How to evaluate your teaching performance

The word “Evaluation” has connotations of excellence and enhancement. Therefore, quality evaluation is a regular norm in any profession, with teaching being no exception. Teaching profession is not only associated with imparting knowledge but also building tomorrow’s citizens and imbibing value in them. Naturally, quality evaluation holds paramount importance in this profession.

A teacher can achieve the following objectives by evaluating his/her performance on a regular basis.

• To measure his/her teaching standards
• To identify the area (s) of improvement
• To devise/alter his/her teaching practice
• To ensure professional enhancement

Some proven methods of performance evaluation are as follows:

• Self-monitoring: Self-monitoring is a constant method that teachers can do on their own at the time of teaching. This process should be followed constantly so that teachers can easily find out the areas of improvement and work on those areas. However, this method is much prone to biases and misinterpretations. It is likely that a teacher can misinterpret his/her students’ response.
• Recordings: Teachers can leverage modern technologies while evaluating their performance. While teaching, teachers can record their sessions. Later, they can check those recordings to analyze their teaching practices. However, this method also has its own limitation. It is true that teachers can examine their teaching methods by analyzing audio or video recordings. But they cannot judge the impact of their teaching on students. This process won’t show whether they have been able to explain the subject clearly to their students.
• Students’ feedback: Don’t hesitate to take your students’ help while evaluating your performance. No doubt, students’ feedback will enable you to assess your teaching capability more effectively. You can collect students’ feedback either through questionnaires or through interviews. However, students’ bias, many a time, makes this method very inefficient.
• Students’ results: Analyzing students’ exam results is a good way of evaluating your teaching performance. Be it simple class tests or final examination results, students’ results bear testimony to their as understanding of a particular subject, thereby vindicating the quality of your teaching.

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