10
Dr. Richard Voltz
IASA Associate Director/
Professional Development
The
Measures
of
Effective
Teaching (MET) Project has three
major findings: 1) student achievement
gains are the direct result of more
effective instruction; 2) trained
evaluators using a research based
evaluation
instrument
(Danielson
Frameworks for Teaching) does result
in proper summative practice teacher
evaluation; and 3) student perception
surveys are effective in determining
effective teaching.
The most important finding of the
(MET) is that research validated the
theory that teaching ability affects student
achievement taking into account that students have
various learning characteristics. The student
academic achievement scores of the most effective
teachers were significantly higher than the student
scores of the least effective teachers. In addition, the
student scores of the least effective teachers actually
decreased.
This study showed that more effective teachers
are truly better than other teachers at improving
student learning, not that they simply have better
students. The study collected data and produced
estimates of teaching effectiveness for each teacher.
The study then adjusted the estimates to account for
student differences in prior test scores,
demographics, and other traits. The study then
randomly assigned a classroom of students to each
participating teacher.
The adjusted measures did identify teachers who
produced higher (and lower) average student
achievement gains following random assignment.
The data showed that we can identify groups of
teachers who are more effective in helping students
learn. Moreover, the magnitude of the achievement
gains that teachers generated was consistent with
expectations.
The more effective teachers not only caused
students to perform better on state tests, but they
also caused students to score higher on other, more
cognitively challenging assessments in math and
English.
The study pointed out that “Teaching is too
complex for any single measure of performance to
capture it accurately. Identifying great teachers
requires multiple measures.” The MET project
identified three composites that reliably predicted
student academic growth. They were 1) state
assessments, 2) classroom observations, and 3)
student surveys.
The project went on to say that significantly
placing a lot of weight on one measure such as state
assessments will lead to unintended consequences.
In the case of weighting state assessments as more
than 50% results in teachers teaching to the
assessment and leaving out of the curriculum other
important education goals such as higher order
thinking and creativity. The study concluded “Heavily
weighting a single measure may incentivize teachers
to focus too narrowly on a single aspect of effective
teaching and neglect its other important aspects....If
the goal is for students to meet a broader set of
learning objectives than are measured by a state’s
tests, then too-heavily weighting that test could make
it harder to identify teachers who are producing other
valued outcomes.”
The project studied four ways to weight the
measures. They are shown in the table above.
(Continued on page 11)
MET project reveals important
teacher evaluation research
