Seminar Paper Improving Teacher Quality to a Greater Teacher Performance

Teacher quality matters. In fact, it is the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement.

There is remarkably little research to guide such critical decisions as whom to hire, retain, and promote. In the absence of a strong, robust, and deep body of research, the debate in this field is largely ideological.

There are so many research and changes had been done for this sake. Take this for example.

One research shows that teacher’s verbal or intellectual aptitude correlates with better student achievement. Research also shows that teacher’s knowledge of specific subject matter particularly at the secondary level, is a good predictor of student achievement.

While impact on student achievement is the most important measure of teacher quality, the relation of these traits to student performance is also important for policy makers to keep in mind when crafting policies to boost teacher quality.

Another research has demonstrated that teacher’s quality is the most important educational factor predicting student achievement (Ferguson, 1998; Hanushek, Kain, and Rirkin, 1999).

Although studies have produced contradictory findings about which attributes of teachers are most likely to translate into effective classroom performance, some information on how specific teacher attributes correlate with teacher quality is available, and it can help guide administrators hiring decisions.

They have to look into the indicators of quality teacher. To mention – teacher degree level; teacher preparation: pedagogical versus content knowledge; teacher licensure; teacher years of experience; and the teacher’s academic proficiency.

In her analysis of teacher preparation and student achievement across states, Darling-Hammond (2000) reports that “measures of teacher preparation and certification are by far the strongest correlates of student achievement in reading and mathematics, both before and after controlling for student poverty and language status.”

She contends that measures of teacher quality are more strongly related to student achievement than other kinds of educational investments such as reduced class size, overall spending on education, and teacher salaries.

Researchers, who must rely on measurable outcomes, tend to define effective teachers as those whose students show statistically significant gains on reading and mathematics achievement tests. The researchers then identify teaching behaviors correlated with these gains.

Other, more subjective qualities have been associated with effective teaching. These include positive expectations, inspirational leadership, and a wide repertoire of teaching skills and motivational techniques.

An essential attribute of good teaching is therefore sound judgment and good sense—qualities that cannot be reduced to finite, measurable skills. Established criteria for teacher competency can at best delineate what is necessary, but sufficient, for effective teaching.

Therefore, teachers’ quality can be tested and develop before they are exposed to teaching roles.

Let’s take for example the teacher preparation, authorities and officials can set rules that aspiring teachers should undergo the proper trainings and exposure to the classroom before he/she will be hired as a professional teacher.

Teachers’ quality can also be tested by continuing the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET), teacher certification and other competency test.