Lesson observation - Pondering a new direction...
I have had responsibility for learning and teaching for 4 years now. Initially as a Director of Learning and now as an Assistant Headteacher. One of my favourite parts of the job has always been observing staff because I love seeing how different people teach, I enjoy having conversations with teachers about teaching and the new ideas they want to try out. But over the last few years (and I cannot pinpoint when it happened exactly), I began to realise that whilst I, as an observer, get a lot from the observation, for the person being observed it can be awful. It provokes anxiety, worry and can create an increase in workload. Teachers teach lessons that they believe will score them a 1 or a 2 because the number feels like the only thing that counts. There is less variety in the lessons taught because people try to create a formula for success for fear of falling short of expectation and are less likely to take risks. If you tell someone the snapshot of the lesson you saw was a 3 or a 4, it creates panic, they hear 'I require improvement' or 'I am inadequate', it feels personal and it creates a whole pile of pressure to add to the existing pile of pressure. Yet in my heart I still believe that observation is important and that it can be a game changer but perhaps we need to look at new ways of approaching it.
For the last year or so, @petemona has worked extensively on improving the assessment process for students. After about 12 months of him telling me if I just gave feedback without a grade, the responses of my students would improve, I finally tried it. I returned a whole set of essays to year 13 with no grades, just lots of praise and helpful comments and some very specific targets that I asked them to address. In their second drafts, the essays showed the most amount of improvement in any piece of work. They still badgered me for a grade but they paid very real and genuine attention to my feedback and used it to improve. This is not revelatory, I am sure this is how most people provide feedback to their students. I have also used peer assessment more in my lessons and have found that students actually feel far happier having a peer read the first draft rather than me and that they listen to each other's advice. So if we can conclude from this (and I appreciate that there is nothing particularly scientific about my assumption) that feedback to elicit progress involves the following factors: regularity, no grading, praise, involvement of peers and specific targets, then does it not seem strange that when looking at improving practice of teachers, we rely on infrequent, graded snapshots often conducted by senior staff?
Now I appreciate that this is how Ofsted do it but with all due respect, so what? I think we have to do a little soul searching about why we observe. If we are observing to check up on staff or create a data set that we can present to Ofsted then I guess this traditional approach is the best way. But what if there is a better motivation? Dylan Wiliam said that 'every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better'. I have finally got used to being observed and it no longer strikes fear into my heart, indeed I try to use observations for my own benefit - read something crazy on twitter and fancy giving it a go? What better opportunity than in an observation? The more I think about it the more I am convinced that if we genuinely want to improve (and I am not sure I know of any teacher who does not strive to be better) then lesson observation is the tool to help us do this but only if we take away the numbers and the grading and the infrequency and the status and replace it with something more meaningful. Something will help and support our staff because it is our duty to enable the staff we have to be the best that they can be.
I have recently discovered Matt O'Leary's work on lesson observation and in a post (http://mattolearyblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/does-lesson-observation-still-have-a-role-to-play-in-teaching/) he wrote 'The way forward in maximising the potential of observation as a tool for improving the quality and understanding of teaching and learning lies in the adoption of an enquiry-based approach where teachers are empowered to become active researchers of their classrooms'. I love this. I love the idea that lesson observation is a tool available to a member of staff to enhance their own development. The idea of active researchers particularly resonates with me because it suggests the trialling of new ideas, tweaking to change and an element of independence yet control.
I have also looked at the ideas put forward by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo in Leverage Leadership. He recommends providing bite-sized action steps that teachers can work on. He argues that taking this approach can take a teacher from novice to master in just a couple of years. This is achieved through weekly observations and coaching feedback focusing on small, achievable targets and moving away from overly complex and detailed criteria. The teacher isn't given an observation day and time, they just teach as they would teach and each week are observed for 15 minutes and receive feedback for 15 minutes. The idea of more regular feedback makes the process less intensive and anxiety provoking because there is no grade, no judgement, just advice and guidance of what could be improved. I like this because as it was announced over the Christmas break, Ofsted do not have one fixed idea of what good teaching is and therefore rather than trying to make all staff teach like x, we can focus on enhancing the teaching styles and tools they are most comfortable with.
It is very easy to do things the way you have always done them and indeed to do things the way most people do them. Attending @SLTCamp was eye-opening for me because it gave me the time and space to hear lots of different ideas about teaching and reflect on the many different approaches that people take to leading in this area. It made me reflect on what I currently do and why I do it that way and it has made me question a lot of things. I do not necessarily believe that there is no place for graded lessons, I just think there are other ways in which lesson observation could be used to enable teachers to stretch themselves and improve on their practice. I think we could remove the fear of judgement from the process and develop meaningful conversations, coaching conversations, in which the person being observed feels in control of the process. At present I am just reading and pondering and have begun looking at lesson study (fabulous post about the use of lesson study to spot rhinos courtesy of Rachel Stevens - http://edulike.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/using-lesson-study-to-spot-rhinos.html) but would be interested in others experiences/views of the lesson observation process and how they are using it to enable teachers to flourish.
For the last year or so, @petemona has worked extensively on improving the assessment process for students. After about 12 months of him telling me if I just gave feedback without a grade, the responses of my students would improve, I finally tried it. I returned a whole set of essays to year 13 with no grades, just lots of praise and helpful comments and some very specific targets that I asked them to address. In their second drafts, the essays showed the most amount of improvement in any piece of work. They still badgered me for a grade but they paid very real and genuine attention to my feedback and used it to improve. This is not revelatory, I am sure this is how most people provide feedback to their students. I have also used peer assessment more in my lessons and have found that students actually feel far happier having a peer read the first draft rather than me and that they listen to each other's advice. So if we can conclude from this (and I appreciate that there is nothing particularly scientific about my assumption) that feedback to elicit progress involves the following factors: regularity, no grading, praise, involvement of peers and specific targets, then does it not seem strange that when looking at improving practice of teachers, we rely on infrequent, graded snapshots often conducted by senior staff?
Now I appreciate that this is how Ofsted do it but with all due respect, so what? I think we have to do a little soul searching about why we observe. If we are observing to check up on staff or create a data set that we can present to Ofsted then I guess this traditional approach is the best way. But what if there is a better motivation? Dylan Wiliam said that 'every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better'. I have finally got used to being observed and it no longer strikes fear into my heart, indeed I try to use observations for my own benefit - read something crazy on twitter and fancy giving it a go? What better opportunity than in an observation? The more I think about it the more I am convinced that if we genuinely want to improve (and I am not sure I know of any teacher who does not strive to be better) then lesson observation is the tool to help us do this but only if we take away the numbers and the grading and the infrequency and the status and replace it with something more meaningful. Something will help and support our staff because it is our duty to enable the staff we have to be the best that they can be.
I have recently discovered Matt O'Leary's work on lesson observation and in a post (http://mattolearyblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/does-lesson-observation-still-have-a-role-to-play-in-teaching/) he wrote 'The way forward in maximising the potential of observation as a tool for improving the quality and understanding of teaching and learning lies in the adoption of an enquiry-based approach where teachers are empowered to become active researchers of their classrooms'. I love this. I love the idea that lesson observation is a tool available to a member of staff to enhance their own development. The idea of active researchers particularly resonates with me because it suggests the trialling of new ideas, tweaking to change and an element of independence yet control.
I have also looked at the ideas put forward by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo in Leverage Leadership. He recommends providing bite-sized action steps that teachers can work on. He argues that taking this approach can take a teacher from novice to master in just a couple of years. This is achieved through weekly observations and coaching feedback focusing on small, achievable targets and moving away from overly complex and detailed criteria. The teacher isn't given an observation day and time, they just teach as they would teach and each week are observed for 15 minutes and receive feedback for 15 minutes. The idea of more regular feedback makes the process less intensive and anxiety provoking because there is no grade, no judgement, just advice and guidance of what could be improved. I like this because as it was announced over the Christmas break, Ofsted do not have one fixed idea of what good teaching is and therefore rather than trying to make all staff teach like x, we can focus on enhancing the teaching styles and tools they are most comfortable with.
It is very easy to do things the way you have always done them and indeed to do things the way most people do them. Attending @SLTCamp was eye-opening for me because it gave me the time and space to hear lots of different ideas about teaching and reflect on the many different approaches that people take to leading in this area. It made me reflect on what I currently do and why I do it that way and it has made me question a lot of things. I do not necessarily believe that there is no place for graded lessons, I just think there are other ways in which lesson observation could be used to enable teachers to stretch themselves and improve on their practice. I think we could remove the fear of judgement from the process and develop meaningful conversations, coaching conversations, in which the person being observed feels in control of the process. At present I am just reading and pondering and have begun looking at lesson study (fabulous post about the use of lesson study to spot rhinos courtesy of Rachel Stevens - http://edulike.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/using-lesson-study-to-spot-rhinos.html) but would be interested in others experiences/views of the lesson observation process and how they are using it to enable teachers to flourish.
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