Improving Teacher Feedback

"Twice a year feedback does not work in child care," observes Kay Albrecht in her Exchange article, "Strategies for Diversifying Performance Evaluation and Feedback."  Albrecht continues...

"Teaching young children requires constant fine tuning of the way we teach with the response we get from children.  Teaching techniques that work in one situation or with one developmental stage often does not work as well at other stages.

"One of the best ways to increase the frequency of formal feedback to teachers about teaching competence is to share the job with others.  When the director is the only one who provides feedback to teachers about competence, the job becomes too big to be completed as often as is necessary.  When program coordinators provide feedback to lead teachers, lead teachers provide feedback to assistant teachers, and so forth, the job of providing feedback on a more frequent basis becomes more manageable.  In order to share the role of competency evaluation, several prerequisites must be in place.  First, the evaluation of competence must be separated from the evaluation of compensation.  Second, a teaching competency evaluation tool that reflects your program’s philosophy must be developed and approved by teachers.  Third, teachers need training on how to give both positive and negative feedback and how to develop and monitor improvement plans that are the outcome of the process."

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