A practical guide to:
Lesson Observation - the oil in the engine.
The power of lesson observation: what’s in it for you?
• Gain insight into new ideas, teaching practices and strategies
• Have the opportunity to observe great practice happening around your school and beyond
• Frame coaching and mentoring conversations
• Gain positive feedback from peers
• Become a more reflective practitioner
• Gain a deeper understanding of learning behaviours
• Develop a professional learning community focused on classroom practice
Where’s it all going wrong?
Research shows that pupils focus on grades and not feedback, however constructive the comments are. We
would argue that the same is true for teachers.
If this is the case, should lesson observations be focused on a judgement and a grade for teachers?
Thankfully, this is changing...but what next?
1.
Is your observation process failing your teachers?
Lesson observation has traditionally been geared towards performance management, however paradigms are shifting and the
importance of observation for development is being increasingly recognised.
Shifting the culture from summative assessments to an open, constructive, collaborative culture is a challenge for school leaders.
Questions to ask yourself about lesson observations at your school:
• As part of the senior leadership, if you’re honest with yourself, how do you feel about lesson observations at your school?
• Are your teachers confident about letting people observe their lessons?
• Are observations always centred around performance management or are they ever used for CPD?
• Does lesson observation feedback consist of tick boxes against criteria or a more contextualised meaningful discussion?
• Do teachers get an opportunity to see all of the great practice from around the school like you do?
• Is there a fear of risk taking or experimentation?
• Are there pockets of outstanding practice, but a difficulty in sharing this across the school?
• Are there opportunities for peer and self-review?
2.
4 signs your observation process is failing your teachers
1. There are negative feelings towards the lesson observation process
Observations are often perceived as an imposed activity, leaving teachers feeling stressed, disempowered and possibly
disagreeing with the observers judgement. The MET project found that observation judgements varied more between observers
than between the lessons observed.
2. Feedback is not immediate and is given through a series of tick boxes
Written feedback and tick boxes against criteria are difficult for teachers to contextualise with what actually happened in the
classroom, especially when trying to recall specific elements of a lesson at a later date.
3. Little or no risk taking in lessons:
Teachers don’t feel able to take risks in their classrooms, experiment with new ideas or practice. Reluctance to step outside their
comfort zone is often due to a fear of failure and a culture in which sticking to what you know is the safest option.
4. Teachers undertake little or no self or peer review
There are few or no opportunities for teachers to see themselves as others do and they rarely get an insight into their
colleagues classroom practice. Observations are not seen as something for the observer to learn from too.
If you want to improve the quality of teaching at your school, it’s worth taking a step back and asking whether any of
the above problems exist. By pinpointing the potential barriers to observation it’s much easier to overcome them and
use observation as a tool for development.
3.
10 ways to transform your school’s observations
1. Move from summative to formative observations
Rather than a one-off judgment that leaves teachers quaking in their boots, make observation part of an on-going
formative process. In other words, move from a “done to” to a “done with” model.
• Use a series of questions - help the teacher dig deeper into their teaching and student learning and set the course of
their professional learning. Read Tom Sherrington’s blog on observing a sequence of lessons for some excellent
question ideas.
• Formative Feedback - Read Mike Fleetham’s 5 tips on making observation feedback formative. From objective setting,
focusing on specifics identifying next steps, these help put the teacher’s development at the centre of observation
feedback.
2. Provide opportunities for regular peer observation and collaboration
Andrew Hockley, a specialist in leadership and management, and researcher into the benefits of peer observation,
recently released peer observation success criteria.
Four key things to remember:
• Empower teachers by letting them shape the peer observation process
• Provide training in what to look for in observations as well as in giving and receiving feedback
• Make peer observation part of contractual CPD time to ensure it’s regarded as important
• Highlight peer observation as an opportunity for both the teacher observing and the teacher being observed to learn
4.
3. Show what great practice looks like
How can a teacher move towards outstanding when they’re not quite sure what outstanding looks like?
There are DVDs with examples of outstanding teaching, which can be useful, however as one teacher
described them “they show perfect children in perfectshire, it’s not like my school”.
Try...
Using video to build a bank of shared lessons to celebrate great teaching practice taking place at your
own school, or across a group of schools you work with. Of course it’s important to ensure that the
videos are all permissioned by teachers and stored securely on a cloud based platform.
4. Find out what your teachers find valuable
Ask what your staff find valuable and what they don’t.
Engaging teachers in decisions will create buy-in to the process and avoid wasting time and money on
activities that teachers don’t find useful.
Recommended reading...
A great example of where opening the dialogue with staff has led to positive change is at a London school
where Ross McGill, Assistant Head (@TeacherToolkit), asked teachers what they thought. They collectively
championed formative approaches to observation and feedback, which they felt offered them “many more
outcomes and possibilities” than the Learning Walks they had previously been doing.
Read Ross’s blog.
5.
5. 360 Degree Observations
6. Focus on specifics, not generalisations
Observations should be viewed as learning
experiences opportunities for both the teacher and
the observer.
Focus observations on looking as particular elements of
a lesson or specific observable behaviours rather than
the lesson as a whole, which can be overwhelming.
• Make observations a two way learning process
For example look only at questioning, AFL, wait time or
a specific student’s learning.
• If you’re observing a teacher, offer them the
same opportunity to observe you
• Consider cross department 360 observations
too, as they may unlock plenty of interesting
insight and learning opportunities previously
undiscovered.
This makes for bitesize learning opportunities and
identification of specific areas for improvement. Often if
you are able to improve a cornerstone behaviour, it has
a knock-on effect on other areas of practice, e.g. less
teacher talk time, may lead to better behaviour.
7. Create a common language
Develop a common language and framework for a school-wide shared understanding as to what good and outstanding
teaching looks like based on the school, not necessarily one-size fits all criteria.
You can then moderate the observation process against your personalised understanding criteria resulting in stronger
more trusting relationships between teachers and their observers.
6.
8. Take the opportunity to record and revisit - try video
• The effectiveness of feedback diminishes over time following an observation, in the busy life of a
teacher it’s near impossible to accurately recall specifically what happened in lesson last week
• Recording lessons and feedback allows you to revisit and learn from the experience time and
time again
• By watching your lessons back, you’re able to look at other aspects of teaching and learning
which may not have been the original focus of the observation; turning that one lesson into
multiple learning opportunities.
9. Enable your teachers to observe their own teaching
“It is the actual experience of being more effective that spurs them to repeat and
build on the behaviour”Michael Fullan, 2012
Seeing yourself as your students and an observer sees you helps to gain much more insight into
the impact you have as a teacher. Using video is like holding a mirror up to your teaching practice and is a very powerful tool for teacher reflection, and helps frame professional discussion
and coaching conversations.
Read our practical guide to increasing the effectiveness of reflection.
7.
10. Widen your professional learning net
Why restrict the observation process to within your school?
If you want to use observations as a developmental tool then look beyond your school gates.
Use your links with other schools to share practice, peer observe and collaborate with teachers in other schools.
The costs associated with lesson cover and travel can be restrictive, but cloud based video platforms such as IRIS
Connect can overcome these and help you to start peer observing and sharing over distance.
Ask yourself...
1. How do you use observations at your school?
2. What are your aims for the observation process?
3. How do you assess whether the process meets your aims?
4. Do teachers have the opportunity to use observation for their professional development?
8.
Why IRIS Connect?
IRIS Connect overcomes the challenges of traditional lesson
observation by:
• Reducing costs and overcoming timetable restraints
• Increasing authenticity by eliminating the “hawthorne effect” of
an in-class observer
• Providing teachers with deeper insights into their own practice
using observational data
• Contextualising feedback and dialogue through commenting on
relevant points of the video
• Empowering teachers to become more reflective, taking
ownership of the lesson observation process
• Turning lesson observations into a sharable resource that can
benefit the wider community time and time again
“
The use of IRIS Connect has been a
main driver in us moving closer to
100% of our teachers being ‘Good’
or ‘Outstanding’ and improving
teaching and learning.
”
Mandy Lancy, Headteacher, Feltham Hill Junior School
94%
88%
99%
of teachers actively using IRIS Connect
say their teaching has improved;
say their confidence has risen;
say that there are more teachers talking
about teaching
Read the research summary: www.irisconnect.co.uk/research
Free on-site demo
*according to research involving 99 teachers. 2013
irisconnect.co.uk
[email protected]
08453 038 578