#classroom observation

[nfinitefreetime]

This may as well happen

Oh, I know, you just had a Friday, but did you have a “the assistant superintendent of the entire district pops in for an entirely unexpected surprise observation during your worst-behaved class” Friday? BECAUSE I DID.

[thedigitalmayank]

EduMinatti

What's in the Well-Equipped 21st Century Classroom If you were to compare a twenty-first-century classroom to one from the late twentieth c...

New technological advances may be found in today's lecture rooms, and therefore the integration of technology into lecture rooms has brought learning to an entirely new level.

[mamielt]

Maintaining class-wide engagement and awareness-raising in a large group class

In this blog post I was thinking about some ways to strengthen student engagement as there tends to be, in many cases, students who dominate the class by talking more often, and students who shut down when they are not having to participate. An ongoing class strategy that works well to quell the class dominators as well as perk up the wallflowers is to set up something I'm calling "peer-accountability partners." Now, I think they could definitely go by a different name, depending on the age and language level of your students, but the basic idea regardless of student proficiency is this: At the end of the class, each student (or for a large group, students selected by the teacher) reports on the comments made by their partner throughout the class. Comments can include 1 new word used by the partner, a question about something the partner said, corrective feedback about the partner's language use, etc. In addition, observation buddies can fill out an easy questionnaire and deliver it to their partner at the end of class for immediate peer feedback. Partners can change with each class or can stay the same throughout the semester. For the first time implementing this it could be helpful to have a stimulus-based activity in the foreground of the class that you know will elicit a lot of language from most students. Tell them that this is a class about speaking as much as it is about practicing being a good observer. Regularly pause the momentum of the class to get instantaneous oral feedback from observation partners until it seems like students are actively taking notes on each other. This is an especially good activity for competitive groups who don't naturally lend themselves to the co-constructive nature of Language learning tasks. If anyone gives it a try, please leave a comment or send an email. I'd love to hear your thoughts and iterations on this type of on-going listening and observation task.

[shardashiannn]

If you are an early childhood education major--or any other education major--why the heck are you coming to your field placements with a negative attitude??

I'm placed in a 2nd Grade classroom this semester and so is another girl in my major. This was only our second day there and she has the worst attitude. "Once 12 hits, I'm out of here. I don't care what she [our mentor teacher] has us doing." 

One of the little boys said bye to both of us as we were leaving and she didn't notice. I said, "He said bye to you, too."

She goes, "I don't care. It's 12...I'm done. I'm not their tutor after 12."

I'm sorry, but can you please choose another major? Or stop complaining about spending just 3 and half hours vs the 9+ you would be spending at school once you become a teacher. 

Oh well. She makes me look good in comparison. I try my best to be an active observer of the class and lend help when it's needed. The other girl is going through all the random drawers and supplies in the classroom, drawing attention to herself as she does it, and generally looking like an idiot to our mentor teacher. Plus she doesn't dress professionally and she needs to brush her hair or something before she comes to the school.

I don't like to speak badly of others all the time, but honestly she pisses me off.

[classroomchaos]

TEACHER ADVENTURE: When the Principal observes me...

I have been advised to teach my best lesson plan when the school Principal comes to observe me. I have also been advised to select my best class period for this observation. Pfffttt...

Okay, okay, so I selected my best class period for this observation, BUT I did not change up my lesson plan JUST for the Principal. I not only spent a weekend planning the next four weeks of lessons, but I just figured out a part of my teaching-style and I want to know what is and is not working for me. My lesson was not anything special. I am still assessing my students' skills in creating outlines and writing paragraphs based on their outlines. So far a majority of my students understand and I know the few who still need assistance. To me, this is a good thing. I know what I can teach and re-teach and what I can do to move them forward. To open the activity I distributed various literary genres and had the students place those genres under fiction and nonfiction, then I opened the discussion by asking if changes needed to be made. They did a great job!

But this is just a sample of what I do and I think I am great at what I do. I want to know what I can do to be better, how I can hone my skills, suggests on what I can change, improve, or shape my lessons. I mean, really, my lessons are lacking...something. I may not have engaged the students in a wonderful activity all period, but like I said, I was still assessing my students and I was not going to change the lesson for this one observation. I'm keeping it real, you know? I mean, if someone is going to observe me, observe me for me, you know? I can not improve my skills if I have to do something outside my norm.

I am buying my students donuts tomorrow. It is my way of thanking them rather than rewarding them. They did really well, better than usual, even though I told them I would be observed but did not know when. I mean, I knew when, but they did not know when. Earlier in the month I told them I wanted them to be as close to normal as possible. I also told them I would not want them to be anyone but themselves because I planned on not being anyone but myself. The quirky students were still quirky, the bright students were still bright, my shy students were still shy, and the talkative was still talkative, and I was still able to teach and they were able to (hopefully) learn. And so, I just had my observation. I scheduled an appointment to discuss his observation results. I am confident it will be positive because he's a great, reputable, and respectful school Principal who is leading the best high school's in our area and I am lucky to be part of his team. But I am also hoping for some valuable feedback.

[michangelotm]

Classroom Observation

Yesterday nagstart na yung class observation namin sa BSBA Management 2B and I can say that  it was fun! 

Una dahil yun sa schedule ng klase nila, every Wednesday (favorite day, Washday) right after ng campus journalism namin, tapos meron din kapag Friday.  Then dahil na din sigurosa prof. yun din kasi yung prof namin sa communication artsII; yung prof namin na niroleta kami. Lastly dahil narin siguro sa class—sobrang fun nungklase, active din sila, tapos magaling din mag-english kapag discussion nila –at sige na nga oo na!!!! nandoon din kasi si Kras.  Alam mo yun? Yung feeling na ayaw mong magjot down ng mga negative feedback from the class dahil sa kanya.  Ang landi-landi ko lang.  Tapos ito pa,  nahuli ko pa siyang nakatingin sakin, yung moment na busy ka na nagsusulat tapos bigla kang napatingin sa kanya tapos siya ay nakatingin din pala sayo tapos biglang baling siya ng tingin sa iba. Di ba ang kati-kati ko talaga parang hindi lalaki? LOL! At na sundan pa yun.  Since hindi ko alam yung name niya, duma-moves na ako.  Dahil before mag-end yung class may bigay kaming survey form tapos dun na nagkalaman ng name! whahahaha.  Galing talaga ng tadhana.Pinaglalapit talaga kami.LOL (slow clap for me.)

Yun lang at naging masaya na ang araw ko.  Salamat kay KRAS!

[classroomchaos]

Adventures in Substitute Teaching: Confiscating electronics

You see, I noticed this when I read WITH my students: 1. I read along with them so I can help pronounce words. 2. While reading, sometimes the students will distract other students while my head is in the book. 3. Students will hide their cell phones in their books. Then I figured there is an advantage to playing the audio version of a book in class and have the students read along: 1. It puts all students at the same reading pace as others. 2. The pace of the reader is perfect. 3. I get observe my students and monitor their behavior. The third one is key because today, today I scored: My sixth period is sneaky, but thankfully, they did not argue with me when I simply reached out my hand to the three students who tried to use their electronic devices when they were suppose to be reading along with the audio in class. And, without looking at the student, I reached out my hand to the student who was sharing clay in class. He was throwing pieces of clay. I simply walked up to him and had him place the clay in my hands. And I held out my hand until every chunk was placed in my palm.

Well my hand was reached out like that, but my facial expression and my mentality was very similar. Some teachers would immediately write a referral for the student, but I do not do that unless I have given a verbal warning. I may find other culprits doing the same tomorrow in other class periods. Looks like I will be doing more observing tomorrow.

HahhHHAA!

[windycitylibrarian]

I'm a little confused about this

I finally got my post-observation for my February observation (I know) and the results weren't terribly surprising. I ended up with a lot of Basics, especially in behavior management, which explains why I'm now all gung-ho about behavior with only ten weeks to go in the school year.

Luckily for me, my next observation will be with an older group of kids and typically, behavior management has been much better with those guys, a fact that my principal acknowledges is due to my experience as a high school teacher. This is why he wanted to do a formal with the younger kids, because he knew that I would be struggling with them.

My question, however, is this: if I am known to be having trouble with a particular group of kids, wouldn't it be better to have an informal observation with feedback rather than a potentially damaging formal observation?

I realize that time is of the essence here, especially now that the observations have begun for the tenured teachers, but I feel like I've been given the short end of the stick here and I'm feeling rather disgruntled about the whole thing.