A New Teacher Again—After Ten Years

Abstract

The author hypothesizes that modification of her behavior as a teacher will result in change of the behaviors, attitudes, and achievements of her pupils and that meeting the emotional needs of the children would result in their greater academic success. Guidelines were chosen from Indicators of Quality, an instrument for measuring classroom effectiveness, developed by the Institute of Administrative Research, Teachers College, Columbia University. Indicators presents forty criteria of quality teaching, including such items as knowledge of pupils, time for thinking, physical arrangement, patience, and pupil problems. The criteria are concerned with students’ emotional and physical well being as well as academic progress. One- or two-paragraph pupil descriptions, called vignettes, were written at the beginning and end of the eight-week study. Comparison of the pre- and post-vignettes showed that of the twenty-five children, nineteen improved notably in behavior, attitude, and/or academic achievement, and six showed little or no improvement; none regressed. In addition, the teacher had gained a greater sensitivity to and understanding of the children. The Slosson Reading Inventory was used at the beginning and end of the period. The mean gain in the eight-week period was 5.6 months, the greatest gain 2.5 years, and the smallest gain one month.