Teaching Quality in Colombia: Reflections From 20 Years Awarding a Best Teacher Prize

• In Event: Investigating Teacher Quality Around the World

Abstract

Objectives or purposes: Teacher quality is one of the most important school factors that contributes to student learning (Author, 2000; Chetty, Friedman & Rockof, 2014; Hanushek and Rivkin, 2006). Yet, there is significant variation within and across countries on what effective teaching looks like (Author, 2000; Author, 2013; Danielson, 2003; Stecher et al, 2018). By examining teaching quality in Colombia, our study contributes to debates around defining and measuring teacher effectiveness (Bacher-Hicks et al, 2017).

Data sources and evidence: We used data from Fundación Compartir (FC), a Colombian NGO that for 20 years has awarded an annual set of prizes to the best teachers in the country. Every year, FC receives over 1000 proposals from teachers and, after internal evaluation, selects 50 teachers who are then visited in their schools by FC personnel. FC evaluators conduct interviews with parents, students, school principals, and teachers as well as observe and score classroom teaching. As a result, three semi-finalists, six finalists, and one grand winner are chosen every year. These data, preserved over the last 20 years, comprise our data set.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: We coded and analyzed applicant proposals, subsequent evaluator interviews, and classroom observations from nineteen winners over 20 years of the award and 30 runners-up along several etic categories related to professional identity and teacher practice. We also coded and analyzed the evaluation materials themselves and interviewed key personnel involved in the award, past and present.

Results: Our analysis found that 90% of the winning teachers focused first on student learning and then moved backwards to adjust their own teaching. We found that the majority of awarded teachers locate responsibility for improvement on them—not on the family, school, or community. We found two ubiquitous characteristics of awardees’ teaching practices: (a) student-centered activities and (b) classroom practices aimed at critical thinking. Among the student-centered activities, 84% had a direct connection to students’ lived contexts and 58% entailed student-led projects. In rural areas, projects commonly involved work with the community designed to impact not only student learning but also the community itself. Another typical characteristic was that awardees (68%) focused on strategies that privilege student diversity. All awardees stressed the importance of collaborating with other teachers and principals, which leads to the question of whether effective teaching is a collective rather than individual attribute. Finally, we analyzed sociodemographic data from all 25,000 teachers who applied for the teacher award and will present findings regarding the probability of winning in terms of gender, urban/rural, years of experience and professional preparation.

Significance of study: Our paper shares results of having used mixed-methods procedures to deeply examine those teaching practices, professional dispositions, and aspirational goals that FC—and by extension, decision-makers in Colombia—hold for teaching excellence. The paper also discusses relationships between educational reform in Colombia and aspects of teacher quality prioritized in this prize, as well as raises methodological issues about using innovatively existing data sets to study teacher quality.

Authors

• Sandra Garcia, Universidad de los Andes

• Brad Olsen, The Brookings Institution