Good morning!
You know, there's this thing with me and my intentions . . . I had intended to "blog" about last week's class the day after the class and one week later . . . I guess work happened . . . =(. I actually wanted to blog about it right away because I wanted to keep all the thoughts flowing. UGH!
Speaking of work, I'm in my office now, so I'll have to keep this short. Much to your relief, I'm guessing. I know I have a tendency to ramble . . . like I'm doing now!
I actually appreciated the time I got to spend with my group to discuss our projects. It forced me to think about what exactly it was that I wanted to focus on for my project and Leslie and Cindy (I hope I got their names right) gave me lots to consider. I may not have narrowed down a concrete research question, but I now have some ideas and that's a start. This is all part of the process, right? Think, write, rethink, revise, evaluate, and tweak as we move closer to the finish project.
So, I am definitely interested in focusing on teacher evaluation here in Hawaii -- more specifically, in the DOE. The department is currently revamping its teacher evaluation process as part of its Race to the Top grant. As I have shared in class and in previous blogs, the current teacher evaluation tool is really basic and does not provide much information about the teacher -- How is the teacher effective? What does the teacher need to improve on? What supports are needed to help the teacher be more effective? The state is currently looking at a number of teacher evaluation tools that are being used across the nation. At the forefront is Danielson's work. When I was first introduced to Danielson's evaluation rubrics five years ago, I thought, "This is what we need!" The descriptors spell out everything for you. Of course, there are different rubrics for different focuses and that in itself would become to cumbersome. The ideal would be to develop an evaluation tool similar to her rubrics that was more user-friendly. I could actually go on and on about what I think should be included in the evaluation tool and how it should be handled and I said I would keep this short. As you can tell by what I have already written that I am going to have difficulties keeping my personal opinions and biases out of this project.
Anyway, I was thinking of approaching teacher evaluation through grounded theory (Is it "through" grounded theory? "With" grounded theory? "Using" grounded theory.). I was thinking of approaching teacher evaluation using grounded theory. This would allow me to find out what teachers and administrators believe should be included in teacher evaluations. Possible research questions that I was thinking about, with the help of Leslie and Cindy, are:
What is the purpose of teacher evaluation?
What criteria should teachers be evaluated on?
How should teachers be evaluated?
I still need to think about them and develop them more. I know I have to really start putting time into this project with all the deadlines coming up. The point is that I want to find out what teachers thought teacher evaluations were all about and what they thought they should be evaluated on and how they should be evaluated. I also want to find out the same from administrators who evaluate the teachers -- what they thought teacher evaluations were all about and what they thought teachers should be evaluated on and how. Their responses could lead me to a common understanding (or central phenomenon) of the perception of teacher evaluation, as well as the desired components/criteria, of those directly related to teacher evaluation -- the actual practitioners.
What do you think? I know it needs more work and I need to think about it more, but this is the start. Am I way off in my thinking? You can be honest. I know sometimes I can be "off"! =)
Have a good Thursday! I'll see you in class later this afternoon!
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