Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Model of Teacher Performance Evaluation'

The challenge of designing and implementing teacher evaluation reform throughout the U.S. has been represented by different policies, teacher evaluation components, and difficulties with implementation. The purpose of this qualitative embedded single case study was to explore teacher perceptions about new evaluation model implementations and how new model implementations impact the relationships between teachers and administration. The main unit of analysis was teachers at one school experiencing the implementation of new evaluation reform. The sub-units were the experience levels of teachers, specifically New Teachers, Mid-career Teachers, and Seasoned Teachers. Findings in this research demonstrated a protectiveness of the low income school in which the participants work, and a lack of trust in the state understanding the needs of a low performing school. The findings indicated teachers perceive the lack of local control or input into the development or implementation of a new evaluation tool may create feelings of mistrust and ulterior motives. Results also emerged suggesting that teachers perceive a new teacher evaluation model may add stress to the site, provide tools for feedback and accountability, and possibly negatively impact the relationships with students. Finally, the findings indicated striking differences of the perceptions of teachers with different levels of teaching experience. Teachers of all experience levels perceived similar, positive relationships between teachers and administrators. However, the perceptions of the current evaluation tool was markedly different based on years of experience. New Teachers and Mid-Career Teachers stressed a desire to receive feedback and the need for feedback to improve their practice. Conversely, Seasoned Teachers stated a clear lack of need or desire for feedback. Additionally, All experience level groups perceived that there may be some level of added stress during the implementation of a new evaluation tool. Seasoned Teachers Mid-Career Teachers perceive the possibility of a new tool as a negative event, while New Teachers viewed this as an opportunity for accountability and alignment.

The primary purpose of teacher evaluation is to improve teaching practice, which results in increased student achievement. In practice, however, evaluation systems have been generally used as sorting mechanisms for identifying the lowest performing teachers for selective termination. The school system in this study, like others, aspires to have all of its teachers consistently performing at a highly effective level. The problem of practice faced by the school system is the inability of a large number of teachers rated “effective” to summarily improve their practice over time and move to the “highly effective” rating. In essence, how does a teacher evaluation metric maximize the chances that those who remain in the profession become accomplished practitioners? This research triangulates teacher evaluation, self-reflection and their roles in improving teacher quality. The prevailing thought is that teachers who willingly engage in more formalized self-reflection and self-assessment yield higher degrees of teacher effectiveness as measured on a local teacher evaluation. The central focus of this study will investigate tenured teachers’ perceptions of the effect of their teacher evaluation tool on teacher quality and other factors that contribute to a teacher’s improvement of instructional performance over time. The researcher would also like to investigate the extent to which teacher cohorts—differentiated by demographic data—engage in formalized practices of self-reflection about their own teaching practice. Lastly, the researcher would like to determine whether or not tenured teachers who are evaluated with the local teacher evaluation tool actually improve their teacher effectiveness over time.

This study was conducted in a public, K-12 school system with 1420 teachers employed—39 of which are National Board Certified. This schools system is located in a rural/suburban school system and has utilized its current teacher evaluation system since 2000.

The findings of this study indicated that the majority of teachers—disaggregated by demographic teacher cohort—viewed their local teacher evaluation system somewhere along the continuum of neutral to satisfactory as a tool for building a teacher’s effectiveness over time. The overwhelming majority of teachers embraced the post-conference as the most impactful part of the entire evaluation process in building teacher quality; the least impactful was the pre-conference. Additionally, teacher respondents—agnostic of demographic—opined that while the local teacher evaluation system was perceived to be a both quality control and a compliance factor for teachers, less than half of all respondents believe that the system, assists teachers formatively as a tool for professional development. Per the respondents, it should be noted that the teacher evaluation system elicited the strongest reactions—both positive and negative—in teachers having experienced more than 20 formal observations. The research also conveyed that most teachers reported that there was much more embedded self-reflection in the evaluation system than hypothesized; most prominently, teachers cited that audio-taping, reviewing student performance data, completing a self-reflective checklist, and engaging in unstructured self-reflection were a few of the assorted self-reflective activities were facilitated by the evaluation system. Moreover, the data clearly demonstrated that all teachers engage in high degrees of reflection regardless of demographic cohort and a majority of teachers claim to already know how to “self-reflect.” In other words, the highest self-reported degree of reflection were those teachers already rated as “highly effective” in the local evaluation system. A prevalent trend in the data was that degrees of self-reflection matter and build more pronounced levels of teacher effectiveness over time. In essence, the fact that teachers participate in reflection does not seem to impact teacher quality; rather, the degree and amount to which one reflects is actually what matters in building instructional capacity in teachers. Other noticeable trends in the data were as follows: more years of teaching experience was inversely related to the degree to which a teacher self-reflects; over 30% of teachers with more than 20 years of experience reported that they do no self-reflect at all; the non-NBCT teacher cohort out reflects the NBCT cohort; NBCT teachers had the highest average evaluation rating out of every teacher cohort; and, teaching experience seems to mute any lack of reflection in a teacher’s evaluation rating; The other noticeable trend was that more formal observations for teachers did not translate into higher evaluation ratings over time. Overall, the two most impactful professional development activities cited by teachers were the following: participation in professional learning communities and peer coaching and mentoring, respectively.

Closed loop fuel injection have been in use for two decades but it's not until the recent five years that the wide band lambda sensor have been utilized. The goal is to explain wide band and discrete lambda sensors in a simple but powerful way. Both sensors are modeled by simple mathematics and accounts for Oxygen, Hydrogen and Carbon monoxide influences. The focus is not just on the output from the sensors, but also on the underlying function. This means that all explanations are thorough and methodical. The function of a wide band lambda sensor is more complicated than a discrete type lambda sensor, therefore it's harder to get correct readings. The model of the wide band lambda sensor is used to evaluate different problems in preparation for the development of an observer. Several potential problem sources are tested and investigated, these include calibration error, pressure error, air leak error, gas sensitivity and fuel errors. To evaluate the potential problems and their ability to explain differences between actual lambda and sensor output, two sensors with differing outputs have been used. The final result is implemented in an ECU.

The models indicate that the difference between the two sensors is most likely explained by different sensitivity for CO, O2 and H2. This can in turn have one or several explanations. It is suggested that different ability to pump oxygen, different nernst cells or even different controllers can cause this. The reason is not investigated further as this would require a very deep research on the two sensors. Because no usable explanation is found an observer that estimates the offset at stoichiometric conditions, where lambda equals one, is constructed. The observer uses the fact that the switch point of a discrete lambda sensor is insensitive to disturbances. The offset calculation is performed in real time on an ECU. Tools for calibration of the observer are also developed. With the observer the error for the two sensors is roughly halved over the whole spectrum and at stoichiometric conditions, which is the normal operation for an engine, the error was too small to measure.

Although the wide band lambda sensor is a very complex sensor it is shown that it can be understood with simple mathematics and basic knowledge in chemistry. The developed model agrees well with the real sensor for steady state conditions. For transient conditions, however, the model needs to be refined further. The question why the two sensors differ is discussed but the true origin of the cause remains unsolved. The conclusion is that the error can be drastically reduced with just an offset. It is also shown that when building a lambda sensing device the controller is of equal importance as the sensor element itself. This is due to the sensitivity of surrounding factors that the controller must be able to handle. These effects are specially important for engines running at lambda not equal to 1, for example diesel engines.

The growing demand placed upon educators has taken a toll on the profession (Walker, 2014). Teacher burnout, stress, and unhappiness may be predestined unless administrators recognize how to prevent these from happening (Elias, 2012). The intent of this quantitative study was to survey teachers in southwest Missouri to determine their level of job satisfaction as it relates to student performance on state-mandated assessments. The survey included items designed to collect data on overall level of teacher job satisfaction in relation to demographic areas of age range, gender, level of education, years of teaching experience, subject areas taught, and salary range. The first research question was designed to determine the correlation between high school teacher job satisfaction and high school student achievement. Based on this research, there was a relationship between teacher job satisfaction and Missouri Performance Index scores. The second research question was designed to determine the correlation between teacher job satisfaction and years of experience, salary, age, level of education, and gender. Based on the data collected, there was a correlation between teacher job satisfaction and years of experience and between teacher job satisfaction and the age of the educator. However, there was no correlation between teacher job satisfaction and level of education, nor between teacher job satisfaction and gender. Research question three was posed to determine if there was a difference in teacher job satisfaction between those teachers required to administer end-of-course (EOC) exams and teachers who were not required to administer EOC exams. The research determined there was no difference in job satisfaction between the two groups.