Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 99 posts

Re: Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

#31

Post by jonknee »

edtechdev wrote: post #26

This work is valuable, but I personally would like to put more focus on improving teaching and learning - helping teachers do better, helping students do better, creating better learning environments and curricula. For example the budget of this study came out to about $15000 per teacher. What if instead we spent $5000 of that for professional development / training for the teacher, $5000 for a classroom set of chrom…

Because this was a study, the money spent has little to do with the individual subjects. If pollster calls me for a a national opinion poll I would rather be paid 1/1000 of whatever the budget was than answer the questions, but obviously my participation is more helpful overall.

The goal was to identify what actually works, which is something you need to know before improving the situation. Paying a bad teacher more will not make the education provided any better (despite whatever the teacher's union says).

Re: Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

#32

Post by roguecoder »

the_bear wrote: post #17

It's common for people who received good educations to say that test scores aren't an acceptable indication of learning. It's probably true that if you already have an acceptable level of education, test scores shouldn't be too important, but it seems like the people criticizing test scores haven't experienced what education is like for the children being "left behind." In middle school, the last three weeks of each…

Except that even those things don't predict later success. Any kid with a family that can afford books will score higher on "can this kid read English". Any kid who's been drilled can learn to multiply two numbers together. Without cognitive skills behind them, though, those are not useful abilities.

The best predictors of future success are self-control, emotional intelligence and a grasp of functional algebra (which I believe, but don't have evidence to support, is because of the importance of computational and systems-level thinking.) Only one of those, self-control, is even indirectly measured by current standardized tests.

Re: Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

#33

Post by jonknee »

axelfreeman wrote: post #5

"We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher" They've figured out that a "good" teacher can repeat the process of success (whatever this is), there is no information how he made it. The headline is slightly misleading.

The good news is they have video of good teachers (and bad) at their craft for years. It will take more analysis, but they have all the data at the ready.

Re: Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

#34

Post by Mvandenbergh »

crusso wrote: post #15
gnosis wrote: post #13

There are many important factors which teachers (no matter how good they are) can't control: 1. How wealthy, poor, educated, or uneducated a child's parents are. 2. How many resources the school and teacher are given. 3. Whether a child's parents are abusing them at home. 4. Whether a child is witnessing violence, hopelessness, despair in their neighborhood. 5. The attitude of a child's family and friends towards edu…

And at my job, there are many factors out of my control. I don't control the home life of my engineers. I don't control my customers' decision making processes. I don't control my competitors' actions in the market. But yet I'm judged on the small slice of that overall pie that I can control. What this study indicates is that there are teachers who can reproducibly create success levels given the control of the situa…

You may not control the home life of your engineers, but you presumably have at least some control over who you hire and fire. Even if you don't have the authority to fire someone directly you can still give your subordinates poor evaluations.

Imagine being a situation where not only did you not have any control over which engineers worked on your team - or even whether they were engineers at all, or even basically literate. Now imagine that your whole industry pretty much worked liked that and that changing from one company to another (which most likely worked the same way) always meant moving cities.

Incidentally, what they did in this study is to measure the value-addition of each teacher, not their raw test scores. Presumably you're not evaluated based on things you have absolutely no control over, as you said - you get judged based on the slice of the pie that you do control.

Re: Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

#35

Post by coob »

madaxe wrote: post #11

"Test scores" Brilliant. Well, yes, that is the best way to measure a teacher's efficacy, if your goal is to teach students to jump through hoops and pass standardised tests rather than to think. The best teacher I ever had was my grandmother - she taught me the most important lessons I'd ever learn, such as: "Observe the world around you." "Reach your own conclusions." "What was fact yesterday may be fiction tomorro…

Did you read the article? It didn't use just standardised test scores.

Re: Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

#36

Post by crusso »

mac1175 wrote: post #24
crusso wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And at my job, there are many factors out of my control. I don't control the home life of my engineers. I don't control my customers' decision making processes. I don't control my competitors' actions in the market. But yet I'm judged on the small slice of that overall pie that I can control. What this study indicates is that there are teachers who can reproducibly create success levels given the control of the situa…

I think relativism does play a role on outcomes regardless of the parallels you are drawing here. However, you do make a point on a person's competence based on how well they can handle a situation but I don't think you can group one's role as a teacher being equal as one's role as a lead engineer.

I don't think you can group one's role as a teacher being equal as one's role as a lead engineer.

Why not? Government run education is pathetic. Incentives are all out of whack, there's no competition between teachers or schools that can affect the status quo.

Teachers could use a huge dose of whatever it is that the more competitive business world has to deal with.

Re: Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

#37

Post by crusso »

gnosis wrote: post #21
crusso wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And at my job, there are many factors out of my control. I don't control the home life of my engineers. I don't control my customers' decision making processes. I don't control my competitors' actions in the market. But yet I'm judged on the small slice of that overall pie that I can control. What this study indicates is that there are teachers who can reproducibly create success levels given the control of the situa…

That's a very legitimate question. How can teachers do the best with the resources they're given and the the children they're working with, no matter how threadbare the resources are, and no matter how traumatized and disadvantaged their students are? Whether standardized tests have a role in answering that question or in evaluating teacher performance is hotly debated right now. But the purpose of my original post w…

How can society as a whole ensure that every child gets the best education possible?

Step one, define "best education possible". Step two, learn to measure whether or not a child is getting one (or the closest you can come to it). Step three, maximize some aggregate or regionalized version of your measurements through restructuring of school systems, rewards for good schools and teachers, etc.

The study in this article is just gets us to step two. It looks like you're wanting to discuss step three. That's a different can of worms.

Re: Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

#38

Post by Mvandenbergh »

crusso wrote: post #25
madaxe wrote: post #11

"Test scores" Brilliant. Well, yes, that is the best way to measure a teacher's efficacy, if your goal is to teach students to jump through hoops and pass standardised tests rather than to think. The best teacher I ever had was my grandmother - she taught me the most important lessons I'd ever learn, such as: "Observe the world around you." "Reach your own conclusions." "What was fact yesterday may be fiction tomorro…

I don't really understand the visceral reaction against testing in this HN thread. You're tested throughout your working life. Almost every job interview is a test. Giving a customer presentation is a test. Finding bugs in your software for a release date is a test. Memorizing that big Cheesecake Factory menu so you can wait tables is a test. Getting your General Contractor's license is a test. Getting certified as a…

Job interviews are a good example of a kind of testing that we know doesn't work all that well but we keep around for lack of a better alternative.

The others are not good examples because they are useful in-and-of themselves. Giving good presentations and finding bugs are useful because they are useful, not because they predict something else.

Pilot's licenses, like driver's licenses are based on tests where you more or less do the thing that you're being tested on. The test and the thing that it's supposed to measure are very similar and we can therefore use it to predict performance. In cases like that "teaching to the test" doesn't exist because practicing for the activity and for the test is the same thing.

I'm not denying that educational testing is useful to quantify progress but such tests are often different enough from the underlying activity they're intended to measure that effort spent preparing for the test has little other purpose.

Re: Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

#39

Post by crusso »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #20
crusso wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or do we educate so people are actually more well rounded, have a better grasp of the world around them, and do better as adults? I think we're all for this type of metric. The problem is that no one has yet been able to show a teacher's ability to achieve that. So you're against testing. What metrics are you for? Do we at least agree that without any sort of metric to judge a good teacher vs a bad teacher that the w…

I don't have the answers. I'm not even against testing. I've just seen the kind of damage overemphasis on testing can do to education and want to see it end. When tests become a core part of how you judge someone's worth as an educator that educator is going to put all of their efforts into better test scores. The question is do test scores mirror the quality of education or do test scores just tell you someone's pot…

Well jeeeeeez! RTFA?

Testing is just one part of a three-pronged approach that the foundation is recommending. The other prongs involve classroom evaluations and student feedback.

Re: Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher

#40

Post by nnnnnnnninnnnnn »

crusso wrote: post #15
gnosis wrote: post #13

There are many important factors which teachers (no matter how good they are) can't control: 1. How wealthy, poor, educated, or uneducated a child's parents are. 2. How many resources the school and teacher are given. 3. Whether a child's parents are abusing them at home. 4. Whether a child is witnessing violence, hopelessness, despair in their neighborhood. 5. The attitude of a child's family and friends towards edu…

And at my job, there are many factors out of my control. I don't control the home life of my engineers. I don't control my customers' decision making processes. I don't control my competitors' actions in the market. But yet I'm judged on the small slice of that overall pie that I can control. What this study indicates is that there are teachers who can reproducibly create success levels given the control of the situa…

You do however get to control who your engineers are. It's rather difficult for a teacher to "fire" a student.
Post reply on HN