Don't look at the number of papers, don't look at the impact factor——
What should primary and secondary school teachers look at when evaluating their professional titles
"For a long time, there has been a misunderstanding in the basic education circle. When talking about the achievements of teachers, the first thing to think about is papers; when talking about a lot of achievements, it depends on the number of papers. In fact, achievements are not equal to papers, and some papers are even of low value. "During the interview, Liu Leiming, an associate professor at the Basic Education Governance and Innovation Research Center of South China Normal University, broke down the persistent pain points in the evaluation of primary and secondary school teachers' titles. However, to his delight, such problems are about to be improved.
A few days ago, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued the "Notice on Further Improving the Evaluation of Professional Titles", clarifying that the series of highly practical professional titles such as health, engineering, art, and primary and secondary school teachers do not use papers as the main evaluation indicators for professional title evaluation, and the evaluation criteria It is not allowed to simply set rigid requirements such as the number of papers and impact factors. As soon as the policy came out, primary and secondary school teachers repeatedly applauded—"Finally, there is no need to forcefully write papers for publication"...
Can the introduction of the new policy solve the long-standing difficulties in the evaluation of professional titles for primary and secondary school teachers? In the future, what titles should primary and secondary school teachers take?
1. Look at the reality from the voice of the heart "The strength lies in teaching, not in writing papers"
"It's been a long time since I've been struggling with papers." In interviews, many primary and secondary school teachers said so.
A teacher who has worked in primary schools for more than ten years complained to reporters: "It is difficult for primary and secondary school teachers to evaluate titles, not only because of the lack of opportunities, but also because of the high threshold. It is really difficult for us to publish papers. As early as 5 years ago, I set a goal to complete two academic papers within one year. But to this day, I haven’t even written a decent paper. The evaluation of professional titles has to be delayed again and again.”
why?
"Writing a thesis requires a lot of time, but the teacher's work is too detailed and it is difficult to concentrate. In addition, my strength lies in teaching. The level of thesis writing really needs to be improved, and it is difficult to meet the publication standards of academic journals." The teacher said. , "The paper is really not easy to write."
Liu Leiming also often hears many primary and secondary school teachers complain: "We not only have to attend classes, prepare lessons, and correct homework every day, but also communicate with students and parents anytime and anywhere. From morning till night, how can we write papers with peace of mind? ?”
"Publishing papers is indeed a major obstacle for front-line teachers in the evaluation of professional titles." Li Canying, the teaching director of Zhongshan Primary School in Songjiang District, Shanghai, found that many older teachers graduated from secondary teachers with high comprehensive quality and rich work experience. Demonstrative and leading role in teaching practice.
"It can be said that in terms of professionalism, they are fully qualified for higher-level professional titles. However, educational practice and thesis writing are two different things. Due to the lack of educational theory and scientific research methods, front-line teachers, especially older teachers, will not be able to do so in the future. It is difficult to refine relevant experience in education and teaching in a timely manner and form academic papers. Therefore, papers, one of the main basis for professional title evaluation, have become a stumbling block on their way to professional title promotion. Time and time again, because of papers, they fail the professional title review, to a large extent It will affect their teaching enthusiasm.” Li Canying believes that this is also one of the important reasons for some teachers’ job burnout.
"The school actually pays more attention to teachers' morality, ability, diligence and normal work performance, but in the evaluation of professional titles, the district-level and city-level evaluation experts do not know or understand most of the teachers participating in the evaluation, so they can only use hard indicators such as papers as a reference." Some The teacher told the reporter, "Primary and secondary schools only have the right to recommend, not to review, when evaluating titles. If teachers have outstanding performance in their work but lack competitive 'dry goods', schools may even dare not recommend them because they are worried about wasting indicators."
"Because of this, the New Deal has lowered the weight of papers and advocated the representative work system instead. Papers are no longer mandatory in the professional title review criteria, and there are more options for performance achievements, which can be standard development, technical solutions, innovation breakthroughs, think tank achievements, The teaching plans and so on have made many teachers who are good at front-line teaching see hope." Liu Leiming introduced.
2. From the document to the implementation of the first prevention of "laziness" and the second prevention of "fear of difficulty"
According to Rong Zhongkui, deputy dean of the School of Educational Sciences of Hunan Normal University, the implementation of this reform will allow primary and secondary school teachers to focus on central tasks such as teaching, which has important practical and long-term significance.
"However, it should be noted that this does not mean that evaluation indicators do not look at papers at all. High-quality scientific research is also necessary, which can feed back teaching and management."
Under the New Deal, new confusions arose.
A primary school teacher said: "Reducing the proportion of papers will inevitably increase the weight of other indicators. Will this cause other problems?"
"How to scientifically determine the proportion of paper indicators in the review and assessment, so as not to dampen teachers' enthusiasm for scientific research, and not violate the spirit of the document, is a problem related to 'degree' faced by the education department and primary and secondary schools." Rong Zhongkui said frankly.
"If the weight of the thesis results in the evaluation of professional titles is reduced, will it increase the weight of another hard indicator—the open class?" Si Xuejuan, the principal of the Experimental Primary School Affiliated to Beijing No. 12 Middle School, believes that although the open class reflects the work of teachers to a certain extent However, most of the public courses have been tried many times. In addition to the teachers, they also condense the hard work of the principal, teaching and research team leader, teaching and research staff, etc., which is the crystallization of collective wisdom.
"Although public classes are important, some teachers only have one or two public classes in a semester, and they often don't have time to provide individualized counseling to students, resulting in a decline in students' academic performance. This is not worth advocating." Therefore, she suggested that in formulating When formulating supporting policies, if the weight of teaching performance such as open classes is increased, it must be considered and proceeded prudently.
"Primary and middle school teachers are a highly practical profession. When evaluating titles, we should focus on the teacher's moral cultivation and education and teaching effects." Li Canying believes that the evaluation of primary and middle school teachers' professional titles should take into account the teacher's moral cultivation, classroom teaching ability, and education. Human ability, teaching effectiveness and other aspects are used as the main basis for evaluation, and the process evaluation of teacher education and teaching work is strengthened, and papers can be used as extra points.
Process evaluation is also a keyword emphasized by Liu Leiming.
He said: "Whether you can stand on the podium and take a good class can generally see the morality, ability, and performance level of a primary and secondary school teacher. Of course, how to evaluate classroom teaching performance will also be a difficult point. Consider strengthening the education and teaching process. Evaluation, from lesson preparation, teaching and research experience to open classes, focuses on the quality of the whole process of core business, finely divides the level, frequency, density and visibility of these links, and assigns accurate scores, so as to truly increase the scientific nature of the evaluation criteria."
"The top-level design has been released, and the implementation is particularly important. The first is to prevent 'laziness', and the second is to prevent 'fear of difficulty'." Liu Leiming told reporters: "The previous evaluation of titles, the number of papers, and the level of journals are due to the relative objectivity of quantitative indicators. .And the new policy means new rules. How to ensure the objectivity and fairness of the multi-choice representative work system will be a must-answer question to test the ability of education administrative departments and schools in various places to implement benchmarking."
3. Judging from the word of mouth, who will comment on the contribution, what to comment on, and how to comment on it
At present, how to refine the top-level design and scientifically formulate the evaluation standards and implementation rules for primary and secondary school teachers?
What are the titles for teachers?
Liu Leiming lamented that the work of primary and secondary school teachers is very "delicate", and their contributions are often reflected in the collective performance of subject groups, grade groups and schools, in the growth of students, and in every teacher-student interaction.
Therefore, the simplest and most direct way to evaluate teachers' work performance is to use qualitative evaluation to make up for the lack of quantitative evaluation.
"From the word of mouth of colleagues, students and parents, we can generally see the actual situation of a teacher's work and contribution."
Rong Zhongkui agreed.
He believes that the evaluation of teachers' work and contributions needs to be considered from three aspects.
"First, who will evaluate? In addition to the centralized evaluation organized by the Education Bureau, it should also include four types of subjects: students, parents, teachers, and the school. Second, what is the evaluation? It generally includes teachers' morality, professional ability, talents In multiple dimensions such as training and public services, there must be quantitative indicators such as teaching experience and class hours, as well as quality indicators such as the improvement of student literacy and the development of home-school work, as well as work honors such as going out for competitions and micro-class awards. The third , How to evaluate? The ideal evaluation method should be a combination of self-evaluation and others’ evaluation, qualitative and quantitative evaluation, process and final evaluation.”
Si Xuejuan has found in practice that it may be more practical to delegate the power of title evaluation for primary and secondary schools to schools.
"Some schools adopt the method of 'self-assessment + lesson preparation group (grade group) scoring + supervisor leader scoring + school review team scoring'. All parties occupy a certain weight, which can better reflect the directionality, objectivity and development of the evaluation."
Li Canying believes that the evaluation subjects of professional title evaluation should be diversified.
"Schools are well aware of teachers' education and teaching ability, and the evaluation is more comprehensive and detailed. Therefore, school evaluation can be used as one of the main basis for professional title evaluation. At the same time, each school pays different attention to the growth of teachers, and each school's teachers' own development. Different, the centralized review organized by the higher education administrative department can be grasped and arranged as a whole from the regional level."
Conforming to the trend, destroying the old and establishing the new requires three steps.
Rong Zhongkui suggested: "The first step is to interpret the new regulations. Policy makers should help education administration departments and schools at all levels to interpret the documents and correctly convey the policy intentions. The second step is to gradually pilot. Some cities can be selected as pilots to test the effect , and gradually adjust and improve according to the pilot situation. The third step is to encourage innovation. Allow each education bureau to innovate and fine-tune according to local conditions, and obtain real conditions through field inspections and research, discover outstanding models, and share characteristic solutions in a timely manner.”
(Reporter Jin Haotian, correspondent Chen Qiuying)