How many observations can a teacher have

If you are a tenured teacher , the number of observations your principal or other evaluator will conduct depends on your overall rating from previous school years. If you are a probationary teacher , you will receive a minimum of one formal and three informal observations. A formal classroom observation is announced, takes a full period and requires a pre-observation conference and a post-observation conference. At the pre-observation conference, the teacher and the principal or other evaluator discuss the lesson focus, activities, students to be taught and expectations.

However, there is mounting research-based evidence that lesson observations, in their current format, are flawed. The evidence raises some interesting questions When an experienced observer sits in a lesson, we assume that they can spot good quality teaching in the blink of an eye.

But it can be all too easy to underestimate the effect of our own subjectivity on a lesson observation. Even with observers who are following explicit criteria, there can be enormous variations in their judgement of a lesson, as work by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation suggests.

Training is no guarantee against subjectivity either. The same research showed that trained observers such as principals and assistant principals were more likely to give varying results than teachers with less observation experience. Yet these are the observations that carry most weight.

Clearly establishing consistency of practice is no easy task. Lesson observations are considered by many to be an essential ingredient in improving pupil outcomes, but perhaps their role is being overplayed.

The Education Endowment Foundation EEF looked at the correlation between increased lesson observations and improved exam results, and published the findings in a report that examines the impact of structured teacher observations Rather than increasing the number of observed lessons, researchers suggest that observing lessons in conjunction with other ways of improving teaching, such as CPD courses or peer feedback, would be more effective.

Then, before the post-observation conversation, she "coded" the notes, using a list of indicators from the tool to determine which specific calling-on strategies Maya had implemented in the lesson, and shared the evidence with her. The evidence, as shown in Figure 1, indicated that Maya used hand-raising or cold calling as her primary calling-on strategies.

Responding to learners who raise their hands and cold calling saying a selected student's name, and generally providing no think time before that student responds are practices that are prevalent in classrooms, but they don't support equitable dialogue Hamilton, However, in this conversation, Dina didn't point a finger and tell Maya what to change. Rather, her opening question was: What do you observe about the method you used most frequently to call on students? Making Classroom Observations Matter - table.

Total Times Used. In her reflection at the end of the project, Dina asserted that, after years of supporting teachers, she finally feels she has a firm grasp on how to use evidence to approach observations and conversations more confidently.

In many schools and districts, administrators use checklists to observe classrooms. After observing and checking off practices from a list, a school leader might leave a thank you note or provide brief feedback to the teacher, perhaps suggesting a ready-made strategy to try. But too often, observations, especially those connected to teacher evaluation, are what Toch and Rothman call "drive-by" observations that do not support teachers in changing instructional practices.

These types of observations and feedback ignore the complexity of the classroom experience and the need for more nuanced evidence. Conclusions about observations are largely drawn from observer's subjective perceptions, which they use to give feedback to teachers with the expectation that they know what to do to improve. Such approaches are ineffective for changing teacher practice, and principals who continue to use them don't feel effective in improving teacher practice.

Yet these practices persist in our schools. Based on 50 years of research, the I4 observations emphasize collecting and analyzing evidence The observation tools are customized to support principals so they can provide teachers with specific examples and objective evidence, and these tools address key components of equitable access and rigor.

Equitable-access tools generate evidence about a teacher's calling on and questioning patterns; tools for rigor address the cognitive level of questions and how the teacher probes student thinking. Using the project's Effective Conversation Guide, I 4 participants analyze videos of themselves having post-observation conversations after observing teachers' lessons; then they review their approaches with a coach and their peers.

We purposefully distinguish feedback from conversations. Feedback , although it can and should be useful for dialogue and reflection, is often unidirectional and relies on perceptual data. Instead, observers need to foster collegial conversations with teachers about changing practice. To more effectively achieve its purposes, feedback needs to undergo both a quantitative and qualitative shift.

School leaders need to think differently about the logistical aspects of a conversation e. Using observation tools like those in Project I4 primes the pump for more effective post-observation interactions—and for changes in teaching practice.

By encouraging school leaders to start with a smaller group of teachers before the observation tool is used widely, leaders build an initial group's capacity in using the key processes, and principals get a stronger grasp on their roles as instructional leaders.

Using the Project I4 approach for observation and conversation entails three minute segments: conducting the observation; analyzing the observation evidence and preparing an opening question; and facilitating a post-observation conversation.

Leaders first use tools that support equitable access to have a full picture of the classroom discourse, then shift to more targeted tools as they have conversations with teachers.

Teacher decisions drive the choice of tools to be used in subsequent observations. Teachers can also learn to use the tools themselves for peer observations. The process is designed to be "chunked" and nimble enough to fit within an administrator's busy schedule. It aims to supplement, not replace, a district's formal evaluation requirements and procedures. Leaders use I4 observation tools to spotlight teacher actions that give learners equitable access, specifically the ways teachers call on students and how they form and ask questions.

After teachers make progress on practices tied to access, leaders shift to tools that center on ensuring academic rigor, looking at a teacher's question levels, language-learning practices, and quality of dialogue. The observing leader collects objective evidence of exactly what the teacher and students do and say. As leaders become more proficient at selective verbatim notetaking, they time-stamp when a practice occurred.

Then the leader codes or names specific components of the lesson and shares with the teacher— before the post-conference—both these selective verbatim notes and a tally of how often the various coded practices occurred in the segment observed. The tally shown in Figure 1, for instance, shows calling-on strategies used in a short observation of a class with 18 students.

Along with this tally, an observer would also use a seating chart and place marks next to the students called on. In this case, the observer's seating chart not pictured showed the teacher concentrated on only 10 students. Three students responded multiple times and eight students never spoke. But what principals observe is whether teachers are teaching. The crucial question is whether students are learning. To answer that, we need some measure of learning: a test.

Using test scores to evaluate teachers has been controversial, to put it mildly. Neither the number of observations of a teacher or students in a classroom is large, so average classroom scores can be expected to vary from year to year because of expected measurement error even if the teacher is the same and student characteristics are the same.

Do observations discriminate between teachers whose students learn a lot and teachers whose students do not? Teacher observation scores and student test scores show little correlation. Correlations between practices observed in classrooms and math scores were small, and some were negative.

Alternately stated, evidence about teacher knowledge and practice is weakly and inconsistently related to student achievement. Observations are fundamentally about teacher practice. The finding is saying observations and test scores are measuring different things.

Of course, research is rarely monolithic and some study in some journal will find some practice to be correlated with some test score. For example, researchers found that student test scores rose in Cincinnati after the district implemented a teacher-observation program that provided intensive feedback and coaching. And what is being implemented in states is not the high-intensity system tested in Cincinnati. In addition to not being correlated with test scores or measures of soft skills, teacher observations costs money.

We can guesstimate it. Suppose school administrators spend 10 hours a year to observe each teacher. This includes their time in training to conduct observations, doing the observations, writing up the results, meeting with teachers to debrief, and revising the observation if need be.

For untenured teachers, the time commitment probably is higher because most systems call for them to be observed more frequently. In there were 3. This is spending a lot of money to find that nearly all teachers are effective and to generate teacher feedback that does not improve student learning.