"GREAT TEACHER!" Judgment Call or Objective Evaluation?

"When a high value added teacher joins a school, test scores rise immediately in the grade/subject taught...and falls if/when that teacher leaves...All else equal, a student with one excellent teacher for one year between fourth and eighth grade would gain $4,600 in lifetime income, compared to a student of similar demographics who has an average teacher." -economists Raj Chetty and John Friedman of Harvard and Jonah Rockoff of Columbia as reported in  The New York Times (1/6/12) article, "Big Study Links Good Teachers to Lasting Gain"

"Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym." --Woody Allen

Comedy aside, it isn't WHO makes a great teacher, but WHAT makes a great teacher and HOW do we determine "GREAT TEACHER?" Are there objective criteria or is it a JUDGMENT CALL? And what are the ramifications if it is a judgment call - especially now with the Chicago teachers' strike and teacher evaluations as a pivotal national domestic issue? 

In attempting to answer this question, let's first distinguish between "objective" evaluations and "judgment" calls:

objective  (adj.)   http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/objective

•  not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based of facts; unbiased.
• intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings
• of or relating to actual and external phenomena as opposed to thoughts, feelings, etc....existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality

According to many, using this last definition may make it promising for us to evaluate teacher effectiveness by measuring external criteria relating what students have LEARNED.  Granted this is easier said than done, but many believe that if you measure students facility with a subject matter at the onset of the year, one can assess 'growth of knowledge' by measuring their (increased) facility with those same skills at the end of the school year (as long as we don't go overboard with continuous testing and overly consuming overblown test-taking preparations).

BUT does teaching material make someone a GREAT teacher or just a GOOD/ EFFECTIVE teacher?

Furthermore, IF one looks at the first two definitions of "objective" I wonder and am somewhat doubtful if one can objectively determine what makes a great teacher. 

So what might a judgment call look like?

judgment calls ( judgment calls plural  (also use judgement call)    ) http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-cobuild/judgment%20call

If you refer to a decision as a judgment call, you mean that there are no firm rules or principles that can help you make it, so you simply have to rely on your own judgement and instinct.   

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_judgment

A value judgment is...based on a comparison or other relativity. As a generalization, a value judgment can refer to a judgment based upon a particular set of values or on a particular value system. A related meaning...is an expedient evaluation based upon limited information at hand, an evaluation undertaken because a decision must be made on short notice.

Incorporating these definitions brings us awfully close to the current debate on teacher evaluations and merit and whether these can be measured at all.  While we need to hold both educators AND their students accountable for learning, are we ready to objectively define and evaluate "GOOD TEACHER?"  

Looking back at my experiences as student, as an educator, and as parent, I think there IS A PERSONAL COMPONENT to what makes a GREAT TEACHER - there has to be.  A great teacher must relate to his or her students, make learning come alive. bring out emotions and feelings in their students while addressing student fears and passions associated with learning.

Maybe we can objectively quantify an effective teacher but must make judgement calls on "GREAT" teachers... 

Whether 'Great Teacher' is a judgment call or objective reality (I leave the continuing debate to you in the comments) I want to focus on...the making of a GREAT teacher.

 Illustration by R. Kikuo Johnson found in http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html?pagewanted=all    

THE MAKINGS OF A GREAT TEACHER:

I have been an educator for over 25 years.  I have worked as a school psychologist, as a language arts/reading teacher (grades 1,3,4,5,6,7 and 8), as a teacher-mentor, and as an educational consultant, and was actively involved as a parent in my kids' education.  I have met, observed, and taught with many, many teachers - some who were outstanding, some who were mortifying, and most who were 'good'.  Here are the TOP TEN components I have found (based on literature searches and my own experiences) that make a teacher GREAT :

• Great teachers exude INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY  and they push their students to follow and feed the curiosity they model as they constantly question the world around them. When teachers can channel and push a 'need to know' attitude, learning and remembering are much more effective.
• Great teachers exude PASSION - for their students and for learning.  Passion is motivating. It is exciting, it is engaging and it is catchy.  This passion motivates and pushes students to want more, to embrace more, and to contribute more.
• Great teachers RESPECT their students' needs and perspectives.
• Great teachers have KNOWLEDGE and expertise in the content they teach while- 
• Knowing what they know
• Knowing when they don't know 
• Knowing how to acknowledge that they don't know (this is so important for modeling intellectual curiosity which in turn is so important for true, attainable learning)
• Knowing how to find out what they don't know - or when to have their students find out what they don't know - and bringing it back to class.
• Great teachers express CONFIDENCE and COMFORT in their subject matter AND  in not always knowing ALL the answers.  Modeling 'not (always) knowing' will make it easier for your students to acknowledge what they don't know while strengthening and modeling intellectual curiosity.
• Great teachers set EXPECTATIONS high (but obtainable) for themselves and for their students, facilitating and nurturing their attainment.
• Great teachers ACKNOWLEDGE that there are all kinds of minds in their classrooms and 
• Great teachers have the FLEXIBILITY to build and integrate multi-modal components into their lessons addressing auditory learners, visual learners, students with longer and shorter attention spans, students who easily can move sequentially along steps of a problems and those who need more structure (to name just a few).
• Great teachers ENGAGE students, making the curriculum meaningful, pertinent, exciting, and getting students to critically evaluate and perceive issues in a variety of ways.
•  Great teachers form PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS with their students, listening to their needs and their comments, acknowledging the right for different perspectives while GUARANTEEING A SAFE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT for all.

Before closing I want to thank you for your visit and send you off with clips of inspiration...view them all or chose your favorites: From Dead Poet's Society: "What will your verse be?"

From Dead Poet's Society: "Just when you think you know something, you must look at it in a different way...triving to find your own voice...Dare to strike out and find new ground!"

And maybe, the question isn't "What makes a great teacher" but "What great teachers make...a god damned difference!!!!!"

 

Thanks for your visit, please leave you opinions in the comments. 

Average Kids?

Why is it that (except in athletics or the arts) teens work so hard to be 'average' and fit in, and we as parents want them to stand out or at the very least, excel?

What is 'average' anyway? When I 'googled' "average" this is what I got:

av·er·age/ˈav(ə)rij/

Noun:	The result obtained by adding several quantities together and then dividing this total by the number of quantities; the mean.
Adjective:	Constituting the result obtained by adding together several quantities and then dividing this total by the number of quantities.
Verb:	Amount to or achieve as an average rate or amount over a period of time: "annual inflation averaged 2.4 percent".
Synonyms:	noun.  mean - medium - mediocrity

 

I personally don't like the term, "average student" and based on Google's synonyms ("mediocrity") I may not be wrong.  Being "average" seems to limit a teacher's, student's, and parent's vision and expectations.   Every student has strengths and weaknesses that together create who he or she is. They may 'average' out to be a kid who functions somewhere in the middle of his or her peers on various tests and measures of achievement, but to say they are 'average' defeats their accomplishments and potential. Furthermore, I think every kid needs to see him or herself excelling, creating, and contributing in whatever unique way works best for them.

Howard Gardner addresses this in his Multiple Intelligences (MI) Theory.  Gardner identifies nine different kinds of intelligence, each reflecting different ways of interacting with the world.  Each person has their own individual combination of these intelligences.   His nine intelligences are:

1. Linguistic Intelligence - the capacity to understand, use, and manipulate language
2. Logical Mathematical Intelligence - the capacity to understand, manipulate and express numbers, quantities, and numerical operations
3. Musical Rhythmic Intelligence - the capacity to think in music, and to hear, recognize and manipulate music.
4. Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence - the capacity to use your body or body parts (hands, fingers, feet, etc.) to solve problems, to interact, and to express oneself (athletics, dance, performing arts are the most common examples of excellence in this)
5. Spatial Intelligence - the capcity to represent the spatial world internally - to learn and integrate visual stimuli.  Spatial learners, for example, learn best by observing images, photos, graphs, charts (as opposed to listening to lectures or reading long passages).
6. Naturalist Intelligence - refers to the capacity to discriminate among living things (plants, animals) and recognize patterns and features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations).
7. Intrapersonal Intelligence - the capacity to understand yourself- who you are, how and why you react to various things the way you do, understanding your strengths and weaknesses, how to avoid pitfalls, etc.
8. Interpersonal Intelligence - the capacity to understand other peoples' speech, body/facial language, postures, motivations, etc.
9. Existential Intelligence - the capacity and proclivity to contemplate philosophical questions of life, death, reality, etc.

Additional resources: Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory explains these areas in more detail. Concepts to Classroom: Tapping into Multiple Intelligences offers a free self-paced workshop (via PBS) detailing MI (Multiple Intelligence) and how it can be integrated into classrooms. Finally, howardgardner.com has more updated work including Multimedia and Multiple Intelligences and Technology and Multiple Intelligences. .

Schools Attuned and All Kinds of Minds train parents and teachers to look at students along eight different "neurodevelopmental constructs." Much like Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences, we all have our own unique combination of skills which embody our own unique  learning profiles.  These profiles vary along eight different areas:

1. Attention
2. Memory
3. Langauge
4. Social cognition- understanding how dress, posture, tone, facial expressions, and verbal/nonverbal communication all help us better understand people and social situations around us
   
5. Temporal and Spatial sequential processing - understanding time, recognizing how long things take, recognizing and being able to follow schedules and sequences (be this following directions, following time, or telling jokes or stories);
6. Graphomotor skills - handwriting skills
7. Fine and Gross motor skills - coordinating large and small muscle groups (for example, throwing a catching a ball involves large muscle groups while knitting involves smaller muscle groups)
8. Higher order cognition - understanding abstract concepts, brainstorming, creating, analyzing, evaluating, comparing all involve higher order cognition.  It also involves 'metacognition' much like Gardner's Intrapersonal Intelligence - an ability to understand oneself - one's actions, thoughts and motivations.

Using either one of these approaches - be it recognizing and teaching to multiple intelligences or to recognizing your students learning profiles along various neurodevelopmental constructs has multiple benefits:

• It validates each of your students, allowing them to excel in their areas of strength while strengthening areas of weakness
• It helps teachers and students better understand each other, gaining greater self esteem and an ability and desire to take risks and reach for higher goals and expectations
• It enables students to advocate more effectively for themselves.  Once one has a better understanding of learning strengths and weaknesses, one can seek more specific help in areas of weakness
• It helps parents, teachers, and students to more realistically evaluate and approach school (and life) related problems.

I would like to think that each and every one of us has special gifts and skills that should be promoted.  Maybe "average" should be used to help describe performance, but not kids.  What do you think?