An Auckland School may be the first educational institution in the country to develop and install special software that monitors the performance of students and teachers on a year-to-year basis.
Macleans College, located in Bucklands Beach in East Auckland, is installing EdReflect, which measures student performance and determines the School’s best and worst performing teachers.
The School developed the system over the past eight years, with the help of local and overseas experts.
Teachers also worked in small groups and with their main appraisers, faculties and departments to share insights, techniques and advice.
The System provides detailed analysis of the progress of groups of students, including year, classes, gender and ethnic groups.
The experts and teachers converted data into useful, easy-to-get-at information.
Principal Byron Bentley, who is also Chair of the Wellington, based Education Forum, said the Programme records, analyses student results and compares student performance year-on-year and by subject, using charts and graphs.
“The main task EdReflect is to monitor student performance. The assessment of teachers would be purely for internal purposes and would not be available for parents,” he said.
According to him, the System uses teaching and learning aids for teachers along with a proactive professional development programme that involves mentoring, class observations, feedback and other techniques.
Teachers would use the system to reflect on the performance of all students in their classes and take suitable action to enhance their teaching practice.
The software also allows for a goal-setting module that would help the School to provide meaningful feedback to parents.
Professor John Hattie of the Faculty of Education (School of Teaching), University of Auckland gave his approval after testing the technology.
