Rethinking Teacher Supervision and Evaluation: How to Work Smart, Build Collaboration, and Close the Achievement Gap

by Kim Marshall

In this important book, education expert Kim Marshall shows how to break away from the typical and often ineffective evaluation approaches in which principals use infrequent classroom visits or rely on standardized test scores to assess a teacher's performance. Marshall proposes a broader framework for supervision and evaluation that enlists teachers in improving the performance of all students. Emphasizing trust-building and teamwork, Marshall's innovative, four-part framework shifts the focus from periodically evaluating teaching to continuously analyzing learning. This book offers school principals a guide for implementing Marshall's framework and shows how to make frequent, informal classroom visits followed by candid feedback to each teacher; work with teacher teams to plan thoughtful curriculum units rather than focusing on individual lessons; get teachers as teams involved in low-stakes analysis of interim assessment results to fine-tune their teaching and help struggling students; and use compact rubrics for summative teacher evaluation. This vital resource also includes extensive tools and advice for managing time as well as ideas for using supervision and evaluation practices to foster teacher professional development.

Genres: Education, Leadership, Teaching, Grad School, School, Nonfiction, Professional Development

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2009

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Concepts are idealistic, but worthy of the investment!

[Michael Loveless · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rethinking Teacher Supervision had enough valuable information, that I'm glad I read it. I will be taking on some peer coaching responsibilities in the coming school year, so I read the book in search of some helpful ideas related to observation. Kim Marshall suggests that supervisors make it a point to do observations of only 5 minutes. He believes this amount of time is long enough to get a feel for the lesson, and keeping it short allows for many more observations. These short pop-ins also result in authenticity because teachers will be doing their real routine rather than a dog-and-pony show to impress the principal. Much of the book was aimed at principals and didn't apply directly to my situation, but I still felt like I learned enough that the book was worth my time.

[Renee Doucette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been revisiting this text (this time in its entirety) for a class. I can appreciate how honest Marshall is about his process, his experiences, and his recommendations to adjust our educational system to make it more effective. Some of his ideas are a bit outdated at this point, but this book provides a clear picture of the complexity of being an educational leader.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marshall does an outstanding job of laying out a very reasonable argument in favor of an evaluation structure based on more frequent mini observations rather than one or two stand alone observations in a school year. Very worthwhile.

[Jeremy Winaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept is great. The variety of rubrics is a bit overwhelming.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had some good nuggets of wisdom, but it was really wordy.

[Phoebe Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Observations should be done frequently. What gets monitored gets done. What the students are doing is how teachers should be evaluated.

[Diana Valdivia-Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book to read and learn about Teacher supervision and evaluation during a school year.

[Alex Bergland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the second edition version. Really great topic, loved the ideas. Great book.
Required reading for DU's masters class.

[Alabama Best Practices Center]

I just got this book in the mail and picked it up this morning. It will be a perfect companion to Instructional Rounds and Strategy in Action. Moreoever, from the introduction, it looks like a great resource for understanding and using the new EducateAlabama evaluation system.

Here are some excerpts from the introduction: "So while hiring and firing are tremendously important, this book will focus on strategies for supporting and improving the teachers (ranging from excellent to mediocre) who are in the classrooms now (p.xvi)."

"This book will present four closely linked strategies for principals: making short, unannounced classroom visits followed by one-on-one feedback conversations; participating much more actively in the curriculum planning process; working with teacher teams to analyze and follow up on interim assessment results; and using rubrics for end-of-year teacher evaluation. I believe these are the most effective ways for a principal to excercise instructional leadership and make a real difference at the classroom level (p. xvii)."

The author is a former teacher, principal and district staffer who spent 32 years in the Boston city schools

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book addresses the issues Principals face in a realistic way that inspired me to make changes to my practice. I have been feeling that the standard observation protocol is not a great use of anyone's time, and this book spoke directly to that! It was great to read about someone else struggling with the same issues and coming up with solutions. I am rereading this now to see what I can take from Marshall's experiences to make my own, that would work well with our school culture.

[Zoe Rind · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much like Kim Marshall himself, straight forward with a lot of good work for someone in the trenches, trying to make it happen. A few more artifacts would've been nice and there were fewer references to research than one might expect from the author of the Marshall Memo. Very easy to read(I read it pool side, for god sakes) and have already started to implement some of the ideas and frameworks.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting ideas and concepts in regards to supervision. Once again, however, the secondary perspective was over-looked 10 visits per classroom in a school that has over 100 teachers? Even with multiple administrators, Marshall's rubrics fail to provide ease of use for a "quick" 10-minute walk through.

[Lara Storm · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a principal, this book gave me practical suggestions for refining my classroom observation process (both formal and informal). Kim Marshall makes strong points about curriculum and unit planning that can be implemented without a lot of expensive. Administrators will need to find time for teachers to get the work done.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS was a great read. Very validating - the main focus was on evaluating and helping teachers with INSTRUCTION. It suggested ways to evaluate teaching instruction and help teachers as TEAMS work together to improve curriculum through unit planning, assessment/monitoring, and reteaching, while simultaneously respecting teaching styles and creativity.

[Aryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really phenomenal. I highly recommend this to anyone in a role of coaching. observing or supervising teachers. An uplifting approach to the work.

[Laurenschnaremahoney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great ideas and insights about the evaluation process and supervision.