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March 4

Teacher Quality

Should the article for creation for the subject 'Teacher Quality' be approved? (Existing discussion below) Kinkreet^{~♥moshi moshi♥~} 04:51, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello friendly Wikipedia folks,

I'm trying to get an article created on the topic of Teacher Quality, and I'm feeling a need to emphasize to the reviewers that this is a "real thing," and a topic of encyclopedia-worthy definability. Currently in NJ we have conferences devoted to this topic, books and scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals (many of which are in the AFC draft), and even doctoral-level courses on this topic (I teach one!) Yet the topic of "Teacher Quality" is sorely in need of definition, hence the push to create this article. In short, I feel that this page presents the topic of "Teacher Quality" in a neutral manner, is NOT is essay format, and cites a number of secondary sources as well as includes links at the bottom that demonstrates the real-world nature of this topic.

The page is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Teacher_quality

Any and all advice on how to get this approved would be welcomed, but really I have done a massive amount of work on currently existing Wikipedia pages on analagous topics, and this one absolutely fits on Wikipedia.

Thank you, Douglarkin (talk) 17:21, 3 March 2013 (UTC)Douglarkin

Hi Doug, the problem is that because Wikipedia doesn't publish original research, an article whose aim is to arrive at a definition of "teacher quality" via a synthesis of published research isn't appropriate. The guidelines at No original research, especially the section on Synthesis, have more on this. My suggestion would be to re-focus (and re-title) the article to "Teacher quality assessment". In a way, that's pretty much what your article is already mostly about. It can be an overview/summary article of the TQA area with links to the several existing Wikipedia articles (or article sections) on the subject, see these. You could discuss how TQ has been variously defined by others, but then focus on the various measures which have been used for TQA, and the uses to which this assessment has been put. Another suggestion is that your article is entirely focused on US educational practice and concerns. As an overview/summary it would ideally need a more international perspective. Voceditenore (talk) 18:40, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Voceditenore asked me to comment. I think the article is essentially acceptable as it stands, though it could be improved and ought to be retitled. I just do not see the problem with OR--this is a summary article on a general topic, and the material is cited. It's not at the level of detail that would require detailed sentence-by-sentence citations. There is certainly much contention in this area, but the areas of most bitter dispute are not discussed here in a way to make detailed citation necessary.

I would certainly retitle the article "Teacher quality assessment." The present title is too general. The concept of "Teacher quality" is a very broad one with very deep implications--it involves the basic philosophical and psychological concepts of what is meant by teaching and learning, how human minds develop, and how they acquire and process information. We could use an article reviewing this, and if Doug wants to write one, well and good, but it's a very extensive undertaking. A survey article on Teacher quality assessment is quite ambitious enough, and would be a good first step.

The question of geographic coverage is inherently difficult. Voce's's suggestion is unfortunately impractical at this point, and is properly labelled "ideally". The majority of our detailed articles refer to the UK educational system, often without specifically saying so; quite a number of them are on specific features and institutions of that system, The US system is different, if only because of the lack of effective centralized national policy, and the corresponding great influence of local political bodies. Some concepts are in common to both, but not all that many details will be. I do not see how one person could possibly cover them both in an adequate fashion--dealing with the various US institutions in the 50 stated is difficult enough--for some matters the discussion would have to go state by state. In other English speaking countries, the situation is yet different. We usually emphasise those countries, but the rest of the world has similar problems. The normal way we handle this problem is not to make separate to level articles, but a general article with sections. Nobody can be expected to write it all at once, and its acceptable to write a general lede paragraph, and one of the sections. That section, & the other section when they get written. can then be developed in detail, using the organization of material we call WP:Summary style. I think the level of detail of this section is appropriate for the US section of such a very general article; a more detailed article about the US could be written, and I hope Doug will attempt it as away of expanding the present text.

I would advise using a wider range of sources, as Voce's suggests. You don't have to add them now,but if you could add a section listing a few more of the best standard books available , it would help readers.

I'm waiting for your response, and to see if Voce has any comments. If there are no objections, my plan is to move the page tomorrow, and then accept it. DGG ( talk ) 00:29, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

With all due respect DGG, I do not think the article is ready to be accepted. There are too many terms within this article that is not well explained. "Framework for Teaching", "National Board Certified Teacher" and "rubrics" - these are terms which without context, does not make sense to the average reader. The external links given, the author should not simply dump these terms without explaining what they are. Wikipedia is for everyone, not for people within the field. "Assessments of teacher quality may also draw upon evidence collected from observations of teachers' work. This evidence may be collected from in-person or video recorded observations of teaching, pre- and post-observation conferences with teachers," What does this really mean? Doesn't this just boils down to "We look at the teacher's work to assess the quality of teaching"? Along with the "This evidence may be collected from in-person or video recorded observations of teaching" parts, is that not a bit saying a lot about nothing?

It may be that in those references given, everything on the page is backed up; but to an outside reader, there is not clear indications where each statement is backed up by which source. It'd appear to be WP:NOR, whether it is or not. I appreciate not to over cite, but it'd be better to make those statements more verifiable for the reader.

I do not doubt the efforts or the good faith Doug or any editors who have contributed to this article, but I do not think, without giving more context and re-editing it to be more precise and less vague, this article should be moved to the mainspace. Wikipedia:Ten_Simple_Rules_for_Editing_Wikipedia#Know_your_audience Kinkreet^{~♥moshi moshi♥~} 01:04, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Based on the author's reasoning that "the topic of 'Teacher Quality' is sorely in need of definition" I suspect this article contains original synthesis. If teacher quality hasn't already been authoritatively defined, we shouldn't have an article on it. Sionk (talk) 03:01, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm with Sionk. Besides, after reading the article I still have no idea what exactly teacher quality is, beyond "a term". Are the various components of teacher quality - teacher effectiveness, qualifications, test scores, demographics - correlated with each other, or are they independent? The article doesn't say. Which demographic factors indicate higher quality? The article doesn't say. Does that depend on the students' demographics, the subject, and/or the grade? The article doesn't say. I can't even tell if there's a common definition of teacher quality or if everybody using that term has their own private definition - I strongly suspect the latter. And then we should not have an article on the term. Huon (talk) 03:22, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for the thoughtful conversation about the entry. This is my first foray into the world of the Wikipedia "peer review" process and I'm rather pleased to see it doesn't differ terribly from the process we use for reviewing journal articles--it's even much faster! It makes me more likely to engage and take part in the Wikipedia reviewing process in the future (next year after tenure, please!)

Of course, I'm going to side with DGG, and I am okay with making the title "Teacher Quality Assessment." (I am not sure how to do that without messing up the AFC page link--feel free to do it for me if you choose to move it to the main page) I will say that earlier versions of this article did include much more detail and international scope, but these were pared down to give the article clarity. I have added one line to internationalize the entry with reference #4 (OECD countries define teacher quality primarily in terms of credentialing). Of course, my hope is that a wider international community does ultimately participate in editing the entry. I don't think the terms that Kinkreet points out are particularly unexplained (Framework for Teaching is a book title, which is cited) but I have edited the other terms. In the case of rubric, I have linked it to the Wikipedia page: rubric (academic).

Conducting the search proposed by Voceditenore somewhat proves my point about the need to have an article about teacher quality. The sections on the No Child Left Behind Law and highly qualified teachers present Teacher Quality in a way that does not distinguish between the various ways teacher quality is currently assessed in the US and abroad. Nonetheless, I have linked to NCLB and the Highly Qualified Teacher wiki pages as acknowledgement of Voceditnore's point about demonstrating how TQ has been defined by others.

In respect to Kinkreet's concern about obviousness, I see this as a measurement issue. Just as one would not write an article about velocity stating that to measure the velocity of a car one just "sees how fast it is going," an article about teacher quality needs to discuss the evidence used to make that measurement. In the 1920's, teacher quality was measured by whether or not women conformed to accepted standards of behavior (i.e if they drank, stayed out late, or got married they were fired). If we were still measuring teacher quality with that evidence today (glad we aren't), I would have included that in the entry as well.

I look forward to the reviewing decision resulting from all this, and again I am grateful for this conversation.

Douglarkin (talk) 03:06, 4 March 2013 (UTC)Douglarkin

I stick to my guns when I say those terms are relatively 'unexplained' or unclear. Just because you've cited something or linked something, does not give it context. You need to write about it in the article also. Take rubrics - write a line or two about what it is, so when people read the article, they don't have to open 10 different tabs just to read on article. Of course, don't explain it in so much detail, but just enough so that the article flows. It is good to defend your point of view, but in this case, I think it is wise to heed the concerns of multiple editors. Regardless, we agree to disagree. For this reason, I urge DGG not to move it into main space in the morning and await further discussion. Kinkreet^{~♥moshi moshi♥~} 04:45, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Move to article space with the title Teacher quality assessment, but isn't a formal request for comment a bit of overkill? In any case, I've revised the lede to show what the article is really about. See this version. As such, the article is neither original research nor synthesis. If you actually read the article and see past Doug's original title and his choice of words in this discussion re the aim to arrive at a definition of "teacher quality", you can see that it is actually a decent summary article describing the various methods of TQA, where they are used, and why. I see no original research in the article and it is actually very well-referenced for a starter article. A lot of the quibbles here are not sufficient to keep this draft from becoming an article, e.g. he doesn't explain "rubric enough", or that videotaping is superfluous to simply saying observation. First of all, I don't agree with those quibbles. Nor do I think it lacks context in any significant way. The purpose of AfC is not to produce a perfect and comprehensive article. It is to produce one that would pass an AfD and doesn't violate any actual policies here. As I said, if you actually read the article, it does not contain original research or synthesis, it is decently referenced with inline citations, it is not a copyright infringement, it is not a BLP violation, it has a neutral point of view, and it is on a widely covered encyclopedic topic [1], [2]. Voceditenore (talk) 07:58, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Let's move it to article space under the better name Teacher quality assessment and see how it goes. Sionk (talk) 12:53, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. An RfC process on this is ridiculous, Kinkreet, that's our last resort for intractable disputes. . The normal procedure with AfCs is that if the creator does not like the rejection, they simply ask someone else until it gets accepted or until they realize it's hopeless--or they can in fact simply move it themselves--everyone with an account has the right to make an article in mainspace directly; AfC is not a required step. Any other editor who thinks the article too weak to stand is free to bring an AfD on it, just as for any other new or old article, and then the community decides at the AfD. I have from time to time challenged new articles accepted by AfC by bringing an AfD , and sometimes they stand and sometimes they are deleted.

The standard for AfC is not meeting the GoodArticle criteria, but being able to pass AfD. Usually we do ask for a little more, that nobody is likely to challenge it there, for we do nobody a service by accepting at AfC an article likely to be soon deleted. But we don't try to make it bullet-proof or perfect. I apologize to the author, for I could simply have moved it last night, and left the desirable improvements for later, but I was trying for some of the improvements first--and I also wanted Voce's opinion, for we rarely disagree.

As for the specific objections: in a summary article like this , it is impossible to completely avoid generalizations, but the wording should try to minimize them. If general references are challenged as to general, the references should cite more specifically--which is easier than arguing about them. As for the undefined words, I can make similar comments at any Wikipedia article whatsoever, including most Featured articles. Specific entities or terms of art should of course be defined, or linked to another WP article--WP is hypertext I decided to compare some Featured Articles, and examining the list, I noticed almost none of them are on general topics--it is almost impossible within the constraints of WP to write a fully satisfactory very general article. Even so, every one I examined left terms undefined or assumed some degree of related knowledge. I'm a biologist by training,and, like most natural scientists, I have a certain feeling that most work in the social sciences is by natural science standards a little fuzzy (I would certainly include my later field of librarianship in this general statement) . Many of us have sufficient experience with the education system to be very aware of its deficiencies (perhaps those of us educated in the US more so than elsewhere), and therefore there tends to be a certain bias here against education research in general. (I have seen us fairly often deleting at AfD articles on faculty in the field of Education at a level which would be unquestioned keeps in other subjects.) This is to some extent a prejudice--we must accept the different parts of the world as we find it--being hypercritical here would be akin to by being excessively critical of certain genres of music because we detest their style. (I in fact do utterly detest some forms of music, and deal with it by avoiding article on them. I similarly avoid some other subjects because I think them inherently worthless and know it is not fair to define the encyclopedia to suit my prejudices--however well I am prepared to defend my prejudices if asked in another context.)

There is no fixed rule for when to close an RfC, or deal with one that should not have been brought. I urge Doug to make some changes, and in a day or two I will ask someone else to decide to move the article. Although this is not an admin function, & there's therefore no restriction on myself doing what any editor can do, I prefer to remain as far from such COI as possible. DGG ( talk ) 02:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Review of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Fényi Gyula Jesuit High School

Hi.

I am creating a wikipedia entry for a Hungarian Jesuit high school in Miskolc, and I would like some assitance in editing the content. I'd like to create a sidebar for quick facts about the institution. Do you have any advice or tutorials? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irg1969 (talk • contribs) 14:12, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

That sidebar would be the {{Infobox school}} template. The template page explains the parameters. More help on infoboxes is available at Help:Infobox. You might also want to have a look at WP:Your first article and, rather important, WP:Referencing for beginners. Although we generally assume all secondary schools to be notable, Wikipedia content should be verifiable from reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Your draft currently doesn't cite any sources beyond the school's own website, which obviously isn't independent. Huon (talk) 17:15, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Review of User:Dophism/sandbox

Where can I specify which categories my article belongs to? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dophism (talk • contribs) 15:18, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Drafts shouldn't yet be added to article categories, but you can add links to the categories the draft shall be placed in once it's accepted. To do so, add code like this: [[:Category:British female singers]]. It will look like this: Category:British female singers. Categories are added at the very end of articles, below the references.

By the way, your draft didn't cite any sources whatsoever. Wikipedia content should be verifiable from reliable sources that are independent of the subject, such as news coverage or reviews in reputable music magazines. We require significant coverage in such sources to establish a topic's notability. Thus I had to decline the submission. Huon (talk) 17:15, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Review of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/printed.com

Hello!

How to I create the right hand box with the following content?

Founded 2011 HQ London Print facility Newcastle Area served Global Founder Nicholas Green Employees >150 Website www.printed.com

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SmashleighJayne (talk • contribs) 16:18, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The box you're looking for is the {{infobox company}} template; the template page explains the available parameters and provides examples of use.

You should use inline citations and footnotes to clarify which of your sources supports which of the article's statements. Right now I don't think much of the draft's content is based on the sources - for example, RealBusiness says the company had 50 employees in November 2012, not ">150" as you write above. The Financial Times link points to that newspaper's homepage, not to the specific article. The Sunday Times article is, for all I can tell, not used in the draft (though it claims the company had 150 employees back in July?), and except that factoid it doesn't tell us much about the company anyway. For the "global" claim I'd also like a source; I doubt they have much business outside the UK. Huon (talk) 17:15, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Review of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/D. Chamberz

An example image

can we change this to "D.Chamberz" not "D._Chamberz," thanks! Also, if you could please let me know the correct way to add an image, as I am confused by your reference articles.

Mgmtsoundbyte (talk) 19:39, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I've moved the draft to the correct spelling. Images are added to articles by code like this: [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|An example image]]. The "thumb" parameter automatically displays the image in thumbnail size, and "An example image" will become the image caption: This code generated the image I added to this section. For more details I'd refer to the picture tutorial. Of course you must first have uploaded the image, and for living persons we will probably need a freely licensed image. Huon (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2013 (UTC)