Teachers: Do We Evaluate Each Other Whilst Evaluating?

Translated by Alice Comi.

I offered my services to the Swiss Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (SFIVET), for which I sometimes work as a translator. After some research we finally agreed on a text about evaluation and teachers’ self evaluation that will be useful for a European project called “Parenting” that focuses on parents training in intercultural contexts. English is the common language for the project, and for the majority of the participants is a second or third language. For this reason I will try to keep the sentence structure very simple. However, I will not attempt any explanation of technical terminology based on the assumption that it is already acquired.

Source text: “Los docentes: ¿nos evaluamos cuando evaluamos?”

Teachers: Do we Evaluate Each Other Whilst Evaluating?
Marcelo E. Albornoz

The intention of this paper is to take up again a theme that is central to the pedagogical agenda: the evaluation of teaching and learning processes. In order to do this, we should acknowledge in advance the complexity of the theme and the compromises made in the educational system that are necessary to reach a basic consensus. Said consensus neutralizes the discretionary aspects that still persist on the agenda.

Evaluation of educational processes is one of the most important moments for the parties involved. It is the situation in which the asymmetry between teachers and students is the most evident. This happens because there is generally a one-way analysis of the student performance, realized by the teacher. It is however quite infrequent to have a holistic perspective on the complex process that the analysis implies.

Evaluation is the process of identification and obtaining of information – useful and descriptive – close to the value and merit of the goals, the planning and the impact of a stated object. Its aim is to serve as a guide in decision making, in finding solutions for problems of responsibility, and in promoting comprehension of the phenomena involved” (Stufflebeam)

In accordance with this definition, evaluation is a judgment of value that does not always reach a proper consensus, firstly because of the school institution itself, including board of directors and teachers; and secondly between teachers and students. Evaluation is a process of assessment that holds taking pedagogical decisions as its principal purpose.

There are different options and techniques in this process, among which the emphasis goes on observation, exposition, dialogue, interviews and different kinds of “testing” methods. The case of didactical evaluation, for its complexity, acquires polysemous characteristics that are based upon a subjective theory – ideology – that has a lot to do with the personal and professional history of the teacher.

With this in mind, the educator has to try neutralizing discretional assessments about his or her students. For this purpose, an adequate solution would be to refer said evaluation to the objectives and the expected achievements that all teachers set out in their refined plans. These have to be the result of the teacher’s experiences, of the opinions shared with their field or department colleagues, and of “diagnostics evaluations” of the class as a group. This, although redundant, is not common. It is a challenge to look at the situation from a different angle, and that requires an institutional culture to empower it.

For many reasons, cooperation among teachers is not easy to achieve; and not because the professional educators do not acknowledge its importance, but rather because the complexity and particularity of their task, cooperation is not properly promoted within an establishment, or because there is no space and time for it to happen. Another important matter to take into account is that of sharing relevant information about the course and, in particular, about the students. In this sense, the direction of studies, the psychopedagogic office, the tutors and/or preceptors have to form a focus group to exchange information about human aspects of the students. To omit such aspects during the evaluation could result in “incomprehensible” failures in judging the students performance.

Evaluation is therefore something more than a matter of didactical pedagogy. For its characteristics and implications, it goes beyond the classroom, having to focus its educational institution analysis in a much larger sense. The evaluation of the refined plans is competence of the institution, for said institution cannot avoid neither the evaluating of its teachers nor the risky results. The scholastic organization has to permanently approach this topic, favouring institutional spaces for it to be discussed; general criteria, ground rules, techniques, proofs and implications need to be agreed upon. With respect to those basics, it is essential to agree in order to evaluate, and as already said, an evaluation always happens so that a judgment of the student performance can be made. However, the teaching strategies put into practice need to be included as well.

As for techniques, though each field has its own specifics, the teacher body should reach a basic consensus about the instruments to be used to carry out the evaluation process, exceeding the sterile debates between the supporters of quantity versus the “opponents” supporters of quality. The most convenient solution is to adopt a methodological diversity that only the teacher can consider as the most adequate in the context and development of his or her class.

Evidence is another very important aspect in working together having to agree upon the quantity and quality of minimum signs that significantly represent the true performance of the students. For this it is necessary to record and categorize the refined development in the conceptual, procedural, and attitudinal aspects. According to Cesar Coll, this inclusion implies contemplating in the teacher’s own practice a determined kind of cultural forms and knowledge, among others, of which the importance is unquestionable. Lastly, the implications held by the results of the evaluative process are not less important. The numeral or conceptual indicators are nothing more than the exteriorization of the “subject” student attitudes, and not always are an accurate reflection of his or her ability. In some cases they represent a very different meta-message that the teacher needs to decode to understand the true situation since personal, intellectual and emotional aspects can be at stake.

In summary, the complex evaluation process should not be underestimated, and it should be kept in mind that the teachers do evaluate the students, though they also have to evaluate the teaching strategies, their pertinence and efficacy.

Works cited

Stufflebeam. Novedades Educativas. Vol. 117. p. 13.

Bibliography

Santos Guerra, Miguel Ángel. Evaluación Educativa. Magisterio del Río de la Plata, Bs. As 1996.

Camilloni, A. and others. La evaluación de los aprentizajes en el debate didáctico contemporáneo. Paidos 1998.

Zabalza, M. Áreas, Medios y Evaluación. Narcea, Madrid 1987.