Measuring lifelong learning experiences for teachers

By Clément GRUEL, Gaëlle GUERIN, Ania KHAZINA & Ophélie JEANNIN.

Teacher’s experience is directly connected to other activities and actors within the framework of education. Thus, while discussing their learning processes we should be looking at it with a wider perspective. Teachers’ self-reflection and self-evaluation play also acrucial role in educational systems. Quantifying these experiences together with evaluation of teachers by other actors of the system can serve as a reliable set of criteria for reflection on the state of education in general.

Different initiatives exist in the world to help teachers understand what are their own learning experiences, promote reflection and emphasize their strengths and weaknesses. But before getting into details, we would like to define what is learning experience for pedagogs and what are the challenges in evaluating it.

How do we define learning experience?

It’s hard to define a learning experience by itself, especially in pedagogical field. Before discussing practical methods of quantifying it, we should make sure to have a clear understanding of the subject. Is teacher’s learning process linked to a particular content or to a pedagogical skill? How are their experiences influenced by feedbacks from students, peers, administration and experts? How can we include learning experiences obtained outside the educational establishment, like reading research papers, listening to a radio podcast or watching a movie?

In broad terms, learning experience of teachers not only revolves around obtaining knowledge, but also includes pedagogical training (and, respectively, external evaluation), peer-to-exchange, interaction with students and parents, etc. Altogether, self-evaluation for teachers is highly influenced by their environment.

External measurement

The way teachers are evaluated now(and thus, how they think learning experience) is mainly based on their expertise of a program or subject (i.e, Literature, Mathematics, Physics, History, etc). Pedagogical skills and interpersonal skills in general (communication, constructive feedback for instance) are often overlooked. There is almost no measurement of activities made by teachers outside the school: lesson preparation, time dedicated to help students on their orientation, interdisciplinary projects, parents relations, etc. The evaluation framework narrows the definition of learning experience to expertise in a particular field and evaluates it accordingly: there is no place to reflect on your own definition. It is especially true in France, where teachers are selected through an exam testing their knowledge on study subjects, and not on their pedagogical skills.

Another challenge is evaluating progress in a fluctuating environment and through time. Teacher’s skills are diverse, some of them are applicable and effective only in particular situations. A teacher can try to improve her/his pedagogy with one class because she/he feels more involved, but not with all her/his classes. Timing raises the same challenge: a teacher could be very motivated or agile at a certain point of his/her career and lose interest through time.

Focus of measurement

Finally, we need to frame clear objectives in measuring learning experiences for teachers. Goals and stakes of quantifying learning experiences should be clearly set : will it have an impact on incentives, school management or teacher’s training ? If we talk about self-measurement, we should take into account what activities are considered important by teachers themselves. There are different scopes that sometimes overlap: personal projects, students and family requirements, unstable institutional frameworks. For instance, the research paper by C. Michaud underlines that for teachers trainees, the most important is that their work is to be recognized and their professional identity validated by the community.

Current practices of external measurement: France

In the French public education system, teachers reflect on their learning experiences through external evaluation. All along their career, teachers get feedback on their competencies through formalized frameworks. It creates an environment of comparison and competition, with grades and hierarchical appreciations. It all starts with a national public exam, the CAPES followed by an initial training (Master MEEF). Some courses of Master MEEF focus more on pedagogical skills but evaluation of knowledge usually sticks to a grade system.

Evaluating learning experience for French teachers is strongly associated to an administrative exercise and process. Indeed, every five years on average, teachers receive an inspector in their class to check if they are good or bad teachers. The following report by inspector can have an important impact on teacher’s career. Inspections are one of the rare occasions dedicated to reflect on pedagogy and most of the time, they represent a stressy and unpleasant exercise for teachers. This is very specific comparing to international education systems : this measurement doesn’t rely on student’s’ performance or interaction with rest of the school community.

Hence, there are very few moments to think on the position of a teacher within this institutionalized framework : somehow succeeding the public exam means you can be a teacher for the rest of your life. Even if you are “inspected” every five years, your teaching competencies are somehow taken for granted. From time to time, some specific training sessions are organized for teachers, but they are too short and rarely focused on important issues and real needs. Furthermore, such trainings are not mandatory to follow (except for elementary school teachers).

Last but not least, the global lack of measurement of teacher’s interpersonal skills and activities outside the classroom persists in France as well: lesson preparation, time dedicated to help students on their orientation, interdisciplinary projects, relations with parents are not considered important factors for evaluation.

State of the art of quantifying teachers’ learning experiences

Despite all these challenges, more and more initiatives aiming to help teachers reflect on own learning path emerge all over the world today. Even if one solution cannot be applied globally, these examples provide a lot of insights on how to improve the existing evaluation (and self-evaluation) practices and, by extension the whole educational system. We believe that any education system should invest more on teacher’s training and focus particularly on promoting reflection on one’s personal learning experiences.

We categorized existing initiatives into three sections: those that focus on developing pedagogical skills (1), those that help teachers identify their own learning experiences (2) and those that get them involved in a larger school community promoting peer-to-peer exchange (3).

1. Training programs dedicated to pedagogical skills

A solid initial training associated to a lifelong development is key to foster teachers’ skills and learning experiences. One solution existing in USA is Professional Development Schools (PDSs) for teachers. The PDDs are innovative institutions for teachers that aim to provide a state-of-the-art of best practices and teacher learning. They are often compared to teaching hospitals because, as doctors learn through gestures, teachers need both to learn content and to improve their practices. Both university and school faculty plan and teach in these programs.

Some of the US teacher programs extend beyond the four-year bachelor’s degree program. This fifth year allows students to focus only on the task of preparing how to teach, with school-based internships (one-year long) linked to coursework on learning and teaching.

Example of a teaching class in a Professional Development School, USA.

2. Helping teachers to identify their own learning experiences

The definition of learning experience could be seen as a subjective and majorly personal issue. However, as for every lifelong learner it is fundamental to validate and prove your competencies to rest of the community. Classifications, badges, frameworks are key to help in this definition process.

Taking that into account, we can refer to the European portfolio for language teachers in initial training (PEPELF) by the European Centre for Modern Languages or the European Skills/Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO). The latter organizes skills over different professions in order to help creating bridges from one field to another, from teaching to web-designing for instance. In that sense, and using the model of ESCO skills, Spain has created the Digital Competence Portfolio for Teachers.

Another interesting project promoting deep reflection on teachers experiences was led in Louisville (Kentucky): ten teachers were assigned to follow ten children through their day at school. Going from class to class, observing student’s performance in different situations, analysing the work of their peers from an observer’s perspective helped teachers realize what they could improve in their own work. As a follow-up to this example, self-evaluation grid (as in this example) might be a useful tool to extend and reinforce this reflection.

In Ontario, Canada, there is a system of “map of competencies”. The official system is composed of “Basic Qualification” (Qualifications de Bases additionnelles, QBA) and “Additional Qualifications” (Qualifications Additionnelles) that could be considered as a professional development system. Additional Qualifications, included in teacher’s certificate, represent teacher’s investment in students and pedagogical competences.

Tapp is an Indian app dedicated to teachers professional development through measuring and improving teacher’s skills. Measurements are based on seven principles of good teaching that imply overall effective work in class: the purpose of the class, children’s speaking, reading and understanding of the topic, proper use of workbooks, assessments.

In France, research papers try to explore the benefits of using a portfolio for teachers (Michaud, 2010). Some associations, such as the foundation “La Main à la pâte” created a self-evaluation tool but there are usually complicated to implement on a large scale .

3. Fostering peer-to-peer learning to impact the community

Some initiatives aim at helping teachers realize their impact on the community: teacher’s actions can be the ones that jumpstart the global changes in education, and teachers are also the ones who can help parents, administrators or public policy-makers to embrace these changes. First step towards global shift in mindset is open discussion and exchange of ideas. To get tangible results in the civil society, teachers should bet on sharing practices and thoughts with their peers in order to achieve creative and realistic solutions .

An example of such initiative in France is a lifelong learning programme for teachers, Parcours Connectés by SynLab. It helps them develop interdisciplinary and soft skills (cooperation, critical thinking, creativity). This experiment is supported by several research laboratories, start-ups and an ESPE of Créteil (public school for teachers). Such research centers with focus on interdisciplinarity, open discussion about epistemology of learning and involvement of teachers in civil society issues might be an important step towards catalyzing innovation in education. Within Parcours Connectés, EtreProf.fr is a collaborative platform for teachers where they can share good practices and exchange on their expertise. Another example of efficient platform is the Community Tool of NewTech Network in Australia.

In Singapore, where teaching is highly respected, every year, teachers are evaluated on three dimensions: their contribution to the academic and personal development of students, their collaboration with the parents and the community, and their own contribution to the collective activities organized in school. Teachers who perform best in within this framework get a financial bonus. Through such multidimensional evaluation, teachers obtain a wider view on their learning experiences.

Peer-to peer exchange is a crucial factor to extend perception and reflection on learning experience for teachers. Education system should build learning environments that enable teachers to share their doubts, tricks, feelings with peers with respect and confidence. Open discussion with students, administrators and parents could reinforce teachers personal development as well. Some practical solutions to promote these practices are professional networks or pedagogical exchange programs (something like Erasmus for teachers allowing them to spend one year in a foreign school).

Opportunities and challenges in quantifying learning experiences for teachers

1. Opportunities

Quantify and measure what teachers learn, how they learn and why they learn could give us insights on how to improve the education system as a whole. This data could help create accurate training curriculum for teachers that is consistent with their needs and ambitions. In addition to that, it might allow administration and educational authorities to better detect and tackle problems encountered by teachers.

Measuring learning experience is an important tool for teachers to identify and use their personal skills in class. Structured feedback from the community, as well as their own reflection on their pedagogy is crucial for teachers to understand their strengths, use them better in class and also determine what to improve. Needless to say, teachers are more likely to enter and stay in teaching if they are working in a balanced and confidence-based environment.

Hence, taking a step back to reflect on their own learning path is a great opportunity for teachers to realize that they are also learners.

2. Challenges

However, quantifying teachers learning experience raises many challenges. First and foremost, changing the view of teachers on pedagogy is not easy : they are highly influenced by their personal experience and vision of education. Asking teachers to develop sophisticated knowledge and practices could be in opposition with what they experienced themselves as students.

Another challenge is that the existing education system is based on hierarchy, which doesn’t leave any space for teachers to share personal points of view or experiences about pedagogy. Fearing of being badly appreciated, teachers are isolated in their reflection, they tend to keep their ideas and doubts for themselves. Fostering communication among peers should be a priority, an open discussion is essential to make global changes in mindshift and create a new image of pedagogy (see the European Pestalozzi report).

It is very important to keep in mind what are the goals and consequences of quantifying learning experiences: balanced evaluation system should consider both opportunities and dangers of this practice. In addition to that, we should make sure that self-evaluation is not just another menial task for teachers: any time-consuming or unhandy tool will bring frustration rather than positive outcome.

Our recommendations

1. What to measure?

What kind of skills should be measured ? It’s very hard to define criteria that can be applied to everyone. As we mentioned before, teacher’s work demands constant adaptation to changing working environment. In addition to that, there is no single and universally accepted conception of what is an “efficient” way of teaching.

Here are some examples of competencies worth evaluating and/or reflecting on:

• Understanding of the topic taught;
• Animating and adapting their pedagogy to the class by:
• Finding ways to personalizing curriculum;
• Giving constructive feedback to students;
• Evaluating them fairly;
• Getting feedback from peers and sharing their experience and knowledge with them;
• Communicating with the administration and parents;
• Knowing the general state of the education system and policy.

The way to measure those points should also be personalized. Each teacher should define his/her own indicators of progress: how do they get insights from students, during class, after class, on specific feedback sessions? Do they focus their attention on lesson contents or on improving their interpersonal skills? Should they share their practices and self-evaluation through forums or databases ? How do they interact with other professionals?

With all this in mind, we should stress that quantifying and evaluating everything is not the one and only road to progress. It is important for teachers to be able to act outside this strict framework of judgement in order to set clear goals for improvement.

In this regard we should pay specific attention to peer-to-peer exchange, as this practice is majorly overlooked in education. Teachers can attend each other’s classes and organize a place where they could exchange their reflections on teaching. They could try to “think about how you would advise a new colleague about your practice, and the sources of information that you would use to inform your reflection”.

We also have to bring coaching and mentoring to teachers. Discussions with experienced teachers could provide young teachers with useful practices and objective feedback on their own performance. It is important for teachers community to be able to act outside the strict framework of evaluation in order to set clear goals for improvement.

It is possible to come up with tools to document these experiences, but we should make sure to focus on providing good learning practices rather than quantifying them.

2. Practical solutions

The use of digital tools in education is a widely discussed topic, partially because it is still important for teachers to rely on non-digital materials. In this regard a paper tool, that is portable, inexpensive and easy-to-use might be an practical solution to promote self-evaluation, reflection and documentation among teachers. It is important to make this practice engaging and relaxing, enabling teachers to reflect on their experience and motivating them to learn and improve. A paper tool that combines practices of a personal journal, and evaluation grid and a planner may qualify these needs.

At the same time, in order to jumpstart the transformation of education we need to make sure that these personal reflections are shared with the wider learning community, which means that there is a need for a digital platform for evaluation, feedback, peer-to-peer exchange and sharing resources. It is important to involve self-reflection and self-evaluation in the overall long-term evaluation of teachers, to improve global teaching (and learning) practices.

Conclusion

One of the most important thing is to change the mindset of the teachers and the community around.

Fostering reflection on their own practices along with peer-to-peer exchanges seems to be a good start. We need to foster teachers to be able to look at their experiences from a wider angle.

There is a need for an easy, inexpensive tools for self-evaluation and documentation for teachers, possibly a paper tool. However, we should consider a need to create a unified, most certainly digital tool for evaluation, peer-to-peer exchange and sharing pedagogical practices.

Evaluation of teachers should involve all actors of education, including teachers’ own reflection on their work. Triangulating evaluation is key to create a balanced educational system: “Too much weight can be given to a narrow range of evidence, for example students’ examination performance. Triangulating evidence from a number of sources, systematically incorporating classroom observations and using more than one evaluator will help ensure judgements are sound.”

We should make sure to involve the parents, students, administrators, experts in an open discussion about education in order to improve it in a way that fits the needs of every actor in the learning community.

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