Abstract:

Similarly to other countries, Latvia is implementing a curriculum reform, directly related to the change of approach in the learning process for students to acquire 21st century skills, also called transversal skills. It is becoming increasingly important to monitor if and how teachers manage and provide this type of classroom learning in order to provide the necessary support for them. A teacher-quality system has been introduced in Latvia since 2009 where teachers' performance is evaluated with points, without specifying for any particular performance how points match; school accreditation has traditionally been driven by dichotomy. This does not give a clear picture of what teachers can do in the classroom and what should be the starting point for personalized professional learning. This is in contrast to practices in other countries where teacher competence assessment rubrics are used. Taking into account that Latvian education system has not yet provided an effective and development-orientated teacher-quality system (according to OECD survey), there is an acute need to continuously adapt to the changes for more objective assessment of teacher competence by creating and using a framework of teacher performance assessment. The study designed a teacher performance assessment framework for teaching 21st century skills, a structured set of performance level descriptors that help determine teacher level of competence (from 0 to 4) according to criteria developed. The framework was designed and piloted during which 147 hours (130 teachers) were observed and analyzed in 20 different subjects, grades from 1 to 12, in 8 schools involved in the study. The field study was based on involved experts' experience gained in lesson observations and on improved framework. The framework can be ​​used to assess teacher performance done by outside experts in school practice, observing teacher performance in lessons and comparing it with the performance level descriptors according to the procedure.

Keywords:

Teacher, performance assessment framework, 21st century skills.