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Classroom Observation - Coggle Diagram

- - - - 1. It focuses on various aspects, such as listening only to a certain type of question or charting one student´s concentration for a ten-minute time span, or recording non-verbal signals.
        2. It provides collecting data that frees the observer from forming an opinion or making an on-the-spot evaluation during the lesson.
        
        Discovering the classroom from a perspective other than that of the person actually teaching.
        
        Provides both focus and clarity.
        
        Collecting classroom-based data and information about teaching.
        
        Interpreting and understanding data.
        
        Discussing and reflecting on the classroom.
        
        Building relationships with colleagues based on mutual respect and support.
        
        Enabling their own classroom decision-making to be more informed and systematic.
  - - - Model of teacher development
        A teacher who is discovering more about their own teaching by seeking to understand the process of teaching and learning in their own and others´ classrooms.
        A) The teacher brings his own developing host skill set and experiences that will serve him in the active, not passive learning process.
        B) The teacher acquiring new information or knowledge about teaching, but through thinking about new ideas in the light of past experience, fitting new ideas into her or his thinking, and reappraising old assumptions in the light of new information. And that´s absorbed to be creative, dynamic, and personal to each person receiving the information.
        C) The wish to reflect on one´s own teaching, to explore other paths, comes from within the practitioner; it cannot be imposed from outside and the measure by some objective assessment tool. The teacher determines and defines their own end-point or expected outcome.
        D) The general objectives of teacher training must respect the agenda of the individual and must aim at the autonomy of the teacher, not dependency. These not only tend to close the pathways to teacher autonomy but also reverse the responsibility for change on the educator.
        
        The nature of help
        The beginning teacher is the recipient of the wisdom of the "veteran" practitioners in the classroom. Being the recipient of the latest research findings on teaching and learning as a co-investigator or co-explorer in the language classroom. Facilitates and guides learning, to assist in the identification of priorities or the provision of learning resources; essentially to respond rather than to initiate or steer.
        The collaborative model is consistent with the principles of main-stream adult education where a key feature is the voluntary nature of the learning experience.
        The discovery-oriented and inquiry-based spirit aims to set in motion a means of teacher development where the initiation and motivation are essentially 'bottom-up'. Observing others teaching for the purpose of professional self-growth sidesteps, quite neatly, the traditional power bases of people involved in teacher education.
        Analyzing the nature of help in the process of teacher development, it is valuable to bear in mind what the long-term aims of this development might be. Essentially the process is one that should foster the growth of independent teachers capable of making independent decisions.
        
        The importance of the classroom
        The view taken is that the teacher is the principal agent of change in language teaching and that the natural habitat of the teacher is the classroom where their experience is based and will develop their own personal philosophy of what makes effective teaching and learning.
        
        The 'Trainavility' of observation skills
        Broadening, deepening, and refining the powers of observation, these tasks are designed to guide the growth of the teacher´s critical abilities. This is seen as a firm ground on which to build skills of analysis, interpretation, and self-evaluation. And Are clearly linked with teachers' ability to analyze what goes on in their own classrooms so as to help them make better professional decisions.
        A teacher may assume that her or his manner of organizing group work, or handling correction is successful and effective; she or he may confront these unstated assumptions by observing other teachers doing similar or different things in the classroom.
        A teacher may assume that her or his manner of organizing group work, or handling correction is successful and effective; she or he may confront these unstated assumptions by observing other teachers doing similar or different things in the classroom.
        Rituals are comforting in the sense that they provide a certain security, at a time when a teacher is looking for survival skills and strategies. The danger is that the principles behind the techniques are not understood, resulting in techniques being enacted and re-enacted as lip-service ritual.
        
        The importance of Task-Based experience
        Active engagement can take many forms: doing, thinking, reacting, absorbing, observing, reflecting, preparing, considering, analyzing, selecting, raking, interpreting, evaluation, etc.
        a) Personalized: The task allows the observer the opportunity to engage with the experience on an individual basis.
        b) Generative: The instructional process [is] productive in a mathematical sense so that it teaches both content and a way of thinking which can continue to generate solutions beyond that specific context.
        c) Inquiry-based, discovery-oriented, inductive and potentially problem-solving: It allows teachers to come to their own understanding of the classroom based on their own experience instead of giving them pre-packaged solutions.
        d) Resource base: The task allows teachers to build up experience and understanding that will serve them as a resource base for their own teaching classroom decision-making.
- - - - Trainer Teachers: observe teachers, other trainees, and trainers as an important part of their initial training process.
        
        Teacher Trainers: who observe trainees teaching
        
        Trainee teachers: who observe teachers and trainees teachers.
- - - - Many questions are precipitated but not necessarily asked: Do the students know who the observers are and why they are there? Is the teacher secretly harbouring anxieties about being judged? Do the students, for example, suspect that the teacher's teaching is under suspicion? Will this detract from their respect for the teacher? Do the students think they are being (secretly) tested?.
- - - - Context 1: You are keen to explore your teaching and generally wish to find out more about how you teach. Your observer will observe you in the classroom from the agreed perspective. Following this, the two of you will confer and the data collected will serve you to discover more about what happens when you teach.
        
        Context 2: You each choose to observe a number of lessons by different teachers using an agreed means of collecting and recording data. Apart from the actual observation. of lessons, such a program requires preliminary meetings to establish commonalities of purpose, allocate tasks, set guidelines and time frames; and follow-up meetings to de-brief, pool data, analyze and interpret findings.
        Context 3: Two teachers decide to observe each other to look at a particular aspect of their teaching. This would lead to a post-lesson conference where the teachers would exchange opinions and ideas on the areas of concern
  - - - Context 1: A trainer observes a practical teaching lesson given by a trainee teacher. Some data is collected from the lesson, using a particular task. In a tutorial or a follow-up discussion, which could facilitate the learning of the teacher in training, either in the short or long term.
        Context 2: A trainer-trainee is asked to prepare a session for a group of trainee teachers on aspects of language teaching. To research the topic, form the training that collects some authentic data on this particular aspect of teaching by observing a teacher (or student) and focusing on this aspect of teaching.
  - - - Context 1: Your goal here is to encourage the teacher to talk about the problem and to start speculating about it in broader terms. This would also lead to another meeting where he would encourage the teacher to make inferences from the collected data and begin to better understand the what, why, and how of sunset. It is always advisable to check with teachers to find out what their preferred course or a combination of courses, of action is.
        Context 2: You plan presentation and workshop on the subject, but prefer to have participants arrive 'warm' and motivated. As a lead-up to the workshop, you set up a series of structured peer observations using particular tasks that relate to the area of interest that is the subject of your workshop. You hope to call on the data collected and together pool thoughts to interpret and discuss the findings.