Improving the Assessment of Practice Teaching: a criteria and standards framework

ABSTRACT

The assessment of practice teaching is a problematic activity in teacher education. Those charged with the responsibility of making such assessments have had to address issues of what to assess, at what level is the student performing, and how to communicate such assessments to the student teacher in a developmental context. This paper reports on a two‐stage development process of a criteria and standards framework for assessing final year practice teaching. Initially, a framework which identified criteria and standards of performance was developed and trialled with 20 supervising teachers who were interviewed after the practice teaching period. Following further development, the framework was again trialled with 24 teachers who were also subsequently interviewed. The teachers reported that the framework was a useful instrument both for assessing students’ practice teaching performance and for providing more specific feedback to students about their current level of performance and the targets for future development.