Co-op teacher evaluations?

[purplelily]

Have you created a teacher evaluation form/survey for parents to fill out? This would be for a co-op to see how the teachers are doing with such questions as: is homework sent out on time, is the teacher prepared, etc... I am looking for ideas.

 

Thanks

[5LittleMonkeys]

I direct a co-op that supports 80 children.  Are you speaking of a true cooperative, or more of a tutorial?  I'm asking because, although I personally am very careful about guiding my parents towards leading classes I feel they are well suited to teach, or guiding them to be helpers, nursery workers or hall monitors if I feel they are not experienced enough to lead classes, and asking for informal feedback from the children and teachers,  they are all volunteers and I'm not sure how willing to teach they would be if they knew they were getting evaluated and critiqued by all the other parents.  My teachers rely on me to monitor their classrooms and point out any issues I might see, and I field any concerns or suggestions from parents (all the parents know they can come to me with any issues they feel uncomfortable going directly to the teacher with) and then work with the teacher one on one to improve conditions.  I'm not saying I believe an evaluation form filled out by parents is a bad idea...I've just never heard of it in a co-op situation where the teachers are all volunteering their time and resources.  Interesting.  

 

I'll be listening in to see what the responses are! :) 

 

[PeterPan]

I'll build on Aime's thoughts and say that the things that *should* come out through an evaluation/feedback process are likely to be things the parents aren't equipped to handle or do anything with (issues of teaching style, not using multiple modalities but only their preferred/pet modality, droning instead of interacting, etc.).  If you had a student teacher who was expecting criticism or a paid situation, they might be mentally ready to handle actual criticism.  Since most people live sort of at the edge of their lives anyway, they aren't really open to that or prepared to do anything about it.  That means you're more likely to offend them than help them.  

 

You might have some kind of preplanned feedback process where YOU as the leader go in and observe and let them know you're going to observe and that they're going to be given some feedback. Even then I'd keep it mainly positive and help them problem solve.

[Farrar]

If it's a true co-op, I would want to think about how evaluating the teachers like professionals might drive a few parents away. You're typically not getting paid much if anything and most people aren't expected to be professionals - that doesn't mean they shouldn't do a good job, just that the dynamics are different. I'd maybe make it an evaluation of the course, not the teacher, if it's parent run. I know the questions and information would be similar, but the focus of evaluating the course is the materials, the experience of the course, the assignments, etc. whereas the focus of evaluating the teacher is the delivery, the qualifications, the teacher as the architect of those materials and assignments. Having that removal helps for the parent teacher, I think.

[5LittleMonkeys]

Okay - coming back with some input from my parents\teachers.  

 

Of those I spoke with the consensus was that if they were going to get formally evaluated and critiqued by the other parents they wouldn't teach.  They don't get paid to teach and they spend a lot of their limited time and money to make their classes enjoyable and worth while for the children...if they had to worry about people nitpicking about their teaching style, whether they weren't rigorous enough, too rigorous, if they allowed the children too much freedom in expressing themselves, or not enough, yadda, yadda, it wouldn't be worth it to them.  They added that they not only wouldn't teach but wouldn't want to be part of a co-op that was that formal. (We are all very honest and open, and we normally just discuss openly issues that arise.) They much prefer our system of parents coming directly to them with individual concerns, and then coming to me for arbitration if they aren't able to resolve an issue.

 

 I do informally monitor classrooms and on rare occasions have made suggestions to teachers to help them better manage certain students or to better teach a concept to a group of students who I know have a certain learning style. That takes time and effort on my part to know each of my parents and know each of our students though, and I know some co-ops might be too large for one person to be able to be that involved on such a personal level. 

 

If you could give more detail about your co-op then we'd be able to help you figure out a system of making sure your classes are functioning well.