Courtney Bell

Title: What we see depends on how we look:  The assessment of teaching in socio-cultural context

Abstract

Every time we observe a lesson or create a rating of teaching, we are “assessing” teaching.  Assessment is a complex enterprise.  In addition to the issues that readily come to mind when we think of assessment – e.g., the degree to which an instrument captures the complexity of teaching, the meaning of scores, rater reliability, and the consequences associated with assessments --  stakeholders frequently do not agree on the goals of assessing teaching.  In this talk I will describe four metaphors for understanding assessments of teaching: assessment as a cultural practice, a feedback loop, an evidentiary argument, and measurement.  I will show how the use of different metaphors draws attention to various aspects of our work, which has implications for what we study and how we carry out research on teaching.  I will also use these metaphors to better understand why researchers, policy makers, and practitioners often have incompatible views of how to gather and use teaching assessment data. 

About the author

Courtney Bell, Principal Research Scientist in ETS’s Global Assessment Center, completed her doctorate at Michigan State University (U.S.A.) in Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy after earning her B.A. in Chemistry at Dartmouth College (U.S.A.).  A former high school science teacher and teacher educator, Courtney’s research looks across actors in the educational system to better understand the intersections of research, policy and practice.  Her studies use mixed-methods to analyze the measurement of teaching and the validity of measures of teaching quality, especially observational measures. Current and recent studies investigate how administrators learn to use a high stakes observation protocol, how raters use subject specific and general protocols, how measures of teaching compare across countries, and the ways in which observation protocols capture high quality teaching for students with special needs.  She has published in a variety of scholarly journals and also co-edited the 5th Edition of the American Educational Research Association’s Handbook of Research on Teaching.

Published Apr. 24, 2019 12:55 PM - Last modified June 21, 2019 10:06 AM