This is a blog about observations.
My thoughts on teaching and learning have shifted. It is common to read a book and have your thoughts struck by a bolt of lightning, but it's even more rare to read a blog and have your pedagogy shifted. This short blog takes inspiration from Roy Blatchford and @ScrtInspector.
Would You Intervene?
Have you ever been the observer in a lesson observation and intervened with students (and not with the teacher)? Perhaps this is common. It is for me when I see particular students making teaching and learning difficult for the teacher being
Hmmmmm. I have observed lessons and occasionally have entered into the flow of the learning with teacher and pupils, but with deference to the ownership of the teacher and always building on, rather than ‘cutting into’ what s/he and the pupils are doing. I have also invited the involvement of observers of my own teaching at times, to engage with the learning and the learners – and this has included an HMI observation. However, who am I, as an observer, to judge during the lesson how it should proceed, and when and how to intervene or ‘cut-in’? I may do it one way, but another teacher, who may be more of an expert in that discipline than I, may do it another way. That is a dialogue for after the lesson, not an incision or intervention during it. There is so much to consider, and a lot of it is so sensitive, that to intervene in this way could demolish both the intention of the lesson and the confidence of the teacher. It may be that a pre-arranged formal agreement may lay a good foundation for involvement; I am unconvinced, though, by drawing an analogy with the surgeons knife, or the notion of some kind of ‘director’s cut’ as though it were a news-room or live TV. That’s not to say that the temptation isn’t there, but the risk of making matters worse inclines me away from such intervention.
Live coaching in order to remind and reinforce are an essential part of any good mentor or coach’s repetoire. Why wait until later? You wouldn’t look over a student’s shoulder and say or think ‘I can’t wait to mark this!’ – you would intervene. Remember though to coach not teach. If you teach new things during a lesson it just gets confusing for the teacher. Coach those things previously discussed and remind them to use what you’d practised and learnt together.
Reinforce and remind with quick positive phrases. Use visual reminders around the room too in order to remind the teacher of the skills to be practised. Not sure you need too much tech here. Just get in the classroom but have plenty of time together in the lead up to establish trust and rapport.
Thanks for commenting Chris. I agree. It will take many schools to move forward with this model. After all we are still battling 50% of schools still grading individual lessons!
As a trainee teacher at the moment, I feel that if the relationship between class teacher and trainee teacher is good, then intervening in a lesson shouldn’t be a problem. At the end of the day it’s the kids who are missing out. Obviously there is a time and a place to intervene, as in not to stop the whole lesson! The main learning I do as a trainee teacher is when things go wrong, if nobody tells me what I’ve done wrong or how to improve it I will keep on making the same mistake!
At what point do we continue to take risks versus the desire to cease experimentation?
If someone was looking over my shoulder and taking the proverbial scalpel from me, I probably would not take any risks/try anything new. I’d just do whatever I thought was their idea of a good lesson.
The whole point of experimenting is to get a feel for what happens if you try something new.
Plastic surgery is rarely experimental in that way and students are not the ones allowed to take risks: there is a right way and a wrong way to make the incision.
It would be more like if your art teacher grabbed the brush from you and said “no no, we’re doing IMPRESSIONISM, paint like THIS”, you’ll be a great painter-by-numbers but will you ever break out of your teacher’s mould?
At what point should the scalpel (the observer) make that incision to stop the teacher going in the wrong direction?
It would have to be a pre-agreed thing. For example, the teacher wants to try a new method of formative feedback and if the observer sees they have an opportunity to try that new method, they could either nudge the teacher or model it. (The modelling would only work if the ‘observer’ was introduced as a special guest teacher to the class. I don’t imagine Y11 would be impressed with the teacher if the deputy head took over control of the lesson to show the teacher how it’s done.)
The difference between teaching and surgery is: if you make the wrong incision: that’s permanent.
If you ask too many closed questions or don’t leave enough thinking time or only ask the same people: that’s something you can fix on an ongoing basis. There’s very little teachers can do (in good faith), that scars a class for life. Almost everything ‘works’, it’s just about what makes the greatest impact. A so-so lesson is not as high stakes as plastic surgery.
How often have you been the observer in a lesson observation and intervened with students/teacher?
I have never intervened with the students or the teacher. If I think I see something that could be improved on, the teacher needs to go through the process of discussing what they thought went well and what could have been tightened up and why.
It’s like the classwork example from above in the comments: sometimes you need to get it wrong so that you can get it right the next time. If your teacher gives you formative feedback too early, you won’t remember how to do it for yourself.
How can schools establish a model where teachers can watch the observer observing and providing incisive feedback before, during and after the lesson?
Having team-teaching an integral part of everyone’s time table. Some of my best ever learning about teaching occurred when I shared a classroom with the deputy head. She’d sit at my desk doing her work most of the time but every so often, she would team teach with me. I could see certain behaviours modelled and try them out for myself, without it looking like management had no confidence in me, to my classes. We passed the baton to each other throughout the lesson, which helped keep the energy up for the students and we were able to share our attention on the class.
She never gave feedback as such, she just modelled excellent teaching and gave me the space to try it out myself.
How often do Police, GPs, Solicitors, Surgeons, Accountants etc get observed/graded/Action Planned etc etc after qualification?
Yet a teacher will face years of scrutiny…..and observations.