Student Evaluations of Teachers

Parents Forum
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<p>A few parents and I are trying to get our kids' high school to adopt some sort of a teacher evaluation that would be filled out by students at the end of each school year.</p>

<p>The purpose of the evaluations would not be to "weed out" teachers or to penalize them in any way. It would be to provide useful feedback to help them improve their teaching and their courses. </p>

<p>I remember reading that there are some high schools that utilize student evaluations. Do any of your kids' high schools use them? If so, in what capacity? Who sees them- only the teacher? The department head?</p>

<p>I'd appreciate any information that any of you have.</p>

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<p>See this:
[The</a> Tripod Project - Student Teacher Surveys, Parent Surveys, K-12 Surveys, Student Engagement](<a href=“http://www.tripodproject.org/index.php/about/about_background/]The”>http://www.tripodproject.org/index.php/about/about_background/)
and this:
<a href=“http://www.gatesfoundation.org/college-ready-education/Documents/preliminary-findings-research-paper.pdf[/url]”>http://www.gatesfoundation.org/college-ready-education/Documents/preliminary-findings-research-paper.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
According to Ron Ferguson, a Harvard researcher, student perceptions of teachers are well correlated with value added measures.
Good luck with this! Please PM me if you are actually able to do this. I think that it would be fabulous if you could. Where are you?</p>

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<p>My S’s school does it and the feedback goes to the admin and teachers. one of S’s teachers for AP Eco (amoung others) used to ask the kids to drop index cards in a box on their way out of class when a particularly difficult idea was being taught. The cards were color coded with red meaning something like “no idea what you were talking about” to white meaning “I got it”, etc… Kids could leave comments on the cards if they wanted but most didn’t.</p>

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<p>levirm- Thanks for the links. Sounds like a great project! There are copies of the student evaluation forms, so that is very helpful. I will read through the entire report. Interestingly, this form and others I’ve seen never ask the students whether the material they are tested on is what they learn in class, or are told will be on the test.</p>

<p>mamom- By any chance do you have a copy of the evaluation form? I love the idea of the index cards-- I’m going to tell our principal about it!</p>

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<p>I will look for a copy of the eval form in S’s room when I go through his books.</p>