teachers and Students Define Quality Teaching
1. Teacher Quality as Defined by
Administrators, Teachers, and
Students
Holly Petrich
The College of St. Scholastica
December 14, 2012
2. Purpose
• The focus of this research project is to
define what a quality teacher is and see
how a quality teacher affects student
achievement and performance.
3. Interest in Topic
• As I continue to search for a teaching job,
it was my hope researching this topic to
find out what administrators are looking
for in a quality teacher. I then decided to
expand into researching what teachers and
students thought, as they are the other two
important components in a school setting.
4. Research Questions
• How do administrators, teachers, and students
define teacher quality?
• What characteristics contribute to an effective
teacher?
• How does teacher quality affect student
achievement and performance?
• What is being done to improve teacher
quality?
5. Participants/Setting
• Participants for the survey included
administrators, teachers, and students in
grades nine through twelve.
• Participants were chosen at random and
lived, worked, or went to school in the
state of Minnesota.
6. Participants/ Setting
• Surveys were created for each group.
• Surveys were e-mailed to participants.
• One hundred surveys were sent to each
group and ten were returned from each
group. (10% return rate)
• An interview was conducted with one
administrator, one teacher, and one
student.
8. Results
• Administrators and teachers ranked the top
five teaching quality indicators the same:
challenging students academically, student
achievement, makes the course relevant,
working with others to create curriculum,
and explains things well.
9. Results
• Students want a teacher who is prepared
and organized, challenges students
academically, has a lot of patience, uses
technology on a regular basis, and gives
extra help.
10. Results
• Administrators and teachers seemed more
focused on student results, while students
tended to lean more towards emotional
qualities of a teacher and want a teacher
who makes class interesting.
11. Theory to Compare Results
• Danielson’s Framework for Teaching
consists of four domains, which consist of
planning and preparation, classroom
environment, instruction, and professional
responsibilities.
13. Administrative Perspective
• The administrator in the interview responded
quality teachers know their students and take a
personal interest in their lives, goals, and dreams.
Quality teachers also continually monitor how
the class is responding to the activities in the
class. They find ways that all students can
respond to questions at the same time and make
adjustments as they go depending on the progress
of the students. This shows that administrators
see the link between an effective teacher and
student achievement/results.
14. Teacher Perspective
• The teacher in the interview responded a quality teacher
works to build relationships with each student and family,
enjoys the content being taught and finds ways to make
the subject exciting and relevant for students, and gives
the class a chance to interact with the material and be
creative. A quality teacher has high standards for all
students, but works with each individual to customize the
learning process according to each one’s needs. This
shows that teachers strive to build relationships with their
students, which is the same answer as the administrator
gave for how a quality teacher helps all students learn.
15. Student Perspective
• The best class I have ever taken was a math class
in 8th grade. The teacher explained things well,
showed us how to do something, and then had us
to it ourselves. I like when things are explained
well because it helps me learn more. It was nice
to have a teacher who let us practice after they
showed us how to do something, because that is
how I learn best. I like watching someone else do
something and then have the time to practice.
This teacher also had a lot of patience and took
the time to make sure that everyone understood
what we were learning.
17. • . Education Week (2011) states that
factors such as family background
continue to predict a majority of the
variation in student achievement, but
scholars generally agree that teacher
quality is probably the most important
school-based factor affecting achievement.
18. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Quality Teacher
High Student 20%
40%
Motivation
Parent
Involvement/Fa
30%
mily
Background
Interesting
0%
Content
All Four
10%
Choices
Which do you think contributes most to student learning?
Series1
22. Discussion
• A hypothesis was that the majority of
administrators and teachers believed that having
your Master’s Degree makes you a better teacher.
It was surprising that only half of the teachers
surveyed believed that having your Master’s
Degree makes you a better teacher and the
majority of administrators believed that having
your Master’s Degree detracts from hiring a new
teacher.
23. Discussion
• It was also surprising that using technology in the
classroom on a regular basis did not rank very
high with administrators or teachers. This is
surprising because so many schools are pushing
for new technologies in the classroom, such as
iPads, iPods, and SmartBoards. Since many
schools are now entirely online, it begs the
question will teachers be ready for a shift from
classroom teaching to online teaching if this trend
continues?
24. Discussion
• Both administrators and teachers agreed
that experience teaching is more important
than level of education. This shows that
these groups believe that a quality teacher
has learned more from what they have
experienced in the classroom than what
they have learned in books and in classes.
25. Discussion
• One hundred percent of administrators
believed that a quality teacher contributes
most to student learning, while the
majority of teachers attributed high student
motivation to student learning.
