Linking job-embedded professional development and mandated teacher evaluation: teacher as learner

Abstract

This study explores the link between individualized, job-embedded professional development and teacher evaluation. Moreover, the study explores and describes job-embedded strategies that principals used to facilitate teacher development while working within a state-mandated evaluation system. The theoretical frame utilized four elements of job-embedded learning for analysis: teacher as learner-centered, community-centered, assessment-centered and knowledge-centered. Using qualitative methods, interviews were conducted with 28 K–12 principals drawn from a wide and diverse geographic area of the state of Tennessee in the United States. Findings indicate that principals most frequently implemented teacher-as-learner concepts at all K–12 levels. The findings also indicate that professional development under teacher-evaluation accountability was integrated into existing structures. The authors conclude that principals clearly wanted teachers to succeed in the new evaluation system and provided multiple opportunities for learning how to demonstrate mastery of the rubric criteria. The authors propose that a new evaluation system should be both a vehicle for teacher learning through job-embedded professional development and a way of assisting teachers in mastering new evaluation components.