What Your Teaching Evaluation Really Means

Hey, Teachers!

Do you really know how to interpret your teaching evaluation? It's a "must-have" on the job, but it doesn't always reflect our good and honest work. And often, it can feel like another hoop we're jumping through to get to our contract offer for the next school year.

Teaching evaluations are part of the end-of-school-year requirements, and if we're fortunate to have a great and respectful working relationship with our evaluator, this meeting is less daunting. But what if you're worried about heading into the principal's office to have that conversation? What if you're truly concerned about one or more areas on the evaluation rubric? What if you've done your best, and things ended horribly...as in...you're now looking for a new teaching job altogether?

Here are FOUR WAYS to interpret your final teacher evaluation marks, and how to connect your outcomes to your teacher self-efficacy and career longevity goals.

1. The scores may or may not be accurate.  Likely, you will include a self-reflection component in your final teaching evaluation. Possibly, your view of your accomplishments matches your evaluator's, but the two reports might not align, especially if you're a teacher who was unfairly targeted this year, didn't receive the mentoring you should have to rectify mistakes early on, or knows the truth about a matter that you can't prove.

     Be objective about your scores. Avoid internalizing them to the point you feel like a failure. You are NOT a failure. You may have failed at one task or another, but YOU are not the failure. If your scores are high, but you know it was the "dog-and-pony show" or some other reason you were passed along on this required check-off list, be honest about your own performance ratings.

     What are your strengths? How well did you really do with students, instruction, interpersonal relationships, assessment, and other job duties? And how do you know this?

👉🏼Teacher self-efficacy check-in: How able do you believe you are across all areas of your evaluation domains? Why is this the case?

👉🏼Career longevity check-in: How is your teaching evaluation in the area of performance assessment accuracy affecting your feelings of stability and excitement about the future of your position? And your teacher-student relationship-building?

2. The scores are often based on brief observations and underlying assumptions about your teaching performance.  In many teaching settings, our administrators don't have the time they would like to have to be in our classrooms the way they'd like to be. Additionally, our administrators are spread thin like everybody else, especially in schools where there is overcrowding or few adults are available to monitor students in hallways, on they yard, or at break times. 

      Also, our administrators may or may not be biased in scoring. Teachers who have established themselves for years in the same school building despite the revolving door of new-hires in administration, usually have an "in" when it comes to teacher performance rubrics. These veteran teachers carry weight in the building with their supervisors, with colleagues, and with families who are generational in the community, especially in small towns. There is an underlying assumption that these teachers know their stuff and deliver it well.

      There may also be underlying assumptions about teachers who are not doing well on the job or make mistakes at the wrong time and can't seem to get past the stigmas. Once you've got a monkey on your back, it's hard to get rid of it, and if you don't learn the ropes on how to get to your supervisor first about negativity in your teaching world, supervisors tend to form negative opinions about you and see everything you're doing as a potential wrong. 

👉🏼Teacher self-efficacy check-in: How able do you believe you are as a teacher, based on how others view your classroom teaching performance? Do these opinions affect your integrity, self-worth, or motivation to do better? Why?

👉🏼Career longevity check-in: How do the opinions of others affect your perspective about what's possible in your teaching position? How do you know this?

3. The criteria used to assess your work may be expansive or deficient.  Not all school districts use the same evaluation model or framework, and over the years, these models and frameworks change. Who wrote the evaluation domains, categories, questions, and procedures? How relevant are these areas to the work you're really doing each day with students?

     It's important that you keep a leadership mindset related to your own teaching evaluation. No, you can't change the model or framework that's being used, but likely, it doesn't reflect the whole of your efforts and accomplishments in the classroom. It's likely based on a fraction of what you do in a day, and the artifacts you've chosen to include as supporting evidence of what you do only go so far.

     You may have some unanswered questions and you should ponder those. You may agree with most (or all) of the criteria selected, however, you may find areas you wished you could have spent more time discussing with your evaluator. You may have hoped the final evaluation meeting would've been more personalized. You also may not have had an opportunity to fully explain a situation that caused you to be "dinged" but went along with the final mark because overall, you're being hired back.

👉🏼Teacher self-efficacy check-in: How able do you believe you are to carry out the expectations on your current district's evaluation model or framework? Why do you believe this?

 👉🏼Career longevity check-in: What do you believe the current evaluation model or rubric means for your future at this school? Is it a viable tool for teacher assessment?

4. The criteria used to assess your work may or may not align with your personal and professional beliefs and values. The teaching evaluation is usually a one-size-fits-all. Likely, your personal and professional beliefs and values align with basic criteria related to instruction and assessment evaluation, but based on recent state mandates, bans, or other policies affecting liberties in the classroom, you may struggle with some of the ways you are being evaluated.

     As with any job duty, compliance is a guiding principle in being a team player. But know your boundaries and foundational tenets of your personal teaching philosophy. Meeting compliance standards is essential, but so is being true to yourself.

     Be clever and wise when you're discussing your evaluation outcomes. Find ways to carefully discuss the challenges you faced this school year, and also be cautious about how much you reveal about "what you really think" to supervisors. Avoid letting your true sentiments work against you or ruin the harmony you've worked so hard to cultivate in your interpersonal relationships.

👉🏼Teacher self-efficacy check-in: How able do you believe you are to "keep the peace" at work related to evaluation criteria that was difficult to integrate this school year? How do you know this to be true?

 👉🏼Career longevity check-in: How impactful are the changes in evaluation criteria to your overall goals as a teacher? Are they dealbreakers or not? And how will you resolve any disconnect in this area?