When the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certified its first 81 teachers earlier this year, some called it the beginning of a new era in teaching as a profession. Board-certified teachers are supposed to represent the best the profession has to offer, setting standards for their peers across the United States.
The Board also demonstrated a method of teacher assessment that is gaining popularity as schools try to promote higher standards. Each applicant for certification went through a rigorous performance assessment centered on a personal portfolio that was developed in consultation with the applicant's local peers.
"Portfolios are concrete products that can illustrate what the teacher can actually do," says Georgea Langer, professor of education at Eastern Michigan University. A typical portfolio might include videotaped classroom lessons, classroom materials prepared by the teacher, and examples of student work or achievement.
"If performance assessment will be used in teachers' classrooms, we've got to walk the talk," says David Setteducati, an English teacher at Farmingdale High School in Smithtown, N.Y., and his district's Peer Coaching Program coordinator. Teachers should engage in assessment on the same terms as their students.
Recognizing that good teaching is a complex art, proponents of teacher performance assessment are looking for strategies that can capture what teachers do in the classroom, as well as their knowledge and judgment as professionals. They want to extend the concept of authentic assessment upward to include teachers themselves. Proponents also argue that the assessment process should be a learning experience for teachers. "Assessment is integral to the learning process," says Mary Diez, dean of the school of education at Alverno College. "It's not external to learning. It is learning."
Langer describes a teacher-assessment continuum. On one end are simple paper-and-pencil tests or checklist observations. These are relatively cheap to administer and easy to use, but offer little depth. On the other end of the continuum, Langer says, is a complex process involving hours of detailed observation by trained assessors, with follow-up interviews to clarify the thinking behind a teacher's actions. These are expensive and time-consuming, but much more useful to teachers and administrators. Portfolio assessments seek to strike a balance between the two ends of the continuum. "The portfolios are trying to find that middle place," Langer says. "In that sense they're really promising."
Amy Colton, an executive associate at NBPTS, says establishing a common framework for assessing teachers' proficiency is not easy. "The greatest barrier is in getting some consensus on what the vision of teaching is. That's been the problem all along for teacher assessment."
The NBPTS bases its assessments on five core propositions by which excellent teachers are judged. As teachers spend up to a year preparing their portfolios to obtain Board certification, these propositions are their overarching guides:
- Teachers are committed to students and their learning.
- Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students.
- Teachers are responsible for managing and mentoring student learning.
- Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.
- Teachers are members of learning communities.
Charlotte Danielson of Princeton Education Associates, who helped develop the Educational Testing Service's Praxis III: Classroom Performance Assessments, says the Praxis III system has explicit criteria for good teaching, but does not "dictate certain behaviors." The competency rapport for kindergarten teachers, for example, is very different from that for high school teachers.
In the Praxis III system, which is now being piloted as a certification process in several states, trained assessors observe teachers in the classroom, then conduct interviews and review written documents to assess the planning and reflection that go into the teaching. The criteria are offered to teachers as a "clear path to improvement," says Danielson.
At Wauwatosa East High School in suburban Milwaukee, Wisc., Principal John Hays encourages teachers to use performance assessments, including portfolios, "as part of their formal assessment process . . . if they believe it will improve their teaching." Some 25 of the 80 teachers at Wauwatosa—most of whom are veterans—have chosen performance assessment over "simple clinical observation" in the last few years. "It says a lot more than just the written word," Hays says of the process. "It's better for students, teachers, and administrators."
If the assessments are part of a staff development plan, they can be cost-effective, Setteducati found. In the first year of the program he oversees, 62 new teachers elected to take part—undergoing a portfolio assessment instead of traditional classroom observation. This assessment gave the district a low-cost way of providing support and professional development to the new teachers, who worked on the portfolios with veteran mentors in a peer coaching process. The only cost to the district was training for the mentors; new teachers earned inservice credits.
A Little Risky
For newer teachers, Setteducati says, a portfolio "really shows off their strong points." If they are still unsure in their classroom management skills, for example, they can use portfolios to show their energy, creativity, and planning. Some have included student projects and letters of appreciation from parents. And the peer coaching process makes it an effective support mechanism.
Lisa Morley, a new teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah, says her best assessment experience was a peer observation and conference. "It was not as threatening as I would have imagined it to be," she remembers. "Because we were both experiencing the same kind of situation, I felt that this person was a valuable resource to help me improve my teaching."
However, tenured teachers have been less eager to participate, Setteducati found. "The portfolio is so revealing that tenured teachers sometimes shy away from it. It's kind of a risk." To embrace it, he concludes, teachers need to have "a sincere desire to see themselves as professionals."
One such person is Andrea Loss, a teacher at Custer High School in Milwaukee, Wisc. As a student at Alverno College, from which she was recently graduated, Loss found tools such as videotaping particularly useful. "It's hard to see yourself in the students' eyes," she found. With videotaped classroom sessions, though, "assessment itself is a learning experience."
Accountability
Because assessment serves both a developmental and a documentary function, Diez recommends two portfolios. A teacher can save everything for purposes of self-assessment, but then select a "showcase portfolio" when the time comes for an evaluation. She tells her students, as they prepare portfolios for their placements: "This is high stakes. You want to put your best foot forward." Keeping the two aspects of assessment in balance is important, she adds. "You don't want to paralyze the developmental process by making the documenting aspect too onerous."
Danielson says that in any assessment process, a tension exists between accountability and professional development. "There is an accountability function," she stresses. "And that is not going to go away." Even so, assessment, especially combined with active mentoring, can and should be useful to teachers, Danielson says. She suggests that after an assessment is done for accountability, the teacher and his or her mentor can use the information collected to improve teaching. Mentoring and evaluating can "share data, and they can share a framework," she says, "but they cannot be the same process."
At Wauwatosa East, teachers meet informally with administrators to discuss assessment criteria appropriate to each class or learning situation. The choice of assessments should be "based on how they teach, what they teach, and in what situations they teach," Hays believes. If performance assessment systems are too rigid, they lose any advantages they could have gained over standard checklists. Good assessments may be difficult to develop and administer, but for Loss the investment pays off in professional improvement. "Life," she says, "is not a standardized test."
Teacher Portfolio Assessment
Teacher Portfolio Assessment
Georgea Langer, professor of education at Eastern Michigan University, identifies three aspects of a successful teacher portfolio assessment process:
Collaboration. Good portfolios cannot be created in a vacuum. Langer recommends a periodic study group of 6–10 teachers, led by a trained coach.
Vision. The process should be “based on a very robust, research-based vision of what professional practice is.” It should include not just classroom teaching, but also a bigger picture of a teacher's professional work.
Incentives. Teachers need to be offered some compensation or time to participate in the process, or else only those who are most motivated will take part—and teachers who may have the greatest need for improvement will not benefit.