Sally Fincher
hcidc
4th April 2008
Observations on Peer Observation
Our keenest observers
Any school-child playing “teacher” will reproduce most
of the behaviours used by most teachers.
Typical behaviours are:
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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 a payoff in terms of learning, and much
indicates that they do not.
Confessional pause
Observation can describe various categories of
behaviour
Affective The emotional content of communication
Cognitive The intellectual content of communication
Psychomotor
Nonverbal behaviours, such as posture, body
position, facial expression & gestures
What is being done that relates a person to
Activity someone - or something - else. (For example
reading, or hitting)
Content What is being talked about
Sociological The sociology of the interactive setting, including
Structure who is talking to whom and in what roles
Descriptions of the physical space in which the
Physical
observation is taking place, including materials
environment and equipment being used
Reflective Pause
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What artefacts did your observation generate?
Have you further processed them, or referred to
them subsequently?
Observation artefacts
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There are several ways to “record” observation,
partially depending on the purpose of the
observation. You may see:
 Checklist forms (“The instructor stated the objectives of the
class” yes/no)
 Scaled rating forms (“The instructor was well-prepared for
class” 5/4/3/2/1)
 Narrative prompt forms “Comment on the importance,
currency & accuracy of the content presented by the
instructor”)
Observation artefacts: narrative logs
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More elaborate forms include narrative logs, which
describes the course of a class. These can be
presented in “double entry” form with description in
one column and reflections in the other.
Observation artefacts: teacher behaviour
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Teacher behaviour systems are quite complex and
require training and purposeful use.
For example, the Cognitive Interaction Analysis
System (CAIS) requires the observer to make a
“category notation” every 3 seconds recording the
nature of the interaction.
Example CAIS categories
1. Accepting student attitudes
1h Use of humour
1f Affective instructor
comments
4. Asking questions
4c Knowledge level
4e Example level
4a Analysis level
4y Synthesis level
4j Evaluation level
4f Affective questions
4s Process questions
4r Rhetorical questions
4p Probing questions
6. Providing cues
6m Focusing on main points
6d Giving directions
6c Calling on a student
6s Giving assignments
6v Cues with visual
presentation
7. Criticism of student answer
8. Cognitive Student Talk
8c-8j Answers to teacher
questions
8n Student doesn’t know
answer
8q Student question
Example CAIS sequence, and explanation
Uses for observation
Uses for observation: (i) Development
You can use observation for expanding your repertoire
of teaching styles and for getting data about how
your teaching style(s) match your intent.
Some dimensions of teaching:
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Participation – amount and kind
Cognitive level
Affective climate
Classroom control
Student-student interaction
Teacher role flexibility
Classroom methods
Uses for observation
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?
Uses for observation
Uses for observation: (iii) Discovery/Evidencing
Observation systems can be used for describing the
conditions needed to support any learning
environment (including electronic, of course)
To provide the necessary environment for 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.
They must also understand what “kinds of
environment” tend to foster (or inhibit) what effects
in others.
What makes a learning environment “low risk”? What
makes your learning environment “low risk”?
References
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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
Examples were taken from: Peer Review of
Teaching: A Sourcebook Nancy Van Note Chism,
Anker Publishing Company, Bolton, MA, USA, 1999
This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0
UK: England & Wales Creative Commons License