I read with interest your recent article on Why NYC Needs a Virtual Public School. With the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on education, with schools and teachers reeling from a variety of issues associated with connecting with students virtually, and with families facing some of their biggest challenges ever, the time is right to raise this issue.

A reimagining of public education is not a task for the faint of heart. Everyone across our country knows how education has always worked. We’ve been through it. We know the sights, sounds, smells, and emotions that being in a traditional school evoke. So, determining how to set up an effective remote learning platform that would replace or supplant the traditional “brick and mortar” school experience that we know so well will be a huge task.

Yes, the virtual school you write about would absolutely require many dedicated remote teachers. Online teaching and learning is very different than having face-to-face interactions as any teacher or parent sitting next to their child during online learning will tell you. Not only will the teachers need professional training initially, they will need much more.

It will be of utmost importance to include support for the teachers in any virtual public school plan. Even though many educators confidently use online resources in schools on a daily basis, presenting lessons and engaging students strictly in a virtual environment is a challenge. Intensive training on both the actual use of technology and teaching effectively with it will be needed.

Professional development must play a key role, both in the development of this virtual school and as teachers implement the plan. Observing educators and students as they work together online will give much-needed data when shaping further lessons.

• How will we best engage these young learners?
• What strategies are being used successfully?
• How can we share our knowledge with each other as we find out what works and what doesn’t?

Raw, honest realities have already been exposed in the past few months in our attempts to use virtual learning. Young children- and even not so young- have a difficult time engaging with online lessons. Parents often need to sit beside their children to help them understand directions, open links to websites, and even just to stay focused. Many parents also work from home and need the computers and time to continue with their jobs. Some families do not have access to the internet, while others choose not to participate or may have a language barrier preventing them from participating fully.

As this virtual school is designed and then eventually implemented, all of these barriers to learning will need to be addressed. Strong conversations and loads of listening to those who have been in the trenches will be absolutely needed and necessary. A virtual school cannot be based on a cookie-cutter education plan; instead, it has to be shaped by the needs of our children and teachers as they learn and grow.

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In this guide, we will break down the elements of classroom observation, methods, techniques, and more.

Contents

• What Is Classroom Observation?
• What Is the Purpose of Classroom Observation?
•  What Type of Teachers Need to Undergo Classroom Observations?
• Methods of Classroom Observation

Learn how Torsh can help support classroom observations

What Is Classroom Observation?

A classroom observation is an act of watching a teacher’s performance in their classroom or learning environment. Classroom observations are a quantitative way of recording and measuring teacher behavior and mastery by systematically watching and recording them in action. 

There are two basic types of observations:

1. A school administrator watches a teacher’s performance as a part of a formal job performance evaluation at a regularly scheduled interval (often annually).  
2. An observation performed by a teacher’s peer or peers, instructional specialist, or coach with the stated goal of providing the teacher with relevant feedback based on their interactions with students and their execution of teaching methods with the primary goal of making improvements in their classroom management and instructional techniques. 

What Is the Purpose of Classroom Observation?

The fundamental purpose of classroom observation is to improve student outcomes by improving the instructional prowess of the teacher. 

A secondary purpose of observation is to perform an investigation into possible inequities in instruction among different groups of students. This allows teachers and researchers to identify biases in how different groups of students are treated based on their gender, socio-economic standing, or other differentiating factors to help eliminate them.  

A final purpose is to provide researchers with information on current educational practices and to identify instructional problems.

What Type of Teachers Need to Undergo Classroom Observations?

Typically, it is new general and special education teachers who are the focus of classroom observations as they have less experience and stand to benefit the most from the process. 

That said, experienced teachers can benefit from the feedback and insights gained through observation as well as provide another perspective on their performance that may shed light on techniques that they are using improperly or not at all. 

Classroom observation can be as brief as a few minutes or as long as an entire school day or more. 

Methods of Classroom Observation

There are many different ways for an observer to effectively perform an observation. 

Some utilize homegrown in-house methods while others deploy nationally recognized models created by educational experts and further validated by research-based data. It really depends on the standard operating procedures of the school and the person performing the observation in which methods are used in a specific circumstance.  

The Elements of Classroom Observation

Good classroom observation will contain most or all of the following elements:

• A stated purpose for the observation
• A specific observational focus
• Operational definitions of all the observed behaviors
• Training procedures for observers
• An observation schedule
• A setting
• A unit of time
• A method to record the data
• A method to process and analyze data

Classroom Observation Techniques

Checklists, charts, rating scales, and narrative descriptions are examples of observational techniques that have proven to be effective ways of examining a teacher in action. 

However, the most prevalent procedure for systematic observation is the use of interactive coding systems. 

The reason they are used so often is that they allow the observer to document almost everything that happens between the teacher and their students during the observation. They are a widely used tool because they are objective and they are designed in a way that helps keep the observer’s personal judgments or inferences from skewing the data collected over the course of the observation. 

Interactive coding systems can readily identify and capture specific and easily identifiable behaviors in a way that lends the data to easy coding and categorization which is especially helpful for analyzing the data and providing the teacher with objective feedback.

TORSH Talent is an effective tool for classroom observation and feedback. With TORSH Talent, coaches can provide feedback in custom, digitized rubrics that are specific to each induction teacher and their goals. 

Click here to learn more about how Rockdale County Public Schools was able to provide structured feedback to teachers that led to drastically improved classroom practices using TORSH Talent.

Video Classroom Observations

Traditionally, all classroom observations were performed in person. Technology is now regularly being used to make the process more accessible and effective. 

The ubiquity of smartphones and tablets that have high-quality recording devices has made the video recording of classroom performances not only possible but easy and cost-effective. 

There are also subscription-based online services that are capable of providing another level of observational functionality and data analytics that are difficult to reproduce using the more traditional face-to-face observation and paper recording methods.

See how others are improving teacher effectiveness through video classroom observations.

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