As a student, I realize that teaching can be hard work, and grading is necessary to show the performance of the students in the class.
But, the students’ grades are a reflection of both their understanding of the content as well as how well the teacher taught it. Therefore, why can’t the students have the opportunity to grade the teachers on how well they felt that the content was taught as well as how well the class understood the content?
I feel as though each class’s test scores and ratings could be used to show how well the teacher taught it and could possibly be used to give teachers raises.
Students grading the teachers would not only allow for them to give an accurate representation of how they are feeling about the way that the content is being taught, but also for the teachers to receive feedback on how they can better teach that class.
An advantage to individual feedback is that teachers would be able to see how each student learns so that the teacher would be able to better teach the class and would hopefully see better scores on the students’ quizzes and tests.
Another benefit of grading teachers is it holds them accountable for teaching us well and not wasting our time on busy work. I feel as though there are times where teachers may give students busy work to pass the time until they have something educational for the students to learn.
As far as how they would be graded, I imagine a Google form would be sent out to the student body with information about yourself such as what type of learner you are and then questions: What did the teacher do well? What could they improve on? What is something you wish they did differently?
The students would then be asked to give the teacher a grade based on a scale. There would be categories with a scale of 1-5, one being the worst and 5 being the best. Teachers would get the results for each category to see their strengths and weaknesses.
I do realize that the teachers are assessed by the district, but I believe that these assessments are not as accurate as one from the students. The district’s assessment only represents one day or hour of teaching, whereas the students are in the classroom every day.
Of course, students’ preferences may differ based on how well they like the teacher and not by how well they are teaching. Students may not like a teacher that pushes them as much as one who gives them easy A’s which could cause them to score lower.
However, I think that a solution to this may be that the grade given to the teacher would not completely be made up of student reviews but also by the principal, district, and colleagues.
After doing some research, I couldn’t find any other high schools that do this; however, almost every university does. If it can work for them, why couldn’t it work for us?
Could this ever happen at DPHS?
