Educational Artifacts Evaluation - Case Study Example

Educational Artifacts Evaluation: Public versus Private School Teacher Name Institution Date Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 1.1 Theoretical Background 3 2 Teacher Evaluation (Danielson Framework) 5 3 Historical Background 6 4 Definition of Terms 8 4.1 Description of the Artifacts 9 5 ADEC Teacher Evaluation Process 10 5.1 Standards of Evaluation 11 5.2 Levels for Evaluation 12 5.3 The Artifacts Evaluation 12 6 Recommendation and Conclusion 13 References 15 EDUCATIONAL ARTIFACTS EVALUATION: PUBLIC VERSUS PRIVATE TEACHERS 1 Introduction Despite education system for private and public institutions in a specific country being similar, there are some aspects that may remain distinguishable. Evaluation of teachers in public and private institutions might vary in terms of educational professionalism, curriculum, classroom attendance and/or their community responsibility, the aspects which are technical determined as standard 1, standard 2, standard 3 and standard four respectively. The components on which these four aspects are based are known as artifacts. In a succinct and a precise manner, artifacts can be described as the weapon, tool, or conception that characterizes a specific ideology, issue, or norm. Artifacts outline guidelines, conceptions and assumptions appertaining to a specific field of which in this case is educational systems. The assumptions in particular vary a great deal with respect to the specific criterion of the learning process which can constitute the curricula, school drawings, policy documents, school evaluation, and teachers’ duties amongst others. The analysis in this investigation describes and explains the similarities and differences in the implicit and explicit assumptions about learning, teaching, and knowledge with regards to private and public teaching performance evaluation as the key artifacts. The analysis bases its discussions on the private and public institutions in Abu Dhabi which is a member nation of United Arabs Emirates (UAE) by taking intent scrutiny on the educational guidelines of Abu Dhabi Educational Council (ADEC). Indeed teaching performance evaluation varies a great deal amongst various artifacts especially between private and public educational institutions. 1.1 Theoretical Background Critical determinants of outstanding teacher performance have been one of the educational issues marked with vagueness as there are no specific strategies or predetermined criteria towards the same. Some proponents argue that the performance of a student is directly tied to the ownership and applicable strategies of the school attended or abilities of the teacher as others maintain that a student’s performance is entirely pegged on his/her academic capabilities and not institutional ownership as others attempt to suggest. According to Wilkins (2010), teachers are more experienced, motivated, disciplined, and skilled in private institutions than in public institutions hence able parents would prefer sending their children to such schools. According to Alhebsi, Pettaway & Waller (2015), teachers would prefer private institutions to public institutions because of various reasons consisting of flexibility of work, better pay and availability of personal development programs. He expounds that teachers are realigning their destined career from public school based to private school based which according to them offer far much better benefit package as compared to the public institutions. Therefore, as teachers scramble to find a place in private institutions, the private institutional become far much advantaged since they can pick the top cream personnel to be part of their teaching staff. As such, most of the highly qualified teachers find themselves in private institutions which translate into the outstanding performance in private institutions. Additionally, private institution perceives no difficulty in procuring teachers from other countries since they do not perceive it mandatory for the teachers to possess the teaching license as ADEC attempts to formulate. Public institutions however, despite having provisions on teacher development program, do not outline provisions on hiring a teacher from another country since it is fixed to Abu Dhabi Licensed Teachers.” A non-citizen teacher might therefore be forced to renew the contract by going back to class before being accepted as a teacher in the country as a public teacher. This has really threatened the teacher evaluation systems in public institutions while to private institutions, it remains advantageous. 2 Teacher Evaluation (Danielson Framework) Over time, it has been an issue of great concern determining what really makes a good teacher. Various proponents have made their suggestions and much criticism has been done but Danielson’s Framework still remains superior. Teacher evaluation is impeccably necessary in establishing the capability of the teacher to deliver whether in a private setting or a public setting. Charlotte Danielson in his Framework establishes that in evaluating a teacher’s capability to deliver effectively leans upon four pillars consisting of the planning and preparation techniques applied by the teacher, how the teacher manages and controls the classroom environment, instructions as devised by the teacher and professional responsibilities of the teacher (Melkonian, 2016). In establishing how the teacher should plan and prepare for the class, Danielson explains that he/she should possess exceptional knowledge of the content and pedagogy, demonstrate critical attributes in explaining the pedagogy, illustrate ability to use examples in explaining conceptions, and be in a position to evaluate the students’ understanding of concepts explained. In performing evaluation based on these principalities, the evaluator must rate the teacher using performance level scale which constitutes Ineffective, developing, accomplished, and exemplary (MacLeod & Abou-El-Kheir, 2017). Teachers who prove their ability beyond reasonable doubt to plan and prepare effectively with respect to the four aspects of planning shall undeniably fall under exemplary. Under classroom environment the teacher must be in a position to create a classroom environment which is full of respect and rapport, the teacher must display capability to establish a learning culture amongst the students, manage classroom procedures, manage student’s behavior, and ensure trimness of the physical learning environment. Under instruction, Danielson establishes that a teacher must be in a position to communicate efficiently, use questions and discussions techniques, engage the students actively in the learning process, use assessments in instructions and demonstrate flexibility (Litz & Hourani, 2016). Under professional responsibilities, the teacher must show capability to reflect on teaching, maintain accurate records, communicate with families, demonstrate professionalism, and adhere to educational rules and regulations both at national level and at school level. Research show that most teachers in private institutions fall under exemplary rating as for the public, most are accomplished as some are developing. 3 Historical Background The rapid development of private institutions began in early 1970s when there was need to increase the number of people attending school. In early 1980s, ADEC realized that despite the country’s attempt to enhance education, public teachers’ performance remained low and most students would desist from going to school (DiPietro et al., 2010). However, the then existing private schools reported outstanding students’ performance and when assessment was done, it was vivid that there teachers were more committed to their work and were performance oriented. The management of private institutions had set guidelines that they expected their teachers to work within. In 1987, the council devised public evaluation criteria which it deemed would assist improve the performance of the licensed teachers. Most of the private institutions adopted the ADEC evaluation techniques which added positively to the ones they were already having. The invention of oil became an outstanding compelling factor towards the need to develop more schools and maximize on the available opportunities. As such, during this period, numerous private institutions were initiated with the objective of filling countering the deficiency. To make sure that their performance was much better that their public counterparts, private institutions perceived the need to assess their teachers to affirm their capability to perform (Elyas & Picard, 2010). The necessity to assess teachers also became necessary since the region had minimal trained teachers and anybody with secondary qualification was allowed to teach. Therefore, to ensure that the persons could eventually deliver, education institutions, mostly the private sector deemed it fit to assess its team to before and after recruitment on the basis of ability to adhere to curriculum, ability to manage the class effectively towards achieving the set goals and ability to assist the students enhance their performance (Hofer, 2016). When the UAE was officially established, there were relatively many schools of which most of them were private however not enough to hold even half of the regions educational needs. Private schools were thereafter recognized with their highly qualified teams and their endeavor to not only develop the children but the teacher as well (Alhebsi, Pettaway & Waller, 2015). By 1965, there were 1200 teachers in the country with 750 teachers in private institutions. A major boost in the performance and teacher evaluation within the region surfaced in 1971 when the UAE Federation was declared and when the Ministry of Education and Youth materialized (Ridge, Shami & Kippels, 2016). By 1990s the Ministry of Education and Youth perceived the need to evaluate teachers so as to boost the quality of information delivered to the student, however, the first evaluation criteria was based on the teacher’s capability to deliver on curriculum only. Later when ADEC was devised, more elaborate teacher evaluation techniques were formulated establishing professionalism, classroom environment, and community in addition the pre-established curriculum. 4 Definition of Terms Teacher evaluation can either be summative or formative. Summative evaluation are the assessments given to the teachers periodically at a particular point in time so as to assess what they know and what they do not know and their capability to manage students effectively. The major role of a summative assessment is to evaluate the teachers’ involvement and commitment in the learning process of the student at the end of each instructional unit, subject, or course. The summative approach evaluates the teacher by comparing the performance with set standards or by benchmark. Summative assessment is marked by high stakes with a high point value and it consists of teacher related activities to the students such as midterm exams, final project, senior recital, and paper. In most public institutions, it is deemed that the performance of a teacher is pegged on his ability to assess and deliver on these summative aspects Formative evaluation can be defined as the assessment technique incorporated in the instructional process as part of classroom practice. Its goal is to monitor teachers’ commitment in the students’ learning process so as to provide a continuing feedback which can assist the teachers enhance their teaching practices augmenting students’ learning concurrently. The formative technique, unlike summative assists the teacher as well as students to recognize their strengths and weaknesses and specific areas they need to work on. Formative evaluation generally has low stakes with low or no point value and consists of including concepts such as drawing concept maps in class and actively involving the student in the learning process. Private institutions are known for their endeavor to evaluate their teachers using the formative approach. A framework is a simplified representation applied in explanation of a real world phenomenon. It can be used in establishing a congruent understanding of systems, events, cases, predictions and/or future outcomes. Models are necessary majorly in formulating qualitative analysis but to some extent it plays an explicit role in quantitative data understanding (Wilkins 2010). Models/framework play a fundamental role in evaluation of and appraising of the education system thereby ensuring effectiveness of the curriculum. The curriculum is best covered if sub-divided into various pedagogical aspects. Pedagogy is essentially the activities involved in the education system. 4.1 Description of the Artifacts Teacher performance evaluation is indeed critical in ensuring outstanding performance of the teacher in and outside the classroom which is ideal in enhancing students’ performance and the performance and effectiveness of the school in general. It is as well of great necessity in ensuring that teacher’s are aligned towards achievement of the school’s vision and mission. Teacher performance evaluation in private and public institutions is therefore vital in ensuring that teachers develop improvement plans that are consistent with the school’s development plan for the benefit of the students, community, and the teachers themselves (Sherif, Shalaby & Altan, 2016). Educational philosophers maintain that learning is a continuous process and teachers in themselves are learners hence there is need for consistent improvement of the teacher for the better interest of the student. Despite teachers in both public and private institutions working to achieve this reality, teachers in private institutions uses more inclusive and informative format that their counterparts in public institutions. Teacher performance evaluation techniques in public institutions tend to be more of summative that informative. Teacher performance evaluation through its progressivism ideology assists a great deal in achieving such a philosophical aspect (DiPietro et al 2016). Teacher evaluation is aimed towards enhancing the teachers’ teaching techniques and methods which is vital in providing the students with the opportunity to garner skills expected of them by ADEC such as critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration. Other progressivism techniques expected of a teacher by ADEC consists of the ability of the teacher to enhance learning process through social, emotional, attitudinal and problem solving considerations. With the teacher evaluation, the learner shall surely be the center of the education system as ADEC purports. Despite ADEC’s gradual release responsibility model, teachers in private institutions tend to be more focused on lessons, guided in their instructions, collaborative with learners and assess learners on individual basis. 5 ADEC Teacher Evaluation Process The ADEC teacher evaluation process begins by the school principal preparing the evaluation teams within the first four weeks of the education year. The team works together in two to four members to complete online (ADEC portal) evaluation on each teacher. The principal must be part of the team. The second Step is preliminary data collection where the team makes observations on teachers across the year after which a Post Observation Conference is held with the teacher within five working days after the observation. The third step is probationary teacher assessment where the principal conducts at least one formal classroom observation on each teacher within the first three months of employment. Step four is the development of companion document which provides specific guidelines to hold to during the teacher’s actual evaluation process. Step five is the final evaluation conference where the evaluation team reviews all the data collected during the assessment year, makes analysis and provides a workable recommendation. 5.1 Standards of Evaluation The teacher evaluation process is pegged on three standards consisting of establishing whether the teacher has professional requirement or not, whether the teacher understands his/her role as a teacher or not, and whether the teacher possess the professional standards expected or not (Melkonian, 2016). For a teacher to qualify for recruitment either in private or public in Abu Dhabi, he/she must have a teacher’s License. Both private and public school teachers are deemed to know their roles if they identify priorities in the learning process and give students the room for continuous development, they raises the students standards, they ensures that resources are used effectively to increase future opportunity for use, they engage students in the learning process and they adhere to all policies and guidelines appertaining to the learning processes. In assessing professional standards of the teacher, the evaluator focuses on four key standards consisting of profession, curriculum, classroom, and community. These four aspects are as discussed in the teacher evaluation section (Wilkins, 2010). The evaluator is expected to comment and make recommendations in each and every step in the aforementioned processes. In doing so, the evaluator must take into consideration the key indicators that shows that the teacher is committed in hid work by considering factors such as orientation of the teacher to school vision and mission, professional development plan of the teacher, the teacher’s curriculum understanding, and the teacher’s ability to determine culture and communicate with families and community with effectiveness. 5.2 Levels for Evaluation In each of the evaluation standard, the evaluator is expected to rate the teacher in five distinct evaluation levels consisting of level 1, level 2, level 3, level 4, and level 5 with each level having assigned evaluation points 1, 2, 3, 4, and five respectively (Hofer, 2016). The level of evaluation impeccably depends on the findings or results of each of the evaluation standards. A teacher whose evaluation results on evaluation standards does not completely comply with the expected outcomes shall undeniably fall under category of level 1. The more a teacher’s results comply with the expected results, the more points the teacher earns and the more compliant the teacher is considered to be. For the teacher to be considered more compliant (Towards level 5) he/she must have demonstrated outstanding ability in understanding and applying the various aspects of profession, curriculum, classroom, and community. 5.3 The Artifacts Evaluation Most the discussion presented in preceding section presents the factors that both private and public institutions tend to share in common. The ADEC principalities prove to be used in public as well as in private institutions. What therefore, stands out unique between these two artifacts? Michael Scriven in his theory of goal-free evaluation states that performance evaluation process shall indeed be successful if the evaluator has minimal or no set goal for the evaluation process but rather for the benefit of the person evaluated (Elyas & Picard, 2010). Free-goal evaluation is critical in screening the evaluator from unnecessary bias that might emanate during the evaluation process. GFE has the benefit of controlling the goal, uncovering side effects, adapting contextual or environmental changes and supplementing objective based evaluation technique. It is recognizable that ADEC principalities are much aligned towards Goal-Based Evaluation (GBE) as opposed to Goal-Free Evaluation (GFE) as applied in most of private institutions across the country. This analogy is best explained by analysis in the subsequent section. While most of practices in the public institutions focus on general performance of school or nation, private schools takes the issue much into education microscope by breaking down performance to a single student rather than the school as a whole (Melkonian, 2016). In addition to the ADEC strategies, in assessing the teacher, private institutions would look into how the teacher marks students’ work, how the teacher assesses the students, whether the teacher is aligning the students to contemporary issues, how the teacher tracks students’ performance, ability of the teacher to follow up on targets set by the students, ability to identify students with Special Education Need (SEN), and whether each lesson held by the teacher results into progressive development of the student (Sherif, Shalaby & Altan, 2016). Private institutions, with respect to their evaluation criterion are aimed to ensuring that the teacher is positive in marking such that instead of just making ticks and scores, the teacher comments actively, sets target for the students and assists the student achieve the targets. Secondly, the teacher is expected to assess the students in such a way that deep critical thinking and knowledge and skills applicability are demonstrated in the students rather than mere memorizations. 6 Recommendation and Conclusion From the analysis herein, it is indeed provable beyond reasonable doubt that Abu Dhabi has one of the powerful teacher performance assessment criteria. It is clear as discussed that the evaluation processes are based on four key components consisting of the teachers’ professionalism, ability of the teacher to comply with the set curriculum, the teacher capability to control and manage the classroom or learning environment and the ability of the teacher to recognize and appreciate the community. However, it is notable that the evaluation system majorly aims towards enhancing teacher development program rather than student development program and this is where private institutions overtakes the public institutions. The Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) should adjust the teacher evaluation techniques in a manner that fosters both teacher development as well as learner development processes. ADEC should also look into realigning the education system to a more global perspective than the current technique which I can valiantly describe as traditional. Indeed there are numerous similarities as well as differences in private and public educational systems and Abu Dhabi stands a greater chance to refurbish its public education system for the better of all. References Alhebsi, A., Pettaway, L., & Waller, L. (2015). A history of education in the United Arab Emirates and Trucial Shiekdoms. The Global eLearning Journal, 4(1). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235282567_Saudi_Arabian_educational_history_Impacts_on_English_language_teaching DiPietro, M., Ferdig, R. E., Black, E. W., & Presto, M. (2010). Best practices in teaching K-12 online: Lessons learned from Michigan Virtual School teachers. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 9(3), 10. http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/7.1.2.pdf Elyas, T., & Picard, M. (2010). Saudi Arabian educational history: Impacts on English language teaching. Education, Business and Society: Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues, 3(2), 136-145. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/17537981011047961?journalCode=ebs Hofer, C. L. (2016). The impact of classroom observations and collaborative feedback on evaluation of teacher performance, based on the Danielson" Framework for Teaching" (Doctoral dissertation, Wayne State University). http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/1640/ Litz, D., & Hourani, R. B. (2016). Developing Educational Capital in Times of Change. In Leveraging Social Capital in Systemic Education Reform (pp. 115-141). SensePublishers. https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/2854-leveraging-social-capital-in-systemic-education-reform.pdf MacLeod, P., & Abou-El-Kheir, A. (2017). Qatar’s English Education Policy in K-12 and Higher Education: Rapid Development, Radical Reform and Transition to a New Way Forward. In English Language Education Policy in the Middle East and North Africa (pp. 171-197). Springer International Publishing. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-46778-8_11 Melkonian, M. (2016). Teachers Dispositions Towards Professional Development within the United Arab Emirates. In Dispositions in Teacher Education (pp. 199-209). SensePublishers. http://www.academia.edu/25118109/Dispositions_in_Teacher_Education_A_Global_Perspective_SensePublishers Ridge, N. Y., Shami, S., & Kippels, S. M. (2016). Private Education in the Absence of a Public Option: The Cases of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. In FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education (Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 5). http://www.periglobal.org/sites/periglobal.org/files/WP64%20Private%20Education%20in%20the%20Absence%20of%20a%20Public%20Option.pdf Sherif, A., Shalaby, H. M., & Altan, H. (2016). Towards the Second Sustainable City in the Middle East: Retransforming Ras El Khaimah Costal City with the Estidama First Model of the Abu Dhabi Master Plan 2030. International Journal of Environment and Sustainability (IJES), 5(2). https://www.sciencetarget.com/Journal/index.php/IJES/article/view/671 Wilkins, S. (2010). Higher education in the United Arab Emirates: An analysis of the outcomes of significant increases in supply and competition. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 32(4), 389-400. http://opus.bath.ac.uk/21261/ Read More

 

 

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