Before reading chapter 5 of Brown’s book I used
to focus my classroom observations on analyzing the extent to which my students
had attained specific learning objectives. For me it was a matter of paying
attention to who of them had and had not completed a task successfully, or had
learned something with ease or difficulty.
Now that I have read about the topic I have
come to realize that observations are excellent tools for assessing not only
what my students have and have not learned, but also my own teaching
strategies.
Brown suggests that in order for observations
to be effective and reliable they must have a specific objective, be recorded
and kept in an organized way, and occur frequently. I remember that in many of
the occasions in which I attempted to record my observations I was not even
close to do any of those things. First
of all, I did not have clear objectives. The second mistake was that I just
used to take random notes which I almost never used again because they didn´t
make any sense, maybe the reason for that was that my observations lacked coherence and details such as the what,
why, when and who. On top of that, I wasn´t very consistent so at the end I
stopped doing them (oops, I failed! L ).
Well, the good thing is that now I have a
clearer idea of what classroom observations are, how useful they are for
improving our students learning and our teaching practices, and also of the
things I have to take into account for making them effective and reliable ways
of assessment. What was your experience?, has it happened the same to you?
Well, I must say YES! Unfortunately whenever I tried to observed a class or even the progress of my students, I felt terrible because I couldn't get it many times, so the observations weren't effective and they didn't lead me to something useful to do in future. But now. I see the steps and intentions we have to take into account before thinking on observing.
ReplyDeleteHi Silvia,
ReplyDeleteYes, it has happened to me too, not only with observations, but with many issues we have been talking about in class, such as the assessment principles and alternatives in assessment. The good thing here is that we can practice and correct our mistakes while we are studying the proper way of assessing our students, trying to apply as much as possible all the key points and analyze how we can improve our teaching strategies based on every new insight and go a step forward every time.
Exactly the same happened to me. I used to take notes without a clear objective in mind; just to have a record about assistance, participation, homework, and so on. Now we know that we must take into account some aspects before observation to make it effective and reliable. A very well prepared observation will improve our classroom assessment.
ReplyDeleteYeah...Thanks for sharing your comments. What we´ve read will help us start, however, there are many other things we have to read and figure out by ourselves. Good Luck with that :P
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, keeping anecdotal records can be messy. And this comes from the 'messiest' of all. If you want to start out well, try using other tools. Maybe rating scales are a good idea. You can even start with one that is already created. Try that out and let us know!!!!
ReplyDeleteYes, professor, that would probably be a good start. I think it will be easier to use checklists first, because they will allow me to keep things simple by providing me with only yes/no response choices. Then I will try using rating scales which I consider require more expertise.
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