Of the 36 items included in the Gates Foundation study, the five that most correlated with student learning were very straightforward:
- Students in this class treat the teacher with respect.
- My classmates behave the way my teacher wants them to.
- Our class stays busy and doesn’t waste time.
- In this class, we learn a lot almost every day.
- In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes.
When Ferguson and Kane shared these five statements at conferences, teachers were surprised. They had typically thought it most important to care about kids, but what mattered more, according to the study, was whether teachers had control over the classroom and made it a challenging place to be. As most of us remember from our own school days, those two conditions did not always coexist: some teachers had high levels of control, but low levels of rigor.
From the Atlantic article, Why Kids Should Grade Teachers.