CLASSROOM OBSERVATION

Classroom Observation



Classroom Observation

Part I:

Purposes of Classroom Observation

Classroom observation has many valid and important educational purposes. This section summarizes three important purposes or areas where systematic classroom observation has been widely used: (1) description of instructional practices; (2) investigation of instructional inequities for different groups of students; and (3) improvement of teachers' classroom instruction based on feedback from individual classroom or school profiles. (Murray 2005)

Description of instructional processes

One of the fundamental purposes of classroom observation research is describing the current status of instructional practices and identifying instructional problems. As Tom Good puts it, "one role of observational research is to describe what takes place in classrooms in order to delineate the complex practical issues that confront practitioners" (McGee 2005 p. 337). There have been many observational studies that have been specifically designed to describe specific educational phenomena. Large-scale observational studies such as Ken Sirotnik and Hersh Waxman, Shwu-Yong Huang, and Yolanda Padrón, for example, have examined instructional practices in elementary and secondary schools. (Lewis 2007)

Sirotnik examined 1,000 elementary and secondary classrooms and found that there was very little variety in teaching practices across subjects and grades. He found that the majority of class time was spent either with the teacher lecturing to the class or students working on written assignments. Waxman, Huang, and Padrón observed ninety sixth-grade and eighth-grade classrooms from sixteen inner-city middle level schools and found similar results to those of Sirotnik. Students were typically involved in whole-class instruction and not interacting with either their teacher or other students. (Jalongo 2007)

Students rarely selected their own instructional activities, and they were generally very passive in the classroom, often just watching or listening to the teacher, even though they were found to be on task about 94 percent of the time. The teacher observation results revealed that teachers typically focused on the content of the task or assignment, responded to students' signals, communicated the task's procedures, and checked students' work. (Hutchings 2006) Teachers were observed spending very little time interacting with students regarding personal issues, encouraging students to succeed, showing personal regard for students, and showing interest in students' work.

I carried out my observation on a kindergarten classroom social studies class that shared their lesson with a senior class. I joined the class at 2 PM. I came early and had to wait for the class to start. The children had arrived from library so the proper lesson started at 2:10 after some adjustments in the sitting arrangements. The kindergarten room was cheerfully decorated with lots of placards and student's art work. I noticed that the kids are being introduced colours as there were coloured strips on the blackboard which mentioned colours name along with some common things having those colours. The sitting arrangement was made in two rows, in such a way that they were facing each other. Each group was divided in to 14 seats each, so there were about 28 students in the class. The children were still carrying some library books and were curious about ...