Monday, September 12, 2011

Incentivizing Teachers by Melissa Queyquep

TFFT-Star High School Teacher Incentive Program

In an effort to make sure the teachers implement the key points from the teachers training in June 2011, TFFT has cooked up a program where teachers are incentivized for their efforts to improve quality of instruction in their classrooms.

Starting October, TFFT and SHS will be conducting monthly in-classroom observations, evaluating the teachers against a range of criteria including lesson planning, use of teaching aids, and incorporation of group work and other participatory techniques in their lessons, and from the observation results select the best performing teacher of the month. The “Teacher of the Month” will be awarded a certificate (framed and displayed in the Faculty Room) and a book of their own choosing. The real reward, however, goes to the students who we hope will reap the benefits of improved classroom experiences.

It is hoped that injecting friendly competition among the teachers and recognizing their efforts to improve would increase their motivation and get them excited about their work. This is in recognition of the observation that aside from the Big 3* among the “Why-It-Would-NOT-Work” reasons we usually get during discussions with teachers, what hampers implementation of what they learned from the training is lack of motivation.

The monitoring team from TFFT and Star High School will also conduct post-observation conference with the teachers to discuss the results of the observation and to suggest improvements. Goal setting will also be part of the conference, with the teacher setting goals for their professional improvement, which will then be revisited in subsequent observations.

* Big 3: Overcrowded syllabus, lack of resources, lack of time for planning due to too heavy teaching load

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love how this idea developed and I'll be interested to see how it works at SHS and moving forward as a model with other partner schools. Best of luck!