"Evaluations That Help Teachers Learn"

To truly benefit teachers, evaluations need to involve more than checklists. In "Evaluations That Help Teachers Learn" (pp. 35–39), Charlotte Danielson describes a five-step evaluation process (p. 38) that promotes self-reflection and professional conversation.

How does this process compare to the process in place at your school?

For evaluations at my school, there isn't a rubric to follow so I guess you would call it more a classroom observation than evaluation. At one point in the article the author states,  "The scenario proceeds as follows: The administrator goes to the classroom and watches a lesson, takes notes, goes away and writes up the notes, and then returns and tells the teacher about the lesson (what was good, what the teacher could improve)". This is exactly how it works at my school. Teachers do prep and fill out a questionnaire that examines goals for the lesson and provides a peek into their teaching practices and how they approach varied learners in their classroom. The after the lesson we reflect on how things went and reflect on goals for the rest of the year. We meet twice with our administrator (pre- and post- observation).

How would a system like Danielson's work at your school?

I think the system would work well for newer teachers in the system. Those that have been working for 20+ years would have a hard (as they do with a lot of things). I, personally, would like to see an evaluation system like Danielson's put into place. I like the evaluative criteria matrix to measure what level teachers should be aiming for. 
What adjustments might you make to your evaluation system to foster teacher improvement?
I think our school is lacking a way to measure performance and hold teachers accountable to high standards. Right now we hear what the principal observed as "good" and what "needs improvement" but have no idea how that compares to the expectations. I think it would also be helpful if those "needs improvement" areas were followed up with somehow. I think a lot of teachers have the post-observation conversation and then stash that paper in another folder somewhere in their classroom. Is anything actually improving? There is currently no way to tell if changes are being made or not.