Testing New Ways to Recognize What Makes a Good Teacher
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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
In recent years, Bill Gates has given [A]financial[/A] support to improve American education.
Late last year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Measures of Effective Teaching project. The project tests new ways to [A]recognize[/A] what makes a good teacher.
Its goal is to help educators and [A]policymakers[/A] identify and support good teaching.
The study is being carried out in public school systems in seven American cities. Thousands of teachers [A]volunteered[/A] to take part. They agreed to have their classes recorded on video, but only for [A]observation[/A] by expert researchers.
Last spring, the project collected digital videos of thirteen thousand [A]lessons[/A] in the classrooms taught by the teachers. They were in grades four through nine.
Researchers also collected [A]information[/A] from students. They asked students to report their opinions of each teacher's classroom. Students were also tested in [A]mathematics[/A], English and biology.
Officials recently released early [A]results[/A] of the project study. The report says teachers' past success in raising student scores on state tests is one of the strongest [A]signs[/A] of their ability to do so again. This is known as a teacher's "value-added."
The teachers with the highest value-added scores on state tests also help students understand math or show reading ability.
The results also say students know effective teaching when they [A]experience[/A] it. The students gave comments on whether or not their teachers cared about them. They also gave opinions on how much teachers controlled or managed student [A]behavior[/A] in the classroom.
The report found that classrooms where students reported positive experiences were more likely to show [A]greater[/A] learning gains.
Another finding shows that combining different sources of information helps [A]administrators[/A] provide better comments and [A]suggestions[/A] to teachers. In many cases, administrators had been basing their comments on student test scores only.
The Measures of Effective Teaching [A]project[/A] continues through twenty twelve when final results will be [A]released[/A]. Researchers plan to test a new [A]measure[/A] that examines what a teacher knows about how to teach a subject. Experts say these findings could also help create better training and [A]development[/A] for teachers.
