Making Teachers Better, Not Bitter

Book News
Consultant and award-winning educator Frontier and school district superintendent Mielke argue for a balanced approach to the use of comprehensive teaching frameworks to support rather than merely measure professional practice. Throughout the book they focus on specific practices that support the credible implementation of a balanced system of evaluation, supervision, and reflection, which serve very different purposes: evaluation ensures competent teaching through a valid, reliable ratings process with the premise that evaluation renders a judgement in a performance environment, and a payoff of accurate ratings of teacher quality on a criterion referenced scale; supervision supports teacher growth by creating opportunities for developmental feedback that focuses teachers’ efforts and empowers them to achieve goals related to improved professional practice with the premise that supervision creates the conditions for developmental feedback to inform progress in a learning environment, with the payoff teacher growth; reflection is for teachers to become autonomous in their ability to become expert in their craft with the premise that reflection is the foundation for the meaningful thinking and the purposeful, aware, and responsive actions made by experts, and the payoff is autonomous teachers who are developing expertise. Five chapters are: the need for balance; evaluation as a component of a balanced system; supervision as a component of a balanced system; reflection as a component of a balanced system; guidelines for navigating change that results in balancing evaluation, supervision, and reflection. Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)