Observations on Peer Observation

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Observations on Peer Observation

• Sally Fincher
• Discplinary Commons
• 7th April 2006

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Our keenest observers

• Any school-child playing teacher will reproduce
  most of the behaviours used by most teachers.
• Typical behaviours are
• standing in the front of a group of relatively
  passive onlookers (a position of authority),
• doing most of the talking (telling),
• asking questions to which they know the answers
  (testing), and
• evaluating by passing judgements.
• Yet, no research base indicates that these
  behaviours have payoff in terms of learning, and
  much indicates that they do not.

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Short Shameful Confessions

• At this point, postcards were distributed and
  confessions solicited (in the footsteps of
  talk.bizarre short, shameful confessions or the
  PostSecret webpage http//postsecret.blogspot.com/
  ). The suggested subject of the confessions was
  Before the event, what was your greatest fear
  about being observed?

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Observation can describe various categories of
behaviour

• Affective the emotional content of
  communication
• Cognitive the intellectual content of
  communication
• Psychomotor nonverbal behaviours, posture, body
  position, facial expression gestures
• Activity what is being done that relates a
  person to someone or something else. (For example
  reading, or hitting)
• Content what is being talked about
• Sociological Structure the sociology of the
  interactive setting, including who is talking to
  whom and in what roles
• Physical environment descriptions of the
  physical space in which the observation is taking
  place, including materials and equipment being
  used

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Observation can describe various categories of
behaviour Two examples from the literature

• Affective the emotional content of
  communication
• See Defensive climate in the computer science
  classroom Lecia Jane Barker, Kathy Garvin-Doxas,
  Michele Jackson , 2002
• Sociological Structure the sociology of the
  interactive setting, including who is talking to
  whom and in what roles
• See Classical Ballet Structure and Practice
  Applied to Engineering Class Sessions Blair
  London, 2004

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Reflective Pause

• What artefacts did your observation generate?
• Have you further processed them, or referred to
  them subsequently?

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Uses for observation (i)Development

• Observation for expanding the repertoire of
  teaching styles and providing teachers with data
  about how their teaching style(s) match their
  intent.
• Some dimensions of teaching
• Participation amount and kind
• Cognitive level
• Affective climate
• Classroom control
• Student-student interaction
• Teacher role flexibility
• Classroom methods

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Uses for observation (ii)Supervision/Appraisal

• Observations can change this role from rater to
  resource. Can we become effective self-evaluators
  of our own skills?

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Uses for observation (iii)Specifying the
conditions of learning.

• Observation systems can be used for describing
  the conditions needed to support any learning
  environment. In order to specify knowing how
  rather than knowing about as content, low-risk
  environments must be provided.
• To provide the necessary environment for such
  learning, teachers must first be aware of, and in
  control of, their own verbal and non-verbal
  communication to students just as they control
  the subject matter. Second, they must understand
  what kinds of environment tend to foster or
  inhibit what effects in others.

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References

• The content of this presentation was inspired by
  Mirrors for Observation III An anthology of
  observation instruments edited by Anita Simon and
  E. Gil Boyer Communications Materials Center,
  Pennsylvania USA, 1974