All assessments should have purpose. If not, the teacher will likely not see the point and may not perform up to par. Additionally, assessments with no purpose are a waste of the assessor's time, as nothing will come of the assessment product.
Teacher assessments should always be objective. To ensure objectivity,people who have bias against a certain teacher should not perform his assessment. For optimum objectivity, an outsider should perform the assessment. However, this rarely happens.
Though teacher assessments may occur in the classroom while the teacher is teaching, they should not interfere with her teaching. If an assessment disrupts the classroom environment, students may suffer and miss out on educational opportunities.
When an assessor is performing an assessment, he must be highly observant. If he's unfocused in his assessment, he may well miss some important aspects of the teacher's teaching, making his resulting assessment not reflective of the teacher's actual skill.
All assessments should be recorded in some fashion. In most cases, the method of recording is the completion of an observation rubric. By recording these assessment results, future assessors can use the information to better help the teacher progress in the development of her skills.
Improvement should be the goal of any teaching assessment. After the assessment, the teacher should be given not just assessment results but tips as to how to improve upon her assessment skills and better his teaching. If assessments aren't constructive, they can seem more punitive than productive.
The method of assessment should be consistent. Teachers should know from year to year what types of assessments they're subject to, allowing them to better prepare for these assessments. If the assessment process is constantly changing, it may seem less established and more thrown together, degrading the process as a whole.
Though some teacher assessments may be unannounced, they should always be scheduled in some fashion, even if the teacher isn't privy to the scheduling process. By scheduling assessments, assessors can ensure that they evaluate each teacher on a regular basis, making the process more useful.
Teacher assessment shouldn't be a one-time thing but a repeated process. By assessing teachers again and again, assessors can more effectively measure teachers' progression toward effective teaching.
To ensure that the assessment process leaves assessors with a true picture of the teacher's skill, it should be multifaceted. To create a multifaceted assessment, assessment designers should look at more than the teacher's in-class performance. It should also review her written records and lesson plansl, getting a more complete picture of her teaching skill and style.