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ten include changes in the teaching process to enhance learning. The process of reflect- ing on your teaching is very time consum- ing and can be quite difficult, but the ad- vantages seem to outweigh the difficulties: Abundant evidence… indicates that


a thoughtful approach to teacher evalua- tion—one that engages teachers in reflec- tion and self-assessment—yields benefits far beyond the important goal of quality assurance. Such an approach provides the vehicle for teacher growth and development by providing opportunities for professional conversation around agreed-upon standards of practice.”3


This type of reflective process has be-


come a relatively consistent part of learning to teach and many pre-service teachers are entering the field with a means of making this happen. The ability for us to articulate and share these reflections with others may hold a key to helping our colleagues and administrators evaluate our work more ef- fectively.


Themes From Multifaceted Evaluations Most of those involved with teacher


evaluation understand that teaching is a highly complex and challenging thing to do. Which, in turn, makes the evaluation of a teacher’s work equally difficult (if not more so!). Some argue that by incorporating a balanced, multi-measure approach using information collected from some combina- tion of student outcomes, observations and narratives, we may get the best picture of


a teacher’s impact on student learning. Of course, the question then falls to how we might define that “balance.” While most recent research seems to be suggesting that an equitable distribution of the facets (test- ing/outcomes, observations, student evalua- tions) seems to be the most reliable, it also implies that the least effective model is one that is wholly based on the observation of student work. Music educators should care- fully monitor the weighting of each piece of these types of evaluations and, in my opin- ion, be armed with a model that they feel would best support their growth and devel- opment needs.


Be Involved, Stay Informed! To me, evaluation should always be


about the process of gathering and weighing evidence that informs us about the changes we need to make to improve something. While that may seem simple, the issue be- comes much more challenging when we think about the complexities of teaching music and the very definition of what con- stitutes music teacher effectiveness. To that end, we must keep music teacher evaluation at the top of our agenda, coordinate efforts of research and experimentation and, most importantly, share our findings to determine the best means to meeting the call for ac- countability and advancing our profession. The Society for Music Teacher Educa- tion (SMTE) is engaged with


research,


discussions, analysis, and a variety of proj- ects that not only address the concerns re- lated to teacher evaluation, but also those


of preparing music educators to work in this educational climate. I encourage you to visit SMTE’s page (http://smte.us) on the website of the National Association for Music Education, where you will find links to our teacher evaluation portal. You are al- ways welcome to contact SMTE’s national or your state SMTE leadership with com- ments, thoughts, or ideas about how we can work together to continue the dialogue.


Notes


National Education Association, “Promoting and Implementing: The National Education Association Policy Statement on Teacher Evaluation and Accountability,” NEA Toolkit, 2012. http://www.nea.org/assets/ docs/2011NEA_Teacher_Eval_Toolkit. pdf.


Samuel Hope, Assessment on Our Own Terms,” Arts Education Policy Review 114, no. 1 (2013): 4. Charlotte Danielson, “Evaluations that Help Teachers Learn.” The Effective Educator 68, no. 4 (2011): 39.


Doug Orzolek is chair of the Society for Music


Teacher Education of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) and an associate pro- fessor of music education at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He can be reached at dcorzolek@stthomas.edu. This article, © 2013, is printed with permission of the author.


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Music Education • Orchestrating Success


OCTOBER 2013


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