Research On Teacher Evaluation In The New Course Reform

Since the beginning of the New Course Reform in China, all experiment districts at different levels have been trying their best to fulfill the requirements put forth in the Outline of the New Course Reform, to develop new functions of evaluation in enhancing the improvement of students, teachers and the teaching practice, in contrast with those of differentiating and selecting in the past. For the time being, however, the reform of teacher evaluation has lagged behind.Teacher evaluation is a very important part of course evaluation. It has been proved that if teachers have to use a new method to evaluate students, they themselves have to get familiar with the new method and to have faith in it. The best way for teachers to familiarize with the new method is to let them take part in it themselves; and the best way for them to have faith in it is to let them succeed themselves. As a matter of fact, all the changes in the training goals of students in the New Course Reform suggest changes for the evaluation of teachers. Therefore, the fulfillment of all requirements set by the New Course Reform relies on the improvement of teachers' professional knowledge and teaching ability.This paper starts from the reform of teacher evaluation to discuss ways to fulfill the requirements of the New Course Reform. Chapter 1 introduces the theory of teacher evaluation, and points out that teacher evaluation is a kind of value judgment. Chapter 2 first makes a contrast between developmental teacher evaluation prevailing in western countries and reward-punishment teacher evaluation in China, and then suggests that teacher evaluation in the New Course Reform should break the "Plateau Phenomenon" in teachers' career development. Chapter 3 briefly introduces several evaluation methods, and then suggests that teacher evaluation should start at the very beginning of teaching activities; evaluation on teachers should be within a certain period and should be made on the base of how much they have realized their goals, combined with commentary classifications of the school and remarks of hopes for teachers, etc. These methods may be the new direction for teacher evaluation in future educational reform.