Teachers Should Not Be Graded by Students
Imagine that you have performed your work to the best of your ability but still unaware of your fate as it is being determined by someone not familiar with your profession’s complexity. This is the situation teachers find themselves as their career hinges on the evaluation provided by the learners. The goal of the speech is to prove that teacher grading does not add to the profession. This persuasive speech argues that student evaluation has a place in education, but it should not be used in grading teachers. Its general purpose is to persuade the audience of alternatives to student grading. Its specific purpose is to convince the audience that grading teachers based on students’ feedback is ineffective in evaluating teachers. The main points covered in the persuasive argument are; Students are unqualified and biased in their evaluations, and the teacher education viewpoint is a better alternative for evaluating performance. Everyone needs the teachers who impart the much-needed knowledge to be fairly judged and reinforced for their performance. As an individual who has previously provided feedback for teacher performance, little students understand the inner workings of education to provide informed feedback.
I will start by exploring the ineffectiveness of using students to grade teachers. Schools are increasingly relying on feedback from the students to grade the teachers. The problem with this approach is that students are unaware of the complexity of teaching. The students who are unaware of the teaching modules will only fill the evaluations by guessing what is needed. Krammer et al. noted that; “It has been suggested that students may base their assessment on teachers’ grading styles” (Krammer et al. 2018). Students might fill the evaluation as an obligation rather than provide feedback as they do not realize the task’s importance. Students are likely to be biased in how they give feedback. Students will give positive feedback for the teachers they like irrespective of their performance. Krammer et al. noted that; “Students may base their assessment on their liking of the teacher” (Krammer et al. 3). Students will therefore give negative feedback for the teachers they dislike irrespective of their performance, bringing in the element of bias.
I’m sure you are asking yourself about the possible solution for evaluating teachers. The use of peers has been presented by education scholars such as Fraser and Lefty. While there is a strong case for using teachers to evaluate peers, it needs to be used cautiously (Fraser & Lefty, 2018). While it has its limitations, teachers’ evaluation can be used as an alternative as teachers are familiar with the profession, thus better placed to give feedback. This is because teachers understand what is involved in the teaching profession. Their experience with teaching makes them better placed to provide evaluations. Further, teachers are more likely to be realistic with their reports and evaluations. However, the teachers’ reporting strategy needs to be used carefully since these reports’ credibility might also be limited by bias. Therefore, the method might prove useful only after the final reports of evaluations are freed from prejudice and personal judgment.
On the other hand, self-evaluation feedback is true, likely to present a more positive image of the teacher. This would bar the teacher evaluation program’s efficiency since no one is likely to grade themselves negatively in a test. As Krammer et al. pointed out, “For teachers’ self-assessment, it has been suggested that teachers’ ratings are influenced by wishful thinking concerning aspects of their quality of teaching” (Krammer et al. 2018, p.600.). The potential of bias against peers might also lead to poor feedback, and the teacher evaluation program
‘s ultimate failure.
The issues highlighted above reveal that grading of teachers while relying on student feedback is very ineffective. As you can see, there are multiple issues associated with student feedback in evaluating teachers. While teachers can offer some useful insight into their colleagues’ performance, their potential bias also reduces the reliability of their evaluation. Conclusively, both self-evaluation and peer evaluation have been proved to be unreliable due to biases. Based on what I have presented above, there is little question on the limited usefulness of grading teachers in improving their future performance. Therefore, the system should adopt a better evaluation technique, bearing in mind that prejudice elements might influence any attempt to grade teachers’ work.
References
Fraser, J., & Lefty, L. (2018). Teaching teachers: Changing Paths and Enduring Debates. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Krammer, G., Pflanzl, B., & Mayr, J. (2018). Using students’ feedback for teacher education: measurement invariance across pre-service teacher-rated and student-rated aspects of quality of teaching. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(4), 596-609. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1525338