19 Teacher Goals for Evaluation: Setting the Path to Professional Excellence

Teacher goals for evaluation are targets school administrators create to ensure teachers can effectively manage their students for better learning outcomes and their own career advancement.

Here are some common goals school administrators can set to help teachers achieve success in the classroom:

1. Nurture Creativity and Innovation

When teachers encourage students to explore and embrace new, creative ideas, it results in better retention of subject matter. Teachers can inspire learners by fostering a hands-on and professional learning environment that encourages students to ignite and nurture their innate creative abilities.

Based on this, school administrators can assess teachers based on whether they’ve created an inclusive and supportive educational setting that:

• Allows students to explore their ideas and interests;
• Improves student motivation, engagement, and achievement.

2. Integrate Modern-Day In-Demand Skills

Problem-solving, collaborative, and digital literacy skills are must-haves in a rapidly evolving 21st-century world. In this goal, teachers are required to think outside the box to find new and innovative ways of integrating these skills into their daily lesson plans.

School administrators can assess teachers based on the suite of software applications they’re familiar with and how they use them to improve student engagement.

3. Invite an Independent Observer to Teaching Sessions

Consider inviting a fresh set of eyes to evaluate a teacher as they teach can be very beneficial in getting a new perspective on the teacher’s teaching abilities and capabilities. Learning walks are a great way to include other teachers in the observation process. The goal of learning walks is to allow teachers to gather ideas from their colleagues to implement in their own classroom. This process focuses more on a sharing of ideas than an evaluation but is a useful tool for personal growth.

School administrators can sit in on teachers’ classroom sessions, offer personalized feedback, and provide the support they need to improve their technique in a way that promotes better student outcomes.

4. Keep Lectures Short to Keep Students Engaged

High school students have shorter attention spans than adults. Research has shown that some students instinctively tune out when teachers spend too much time talking. The same applies when teachers spend a lot of class time talking over a seemingly endless stream of slides on a projector screen.

School administrators can evaluate teachers based on the creative ways they can keep their students engaged and whether their teaching techniques embody different forms of communicative delivery.

5. Maintain Continued Professional Growth and Development

Learning never stops, especially for members of the teaching profession. Teachers looking to stay current in an ever-changing technological and social landscape must strive to grow and develop professionally.

In this goal, teachers are required to maintain continued professional development and growth. School administrators can evaluate them based on their participation in collaborative learning communities and attendance of educational webinars, conferences, and workshops. These forums are designed to expand teaching skills and advance teaching careers.

6. Make Student Outcomes a Priority

Teachers should work hard to maintain a laser-sharp focus on their teaching outcomes. Teachers and school administrators can work together to decide what these outcomes should be and devise goal-oriented strategies to help students achieve them.

7. Organize Classes to Deliver Maximum Output

Teaching is a demanding profession. Running classes at a high level requires a lot of preparation and active participation. Teachers and school administrators should work together to identify ways that classes can be structured to deliver the highest output in the most efficient way possible without compromising quality.

One relatively simple way to do this would be by getting teachers to teach a repeating class. That way, they can use their previously prepared lesson plan binder, read up on the content to refresh their minds, update and add to the material as required, and then focus on the most effective teaching strategies. This approach avoids burnout while allowing teachers to fine-tune their classes as needed.

8. Promote Critical Thinking Skills

One of the most important skills a teacher can impart to their students is the ability to think critically. The goal is to teach students how to analyze information and develop problem-solving skills to navigate different situations.

School administrators can evaluate teachers based on the learning experiences they set up and whether these experiences challenge students to think innovatively and critically. This approach offers a solid foundation for students to apply classroom concepts to the real world.

Simulations, debates, field trips, and group projects are a few techniques teachers can use to foster critical thinking skills among their students.

9. Request Feedback From Students

School administrators should regularly solicit feedback from students after class sessions. Engaging with students to find out what they think of the class, in general, is an excellent way to learn how students feel about the teacher and the learning environment.

Administrators can also issue formal written surveys to different classes halfway through the semester to get honest, anonymous feedback from students on how they feel about particular teachers.

It is worth noting that while student feedback is a great tool for teacher evaluation, the data should be reviewed with an objective eye. For instance, a student may state that an exam was graded unfairly when, in fact, they earned a low grade because they were unprepared.

10. Seek Honest Feedback From a Mentor

School administrators can introduce teachers to mentors who teach or have taught in their field to learn from their successes and failures. Mentors can provide honest and useful feedback on their teaching techniques, which can be useful for teacher evaluation.

11. Seek Out Active Collaborative and Participative Opportunities

In this teacher evaluation goal, teachers are required to get involved in their schools beyond their teaching role in the classroom. School administrators can assess teachers based on the committees they’ve joined, their regular attendance of faculty meetings, and their participation in student and community events.

These activities provide great opportunities for them to get to know their colleagues, the administration, and their students and help them feel like they’re a part of the larger academic and campus community.

12. Teach a Different Class

This goal requires teachers to stretch themselves and their abilities. School administrators can switch things up by getting teachers to teach a new class, preferably in an area slightly removed from their specialty, and evaluate them based on their performance.

13. Uphold Your Professional Teaching Standards

Successful teacher evaluation requires school administrators to continuously assess teachers’ professional and personal standards. These standards must be reasonable, appropriate, and aligned with the desired student outcomes.

14. Use Student Data to Derive Actionable Insights for Informed Decision-Making

By using appropriate student data, teachers and school administrators can derive valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of their students. This information can then be used to chart a class teaching plan, identify the areas students struggle with, devise effective course-correct strategies by adjusting teaching methods, and provide additional support where needed. Teachers can then be evaluated based on the effectiveness of these strategies.

15. Work Closely With Colleagues

Teachers collaborating with their colleagues allows them to exchange ideas, best practices, and resources, resulting in improved teaching methods and student outcomes. This goal requires teachers to be open to new approaches, proactively seek out new collaborative opportunities, and be willing to share their own acquired experience and expertise.

School administrators can evaluate teachers based on collaborative activities such as their participation in team-teaching classes, school-wide projects, and initiatives, regular in-person, drop-in, or online meetings, etc.

16. Improve Student Success Through Assessments

Through student assessments, teachers and school administrators can uncover areas  in which students require additional support and adapt lessons as needed.

17. Create a Positive and Inclusive Classroom Culture

For this goal, teachers can be required to proactively develop a welcoming and inclusive classroom atmosphere. That way, students can celebrate their diversity, foster positive relationships among themselves, and address any issues that might arise respectfully and constructively.

18. Use Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies

Teachers should be required to use research-backed teaching practices that have been tried and tested in the classroom and actively seek out opportunities for professional advancement. They should stay up-to-date on emerging educational research and industry best practices to continuously refine their teaching techniques.

19. Build Strong Relationships With Students and Families

Teachers should work on creating a strong support system that promotes student engagement by developing positive relationships with students and their families. School administrators can evaluate teachers based on parameters such as initiating communications with family members, having an open-door policy, and creating opportunities for feedback.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, teacher goals for evaluation should focus on positively impacting students to achieve the desired learner outcomes and advancing the careers of teaching professionals. The 19 goals detailed in this guide have been time-tested to deliver outstanding teacher evaluations.

Evaluation is a great tool teachers can leverage, and effective evaluation software helps schools document every step of the staff and teacher evaluation process to provide deep and meaningful insights that support data-backed actionable plans.

If your school is interested in new ways to improve the learning experience for children, you may also be interested in automating tasks and streamlining processes so that your teachers have more time to teach. Education Advanced offers a large suite of tools that may be able to help. For example, four of our most popular and effective tools are:

• Cardonex, our master schedule software, helps schools save time on building master schedules. Many schools used to spend weeks using whiteboards to organize the right students, teachers, and classrooms into the right order so that students could graduate on time and get their preferred classes. However, Cardonex can now be used to automate this task and deliver on average 90% of students' first-choice classes within a couple of days.
• TestHound, our test accommodation software, helps schools coordinate thousands of students across all state and local K-12 school assessments while taking into account dozens of accommodations (reading disabilities, physical disabilities, translations, etc.) for students.
• Pathways, our college and career readiness software, helps administrators and counselors create, track, and analyze graduation pathways to ensure secondary students are on track to graduate.
• Evaluation, our teacher evaluation software, documents every step of the staff evaluation process, including walk-throughs, self-evaluations, supporting evidence, reporting, and performance analytics.