How useful are the views of public school students about their teachers? Quite useful, according to preliminary results rele

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问题     How useful are the views of public school students about their teachers?
    Quite useful, according to preliminary results released on Friday from a research project that is intended to find new ways of distinguishing good teachers from bad.
    Teachers whose students described them as skillful at maintaining classroom order, at focusing their instruction and at helping their charges learn from their mistakes are often the same teachers whose students learn the most in the course of a year, as measured by gains on standardized test scores, according to a progress report on the research.
    Financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the two-year project involves scores of social scientists and some 3,000 teachers and their students in districts such as New York and Pittsburgh.
    Statisticians began the effort last year by ranking all the teachers using a statistical method known as value-added modeling, which calculates how much each teacher has helped students learn based on changes in test scores from year to year.
    Thousands of students have filled out confidential questionnaires (秘密调查问卷) about the learning environment that their teachers create. After comparing the students’ ratings with teachers’ value-added scores, researchers have concluded that there is quite a bit of agreement.
    Classrooms where a majority of students said they agreed with the statement, "Our class stays busy and doesn’t waste time," tended to be led by teachers with high value-added scores, the report said.
    The same was true for teachers whose students agreed with the statement, "In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes."
    Few of the nation’s 15,000 public school districts systematically question students about then-classroom experiences, in contrast to American colleges, many of which collect annual student evaluations to improve instruction, Dr. Ferguson said.
    Until recently, teacher evaluations were little more than a formality (形式) in most school systems, with the vast majority of instructors getting top ratings, often based on a principal’s superficial impressions.
    But now some 20 states are overhauling their evaluation systems, and many policymakers have been asking the Gates Foundation for suggestions on what measures of teacher effectiveness to use, said Vicki L. Phillips, a director of education at the foundation.
    One notable early finding, Ms. Phillips said, is that teachers who incessantly (不停地) drill their students to prepare for standardized tests tend to have lower value-added learning gains than those who simply work their way methodically through the key concepts of literacy and mathematics.
What do we learn about colleges in the US from the passage?

选项 A、They never question students about the learning environment.
B、Their students tend to enjoy their classroom experiences more.
C、Their evaluation systems no longer have much real importance.
D、They effectively utilized students’ views about their teachers.

答案D

解析 根据题干中的colleges in the US将本题出处定位到第九段。该段提到,美国的15,000个公立学区中,很少有学区系统地调查学生的课堂体验,和美国大学的情况刚好相反,大学中有许多学校每年都收集学生对教师的评价以提高教学质量。由此可知,美国大学有效地利用了学生对他们老师的评价,故答案为[D]。[A]与原文意思相反,故排除;[B]属于过度推断;[C]是针对第十段前半句设的干扰项。
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