Teacher Evaluation: A Qualitative Study on Growth-Producing Practices in K-8 Schools

Literature on teacher evaluation describes a flawed system that evokes wide-ranging attempts to “get it right”. This qualitative study is another effort that seeks to understand its legal and traditional constructs. The goal of this research is to identify growth-producing practices that will transform teacher evaluation into an organic and sustainable process that promotes professional growth. Through the interview study design, 26 administrators and teachers shared their perceptions on growth-producing teacher evaluation practices in individualized 60-minute in-depth interviews. The findings revealed that administrators’ over adherence to rules and legal structures limits the process into mere compliance which challenges the growth-model. Teachers’ perceptions centered on feedback as a key element in improving practice, and on the effectiveness of the evaluation tool and the evaluator as pivotal elements in teachers’ professional growth. The overarching theme targeted a collaborative culture that would thrive in a Constructivist Professional Community (CPC), a conceptual framework that was envisioned at the initial stage of the study, and later confirmed to be a feasible teacher evaluation model based on the study’s findings. Linda Lambert’s Constructivist leadership theory and Wenger’s theory on Communities of Practice guided the formulation of the CPC Model. This study proposes a transformational culture that conforms with constructivist practices