Total teacher effectiveness: new conception and improvement

Based on the traditional conception of teacher effectiveness, proposes three strategies for improving it: short-term, long-term and dynamic strategies. Argues that the dynamic strategy is preferable, but that all of them have strong limitations because they ignore the complexity of teacher effectiveness and narrow the concept to the individual teacher, particularly in a classroom context. Proposes a new conceptual framework of total teacher effectiveness, whereby the total quality of the teacher competence layer contributes to the total quality of the teacher performance layer and the latter contributes to the total quality of the student learning experience layer and then to the quality of the student learning outcomes layer. Explains that the framework suggests a holistic approach to improving teacher effectiveness with the emphasis on the improvement of whole layers of teacher competence and performance instead of fragmentary improvement of teaching behaviour. Advises that in order to ensure total layer quality and maximize teacher effectiveness, a congruence development cycle should be established within the teacher layers to ensure congruence and pursue total teacher effectiveness. Suggests that the proposed conceptual framework can provide a new direction for studying and improving teacher effectiveness in particular and school effectiveness in general. Teacher effectiveness is often a major issue in current movements of education reform and school improvement. No matter which wave of reform we are riding on, it is generally agreed that the teacher is the key element for the success of school education[1-3]. Traditional studies on teacher effectiveness focus largely on the performance of individual teachers in classrooms. This narrow conception of teacher effectiveness has its limitations and can no longer meet the needs of changing school environments, particularly when parents and the public are demanding high quality in school education. In the last two decades, in order to improve the performance of teachers, policy-makers, teacher training institutions and schools have designed and implemented a great number of innovations in teaching techniques, methodologies and supervision. In Hong Kong, although a huge amount of resources had been invested into educational reforms initiated by a number of educational policies in the past decade[4], the performance of students as a whole was declining at a significant rate. The policymakers and the public began to be aware of the importance of teacher performance students’ educational outcomes and tried to make policy efforts for improving teacher quality and effectiveness[3]. Inevitably, there is an urgent need to understand the complex nature of teacher effectiveness and to develop new strategies to improve it if we wish to achieve better student learning outcomes. Therefore, this paper aims to establish a framework for understanding the nature and development of teacher effectiveness. This paper will first review and identify the strategies and their limitations for improving teacher effectiveness that are based on traditional concepts. Then it will develop a framework of total teacher effectiveness, for understanding the process and development of teacher effectiveness, including multi-levels and multi-domains, to understand the complex nature of teacher effectiveness in school organization. It is hoped that this framework can bring a holistic approach to studying and improving teacher effectiveness. Traditional concepts of teacher effectiveness