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Understanding student performance evaluation is crucial. At the college, we use rubrics for assessing student work. The main advantages of this approach are the application of uniform evaluation criteria to all students, thereby ensuring objectivity, as well as manual grading of assignments. This manual grading not only allows for in-depth analysis of responses and understanding their essence but also provides individualized feedback.

It is precisely feedback that plays a decisive role in a student's professional development, as it helps them identify strengths and areas requiring improvement. This awareness fosters critical thinking, enhances self-reflection abilities, and ensures targeted skill development, which is vitally important for the growth of future specialists.

It's a prickly question but needs asking. A possible reason is that teachers could be expected to have the right answers, and even maybe all of them. It is not realistic. In this article DOI:10.1007/s13384-024-00782-5, the school staff probably accepted that it is just part of the journey we are all on to have the humility to accept that we don't know everything.

Teaching evaluation should be seen not as a way to point out weaknesses, but as a valuable opportunity to identify strengths and share good practices. It’s a process that supports improvement and encourages reflection, helping educators become more prepared, more engaged with students, and more innovative in their teaching. When done well, evaluation leads to better lesson planning, deeper understanding of teaching roles, and the adoption of new methods. Most importantly, it provides positive, constructive feedback that can guide future actions—a feedforward approach that builds confidence, supports growth, and promotes a culture of continuous learning and teaching excellence.

Felicity Roux , Thank you for your insight. It helped me think further. But I’m still wondering how do we actually make evaluation more empowering in practice?

I think the title should be: teacher evaluation, pitfalls AND possibilities. The main pitfall is that the evaluation is embedded in a culture of control and sanctioning instead of in a culture of enhancing and improving. Another pitfall is that the wrong indicators are used. Teacher, learning and assessing are always contextual, and thus the contexts should be considered as well. Last but not least, teacher evaluation should concentrate on the triangle of learner, teacher and teaching environment.

Lucien Bollaert thank you for this rich and thoughtful response, I really appreciate your suggestion to frame it as “pitfalls and possibilities,” which better captures the dual nature of the issue. Your point about the culture of control versus a culture of enhancement really resonates. It reminds me how often evaluations are done to teachers, rather than with them. Also, your emphasis on contextualizing teaching, learning, and assessment is so important without that, evaluations risk becoming detached from classroom realities. I’m particularly intrigued by your idea of focusing on the triangle of learner, teacher, and teaching environment. That sounds like a powerful framework. Could you possibly share more on how this triangle might be operationalized in an evaluation model?