Adapting the Ontario teacher performance appraisal manual to video-based teacher assessment / by Eric Fredrickson.

Abstract

This study asks if a teacher appraisal tool, the Ontario "Teacher Performance Appraisal Manual" (TPAM) can be modified toward the assessment of pre-service teacher competencies as viewed in archived videoconference lessons. Seven pre-service teachers worked in small groups to deliver the same lesson two times (six lessons were delivered in total) from a Education to six groups of two or three grade seven and eight Science students in a regular classroom. The lessons were archived to video compact disc (VCD). The researcher worked with two Education professors to develop an initial modification of the TPAM, a modification that they felt was suited to video-based assessment. The modified scale was provided to a group of five principals along with a VCD of one of the videoconference lessons. Feedback provided by the principals was used to confirm the suitability o f the scale and to modify it further. A re-modified scale was sent to the same group of principals along with five VCD lessons. The principals’ feedback regarding the re-modified scale suggested that further modification was not required. Three lines of evidence are presented to support the argument that modification of the TPAM was successfully accomplished; the nature of the indicators of the modified scale conforms to expectations derived from the literature review, principals (experts in the use of the TPAM for teacher performance assessment) rated the utility of each of the scale’s indicators as being suited or highly-suited to video-based assessment, the principals were able to use the modified scale to assess performance in archived videoconference lessons.