3. When to Evaluate Beginning, middle, and end of the year. Evaluate various classes and grade levels.
4. The Act of Self - Evaluation Choose a class to Evaluate Use a checklist or a rubric Evaluate as an outsider. Evaluate honestly
5. Specific Areas to Assess Classroom management Evidence of planning Speaking voice and word usage Use of clear directions Student interaction among classmates and teacher.
6. Specific Areas to Assess Placement of desks/chairs Appropriate “wait time” Transitions in the lesson Goals and objectives
12. Use the Results in the Classroom Continue to implement successes in the classroom. Strengthen weaknesses and monitor frequently. Continue to self-evaluate throughout the year to examine improvements.
13. Self-Evaluation for Students Utilize the same process for students. By allowing students to perform a self-evaluation at the end of a lesson, students may reflect upon their performance and understanding.
17. Summary Self-evaluation is beneficial to the teaching position. Choose a time to evaluate, use a rubric with specific points, and be honest when evaluating. Review results. Improve any weaknesses found. Monitor improvements with another self-evaluation in the future.
Editor's Notes
Hello, welcome to my project. For my presentation, I chose the topic of evaluation, more specifically self-evaluation. I found the chapter on evaluation to be truly interesting and it became the basis of my power point project. Enjoy.
Why is self-evaluation effective to the teaching profession? It enables educators to take an objective look at their teaching skills and allows the educator to see their teaching through the lens that students, colleagues, administrators, and supervisors experience. According to Week 5’s reading in AOME(Assessment in Music Education through Observation, Measurement and Evaluation), our instructor describes that “Self-evaluation suggests an introspective evaluation of how you assess yourself in your job.” This highly effective tool has been suggestions for undergraduate portfolios and instructional tools for teachers new to the profession. In essence, it allows a teacher to view their strengths and weaknesses and provokes improvement of pedagogical skills.
It is best to consider self-evaluating your teaching skills towards the beginning, middle and end of the year. I like use the theory of report cards. In each term, students receive report cards telling of their progress in the year. Teachers can do the same. By choosing a few times in the year to perform an evaluation, the educator can mark their improvements of their teaching skills throughout the school year. Try evaluating different levels and classes. This gives validation to the results.
When preparing for a self-evaluation, choose a class in which you will observe yourself. Try to make this a candid selection. After instruction has taken place, use a check list or a rubric to help place a focus on abilities. During week 5 of our course, we learned that video taping can be a useful tool. This allows an educator to watch their teaching as though they were an administrator or supervisor. It allows for a more honest reflection. As you reflect on the actions, evaluate as an outsider. Do not focus on the surrounding factors in which you already know. These are factors that an outside evaluator would not know. Therefore, in order to have a true evaluation, the evaluation must be honest. If it is obvious preparation was lacking, make note. Excuses will dissolve the credibility of the reflection process and will not provoke improvement.
Here are some helpful areas to observe when reflecting. Classroom management: Is it obvious that students understand your classroom rules & expectations? Look at student behavior, are these students behaving in a manner that is acceptable? Evidence of planning: Based upon what you see, does it look as though you have planned enough for this lesson? Are there any materials that are missing? Speaking voice and word usage: How is the speed of your speech? Is it clear and understandable? Do students have a hard time hearing your words?Clear directions: Can your students understand the task being asked to perform? Do you give your directions all at once or in a step by step manner?Student interaction : Do your students show respect for their classmates and their teacher? Do your students refer to you with the proper title? Do you show respect toward your students and is this respect visible?
Continuing on-Placement of desks/chairs: Is the placement conducive to learning? Is there a different way to arrange the room that would allow for effective teaching? Can students with vision difficulties see the necessary materials? Would any children displaying poor behavior benefit with a new seating chart?Appropriate “Wait Time”: Think about how long you wait from asking a question to calling on a student. Do you give ample time for a child to process the question?Transitions in the lesson: Are these smooth? Does your lesson gloss from one section to another?Goals and objectives: Are your goals posted? Did you meet your goals for the day? Did you explain to students the objective for the next class?These are just a few areas to reflect upon when evaluating your performance.
Here are a few self evaluations that have been created for specific grade levels and areas.On this slide, I have created an example for an elementary general music & instrumental teacher. As you can see, the proficiency levels include Excellent, Average, and Poor. At the end of a lesson, the educator can simply fill out each task description with the appropriate proficiency level. Looking at the filled out list, strengths and weaknesses can be easily seen.
These slides display both a middle school general music rubric and a middle school instrumental and choral rubric. I chose to group instrumental and choral as they are performance classes. The task descriptions are designed for a performing arts teacher. The task descriptions for general music are similar but take more of a classroom management approach. I designed the task description to match teacher behaviors necessary to the content area. Both rubrics monitor encouragement in growth and love for music.
Here we have high school general music rubric as well as high school instrumental and choral rubric.Like the middle school rubrics, the performing classes are grouped. For these classes tasks are geared for performing classes. For high school general music, tasks such as “Creativity is encouraged”, is appropriate as it targets the nature of the class. Teachers of these content areas can take this self-evaluation after a class period to gauge their abilities. They may be kept for the next reflection and presented together for comparison.
After the reflection has taken place, study the results. Look at the successes. Celebrate them. Reflect as to why these strategies were successful. Have these strategies always been thriving? If so, keep them and refine them as you continue to put these strategies into practice.
Next, discover your weaknesses.What happened in the lesson that was not successful? Does this flaw happen often? If the weakness happens on a one-time occurrence, simply monitor it for next time. However, if this flaw continues, try to improve upon the weakness. For example, if reviewing your self-evaluation you find that classroom management is lacking most of the time, then you want to improve upon it. Try reviewing classroom rules and expectations. Perhaps a seating change will cause improvement. If it is one student, perhaps student intervention is the answer. When recovering your weakness, it may be best to seek improvement from fellow colleagues, administrators or supervisors.
Use the results in the classroom. Continue to implement your successes in the classroom.As you strengthen your weaknesses, monitor it frequently to ensure improvement.Continue to evaluate you classroom performance throughout the school year to help refine your teaching skills.
As this process is beneficial to teachers, it can also be valuable to your students. By allowing students to perform a self-evaluation, students may reflect upon their performance and understanding. This no only enables the educator to grasp a better understanding of student knowledge, but it also gives the student a chance to express their feelings about their daily performance.
Here I created a self-evaluation for students at the elementary level. I have chosen 5 task descriptions for the student to reflect upon. The student may check Great, Ok, or Oops. I like using the word oops, as an alternative to Bad. This negative view on a student’s ability may damage self-esteem.
In this middle school level evaluation, students can choose their performance in class as a check plus, check or check minus. Again, the idea of a check minus as needing improvement but not reflecting harshly on a student’s behavior. When the reflection is complete, the student can go back and review their perception of their performance. I feel this works well at the end of a lesson. In band or orchestra, they can perform their rubric on how well they learned a new note or fingering. In chorus, students can reflect on their ability to sing a song or selected section of a song. In general music, students can reflect upon the knowledge of the lesson. A rubric like this one can be used in any content area of music.
This rubric was created for a high school student. The word usage and style reflects the grade level. Here a student can reflect upon their classroom performance and categorize it as excellent, average and needs improvement.
In summary:* Self-evaluation is beneficial to the teaching position.* Choose a time to evaluate, use a rubric with specific points, and be honest when evaluating.*Review results.*Improve any weaknesses found.*Monitor improvements with another self-evaluation in the future.
