Evaluating Student Media Advisers
In the spirit of the First Amendment, publication advisers should be evaluated on the process and not the product. Students are responsible for the product.
This guide for evaluating student media advisers at both the secondary and collegiate levels is based on “Teacher Evaluation: To Enhance Professional Practice,” by Charlotte Danielson and Thomas L. McGreal (2000), Standards for Journalism Educators from the Journalism Education Association and the Scholastic Journalism Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (2002) and the Adviser’s Code from College Media Advisers. From the first come the four domains of teaching responsibility, from the second the areas of expertise and from the third the explanation of ethical behavior, both professional and personal. Although some student media is related to classroom curriculum and some is not, in either situation the adviser attempts to use forms of instruction and real-world experience to increase student learning.

Planning and Preparation
• Demonstrate knowledge of content
-- The history and evolution of media, its functions, limitations and influences on society
-- Media’s role in a democracy and their role in preserving it
-- News values for today’s media consumers
-- Professional and scholastic legal and ethical policies and practices
-- Journalistic writing (i.e. news, features, opinion, etc.) and appropriate style (i.e. Associated Press, multiple sources with attribution, punctuation, etc.); additional forms unique to journalism (i.e. headlines, cutlines, plus visual presentations, etc.)
-- Packaging media products effectively, utilizing a range of visual, auditory and interactive methods for a variety of media
-- Advertising and its place in professional and student media

• Demonstrate a knowledge of pedagogy
-- Utilize appropriate materials and instructional strategies to help students recognize and enhance their unique media and communications skills
-- Select appropriate textbooks, teaching materials or other media for newsroom use
-- Utilize computers and other relevant technology as teaching and production tools
-- Integrate a variety of media within instruction/curriculum
--Plan journalism instruction that accommodates the range of learners and different learning needs and experiences
-- Create opportunities for professional/collegiate/scholastic association critiques of programs/publicationsn Select instructional goals and design coherent instruction to meet them
-- Help students develop an editorial policy consistent with legal precedent, court decisions and professional journalistic freedoms and conform to nationally established and accepted journalistic norms regarding professional behavior, conflict of interest, acceptance of gifts and services, honesty and integrity
-- Empower students to employ critical thinking to best use their voices in a legal and ethical manner
-- Construct coaching activities that cover multiple facets of journalistic writing and visual communication, encouraging students to improve individually and work cooperatively to help each other improve
-- Integrate all facets of production including determining news values, selecting appropriate pieces for publication, developing and applying ethical and legal knowledge, gathering and synthesizing information, writing in a variety of styles, editing, designing, creating graphics, photos or photo illustrations, selling advertising, using technology for production and implementing circulation plans for the media.

• Demonstrate knowledge of resources

-- Construct and utilize financial guidelines for student media relating to subscriptions, advertising, activity funds and fundraising so students can make informed decisions

• Assess student learning
--Guide students in designing a variety of assessment tools so they can monitor their own growth through creation of career portfolios of their work, publications, photography, new media
-- Use a variety of ways to monitor the effects of student practices on students, parents, colleagues and community

Classroom/Newsroom Environment

• Establish a culture for learning
-- Organize activities so the process is more important than the product students create, thus allowing for their continuous learning and growth
-- Design a student-centered journalism learning environment where students understand and appreciate their rights and responsibilities as communicators
-- Encourage free and vigorous discussion and a forum for expression of differing opinions

• Create an environment of respect and rapport
-- Empower students to make decisions of style, structure and content by encouraging their use of critical thinking skills
-- Respect the worth, contributions, abilities and language of all learners
-- Encourage staff diversity and use awareness of diversity in its many forms to enhance understanding of journalistic media
-- Use various avenues to encourage students to take responsibility for their learning and production of media
-- Help students understand their unique role as disseminators of information and their rights as journalists and media consumers

•Manage classroom/newsroom procedures and physical space
-- Create a media-rich atmosphere for students to learn both collaboratively and individually
-- Construct and utilize staff organizational models that emphasize responsibility, risk-taking and problem-solving so students can make informed decisions
-- Ensure students understand their roles as informational gatekeepers in student media and their rights and responsibilities as journalists
--Model effective newsroom management and assessment
-- Establish policies with the students that will be part of a staff manual. The manual should also include job descriptions for all staff members, style and design guidelines, advertising procedures, grading policy, classroom and equipment usage rules and a code of ethics for all staffers

Instructional Delivery

• Use questioning and discussion techniques
-- Help students articulate their ideas and thinking processes, promote risk-taking and problem-solving, facilitate recall of information, encourage thinking, stimulate curiosity and help students to question on their own
--Encourage students to seek out points of view and to explore a variety of information sources in their decision-making as they remain a forum for student expression

• Engage students in learning
-- Incorporate the reporting/writing/visualizing process as it relates to journalism (brainstorming, questioning, reporting, gathering and synthesizing information, writing, editing photographing and evaluating the final media product)
-- Utilize goal-setting as a way to improve individual skills and overall student media
-- Utilize staff critique sessions to help students assess what is effective communication and what is not in media they have produced

• Provide feedback to students
--Respond effectively and constructively on an ongoing basis to students’ work
-- Establish a variety of ways to help students evaluate reflectively their own practice and continue their own learning

Professionalism
• Reflect on teaching
-- Understand the role of leadership training, fiscal responsibility, conflict resolution and time management in student publications production
-- Demonstrate a dedication to accuracy, fairness, facts and honesty in all content

• Maintain accurate records
-- Related to advertising, circulation and distribution
-- Related to student work and grades

• Contribute to the school/district or collegiate community
--Work with faculty and administration to help those individuals understand the freedoms accorded student journalists and the professional goals of the student media

• Grow and develop professionally
-- Understand the value of professional organizations/associations, conferences, certification and licensure, advanced course work, and other professional opportunities in the journalism field to enhance professional growth
-- Be involved professionally in educational organizations that support student media, staying updated on trends and issues in scholastic journalism
-- Study professional media and research relevant to journalism instruction on a regular basis and conduct classroom research to improve their practice

• Show professionalism
-- Model writing, designing, photographing and effective journalism/media skills and uses
-- Provide students with an educated, professional role model as adviser and serve as a motivator and catalyst for ideas and professionalism
-- Gather and share information on contests, scholarships, career opportunities, workshops, conferences and other avenues for student growth.
-- Adhere to the Adviser’s Code of Ethics from College Media Advisers or the Journalism Education Association