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tokenadult, you're often involved in the conversations on education and math education, often with insightful comments. I'm just curious -- what is your viewpo

by aik 15y ago

tokenadult, you're often involved in the conversations on education and math education, often with insightful comments. I'm just curious -- what is your viewpoint specifically on how one should measure an "excellent job of teaching"? Do you think it is possible to form a link between student scores and teacher effectiveness? Is it possible in particular without incentivizing behavior that brings teachers to focus on artificial goals (test scores, money), and off the actual purpose of education (actual student learning/growth)?

tokenadult 15y ago
One thing that would help would be assessment of student learning done by persons other than the teacher, so the teacher can't give in to temptations to cheat when students are tested. (This is one reason I encourage my mathematics students to take the AMC tests and participate in other programs in which they can perform to show what they do that are not run by me.) I think a lot more work still needs to be done on "value added," which is why I especially appreciate the submitted article. I mostly have the good fortune to teach "ringers"--the kids are already bright in math, and come to me as clients because the school lessons they receive bore them. A teacher who can take a child who was never particularly motivated by studying mathematics, and who has long since been turned off by lousy instruction, http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf which is a challenge I have rarely taken on, and who can motivate that child to child to excel is a teacher who is worth his or her weight in gold. I've requested from my friendly public library the book mentioned in the article, which had not been published at the time of the earlier submission, and I will try to find out what the book says about incentives that can be put in place in school systems to help teachers do their very best and to help learners learn better.

by aik 15y ago

tokenadult 15y ago

One thing that would help would be assessment of student learning done by persons other than the teacher, so the teacher can't give in to temptations to cheat when students are tested. (This is one reason I encourage my mathematics students to take the AMC tests and participate in other programs in which they can perform to show what they do that are not run by me.) I think a lot more work still needs to be done on "value added," which is why I especially appreciate the submitted article. I mostly have the good fortune to teach "ringers"--the kids are already bright in math, and come to me as clients because the school lessons they receive bore them. A teacher who can take a child who was never particularly motivated by studying mathematics, and who has long since been turned off by lousy instruction, http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf which is a challenge I have rarely taken on, and who can motivate that child to child to excel is a teacher who is worth his or her weight in gold. I've requested from my friendly public library the book mentioned in the article, which had not been published at the time of the earlier submission, and I will try to find out what the book says about incentives that can be put in place in school systems to help teachers do their very best and to help learners learn better.