How Can Teacher Assessment and Student Learning Be connected?
A number of school systems and states have begun the process of linking student learning to the evaluation of teachers. Methodologies vary widely from highly systemic approaches to more individually tailored ones. In this section, we will profile four accountability systems that link student assessment and teacher evaluation. Each system has unique features that were developed to enhance the fairness of the assessment strategies for measuring student learning and using the results for teacher evaluation (Figure 2.1). They span a continuum from the more qualitative approach found in the Oregon Work Sample Methodology to the highly empirical approach used in Tennessee. They also vary in terms of the types of measures used to assess student learning. While each evaluation system will be presented in detail in Chapter 3-6, here we introduce the distinguishing features of each.
Assessment Through Student Work :
The Oregon Teacher Work Sample Methodology
The ambitions goal of the Oregon Teacher Work Sample Methodology (TWSM) is to find better ways to assess the complexities of teaching and its connections to student learning. TWSM has been designed to portray the learning progress of pupils on outcomes desired by a teacher and taught by a learning to occur. Consequently, TWMS requires that teachers document an exrtentded sample of their work that includes
• Descriptions of the context of the teaching and learning.
• Desired learning outcomes.
• Assessments used, and , finally.
• The growth in learning achieved by students.
Further, the process requires teachers to reflect on their own teaching and its effects in terms of the learning achieved by each of their students.