2 – Work file 7: Assessment of teachers

Getting feedback about achievement of students is one of the central principles of school.³⁴ Getting feedback about the quality of teaching is part of professional training. In the same way as we evaluate the learning process and the acquisition of competences, skills and knowledge of our students it is of high importance to get teachers to evaluate their own EDC/HRE teaching.

Without a solid basis of understanding the current situation of teaching it will not be possible to make any recommendations for future improvements or any steps into a further development of teachers’ skills, methods and practices. But how good are teachers in evaluating their own teaching? In fact, the majority of teachers tend to underestimate their students’ forthcoming achievement. Furthermore, they are often not able to shift their methods and style of teaching into a different direction if the need arises. It gets even more interesting when different perspectives of assessment are taken into account: in comparison to all other groups of school assessment (students, parents, school administrators, etc.) teachers’ estimation of their own teaching differs to a great extent from all other formulated opinions.³⁵ Do we have to strengthen teachers in their own beliefs? Or do they have to acquire any new competences in order to take a step back and evaluate their own teaching critically but also realistically?

34. Helmke A.(2003), “Unterrichtsevaluation: Verfahrenund Instrumente”, Schulmanagement, 1, 8-11.
35. Clausen M. and Schnabel K. U.(2002), “Konstrukte der Unterrichtsqualität im Expertenurteil”, Unterrichtswissenschaft, 30 (3), 246-60.