Contrasting Tools for the Evaluation of Literacy Instruction

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

In this study we conducted a re-analysis of data from a video database of 4th and 8th grade English Language Arts (ELA) instruction compiled by the Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project. The MET Project has previously scored and rated videos in the database using three commercially available observation protocols that are frequently used as part of new state-level teacher evaluation policies under Race To the Top. As reports from the MET Project (2012) have noted, “Each [observation] instrument embodies a particular vision of effective instruction, reflected in the set of competencies on which it chooses to focus attention and how it defines proficiency in those competencies” (p. 8). The purpose of this study is to test the assumption of alignment between tools used to measure ELA instruction and existing understandings of effective ELA instruction.

Author

• Rachael Gabriel, University of Connecticut