Observation and Feedback Module

Stages of Observation Completed Grid and

Commentary
Before you
observe

While you are

observing

After observing

Discuss the lesson plan

Make notes during the

lesson

Suggest alternative
approaches the
teacher could have
taken
Ask the teacher about
successful elements
of the lesson
Ask the teacher about
less successful
elements of the
lesson
Write an observation
report on the lesson

Ensure that the lesson

plan has overall aims in
it
See a written copy of
the lesson plan

Agree a focus for the

observation with the
teacher
Discover the teachers
opinion of the students

Ask the teacher to

agree and sign the
written report
File the written report
Thank the teacher

Decide on a focus for the observation

In the Bin!!!Talk to the students about the lesson
Participate in the lesson
Correct the students sitting in front of you
Tell the teacher what went wrong with the lesson
Grade the lesson

The grid above gives us a useful scaffold for the process of observation.
However, each of the steps you have placed in the different locations can
bear further examination. We can almost say that there is a case for either
not doing them, or doing them in a completely different order! If you are a
less experienced academic manager with a less experienced staff, then
the approach detailed in the grid is probably one which will work well for
you. However, it wont necessarily be the best approach in all
circumstances.
Lets look at the grid again, and put another spin on it.

Before the lesson.

1. Discuss the lesson

plan
2. Ensure that the
lesson plan has
overall aims in it.
3. See a written
copy of the lesson
plan
4. Agree a focus for
the observation
with the teacher
5. Discover the
teachers opinion
of the students

There is a case to be made for not asking for a lesson plan prior to an
observation. Teachers generally dislike being asked to provide a full lesson
plan when this is not [if we are honest] normal practice. More experienced
teachers, particularly, tend to plan in a more bullet point style, and
asking them to provide a lesson plan for the purposes of an observed
lesson is already moving the lesson out of the realm of normal practice
and into the realm of something special, where I have to do things I dont
normally do. Asking for a lesson plan can make the observation seem
much more inspectorial than you might want it to be. The idea of lessons
having stated aims which are achieved in that lesson is a feature of pre-

service training courses and further courses at Diploma level. However,

when a teacher is teaching the same group of students for 6 hours a week
for 9 months, a different set of circumstances is in play. That is not to say
that the lesson should be without aims, but rather that the idea of discrete
aims to be achieved within that time slot may be less pressing
and less important for us to focus on as observers.
A colleague made the following comment:
I would like to discuss a focus with the observer first
then go and plan the lesson with that focus in mind. That
would mean that the way I approach that area would be
part of my planning, and what happened in the lesson
and in the planning could be discussed in feedback. Id
find that much more helpful, and developmental, than a 5
minute chat before the lesson on what do you want me
to focus on when Im observing

Points 4 and 5 in the grid on the previous page are very important, and
can function as an alternative to the lesson plan. Through discussion with
the teacher prior to the lesson, you can discover what they think about
their students, what aspects of their teaching they
might like you to focus on, and you can also gain valuable insights into
their approach to the class, the course book/syllabus and to teaching in
general. This to the class, the course book/syllabus and to teaching in
general. This needs to be approached as dialogue between two
professionals who treat each other as professionals, instead of you asking
them to adopt a lower status role.
Golden Rule #1
Treat your colleagues with unconditional positive
regard. This means that you do not bring any prior
negative assumptions to the conversation, which
might be based on the colleagues previous
behaviour or actions. This enables conversations to
function on a professional level, without any personal
mess hanging about in the background.

While you are observing.

Make notes during the
lesson.
What is the function of the notes that you take during an observation? If it
is to give a written record of the lesson to the teacher, as part of a formal
observation process, then there is a justification for it and the writing of
quick, concise, helpful [and legible!] written feedback is a skill well worth
acquiring. If, however, the focus of the observation is developmental, you
may well learn more if you spend your time watching and listening to the
students rather than writing copious notes. You can make some brief
notes to remind yourself of specific issues, or note down the stages of the
lesson, as you perceive them, to jog your memory in the post-lesson
discussion. Another approach is not to write anything
during the lesson and immediately after, write down your observations
as to how effective the lesson was and any main points you think you
could usefully share with the teacher. If you have recently completed a
training course yourself, there can be a tendency to adopt the same
approach your own trainers/supervisors adopted when you are an
observer but always ask yourself if this style of written feedback is
appropriate in your current circumstances
Golden Rule #2
You dont have to be the fountain of all
knowledge encouraging teachers to
discover things for themselves, research,
and discuss with colleagues is a valuable
part of your role.

After the lesson.

Suggest alternative
approaches the teacher
could have taken
Ask the teacher about
successful elements of the
lesson
Ask the teacher about less
successful elements of the
lesson
Write an observation report
on the lesson
Ask the teacher to sign and
agree the written report
File the written report
Thank the teacher
Suggesting alternative approaches is generally considered to be useful,
and indeed many observers view this as their primary task. This can stem
from a feeling that as an observer you have to tell people something
concrete they could change about their lesson. However, if you view the
observation as developmental, then it may be more fruitful to encourage
teachers to explore the rationale for some of the activities they undertook
in the lesson, and encourage them to think about alternative approaches.
This can be a useful style if you want to encourage teachers to reflect on
and evaluate their own teaching and its
effectiveness in their context rather than conform to a set of procedures
and approaches which are perceived to be correct. It allows for a
multiplicity of approaches whose effectiveness can be evaluated by the
teacher and the students as well as by you.
As an addition to this approach, you can encourage teachers to observe
colleagues who may be working effectively with areas the teacher finds
problematic or who may be having the same set of problems, but be
dealing with them differently. This approach is dealt with more under
types of observation.

Golden Rule #3
You dont always have to point out how things
can be
improved. There may be occasions when you
observe a
lesson which is perfectly fine and then contort
yourself to try and find something wrong so
you can advise the teacher on a better
approach. It can be equally [if not more]
rewarding to explore what went well and why it
was successful the teacher has their practice
endorsed, and you can feed in some further

Asking the teacher about successful and less successful elements of the
lesson is a fairly widespread technique, and gives more focus to the postlesson discussion than the very general how did you think it went
opening question. [We will talk about approaches to post-lesson
discussions in a later section.] It is fairly natural for teachers to talk about
aspects which didnt go well from their perspective one of the skills of
the observer is to steer teachers away from a kind of breast beating
approach, and on to a more objective level. Bearing in mind Golden Rule
#3, encourage teachers to focus on the positive as well as the less
positive, and on the lesson overall rather than on the dreadful moment
when they mis-cued the listening and had to spend 5 minutes searching
for the correct place.
The area of writing a report/asking the teacher to agree and sign the
report/filing the report is part of a more formal process of lesson
observation and need not apply in every case. However, if you are to write
a report, this process needs to be carefully considered, and will be
discussed in more detail in the section what happens next.
After the lesson it is only polite to thank the teacher for allowing you in to
the class. If you can add some comment which can reassure them, without
going into a full scale post lesson discussion, then this is a good idea.
Comments along the lines of I enjoyed that lesson thank you or you
certainly managed to get them talking or that was really interesting
Im looking forward to talking to you about it will put teachers more at
ease and help them to feel that the observation is less judgmental.

The items which belonged in the bin also merit some further discussion.

Decide on a focus for the observation

Talk to the students about the lesson
Participate in the lesson
In the Bin!!!
Correct the students sitting in front of you
Tell the teacher what went wrong with the lesson
Grade the lesson

Decide on a focus for the observation

This has been placed in the bin mainly because of how it is worded. As
discussed earlier, the focus for the observation is best agreed between
teacher and observer, and should not be dictated by the observer. In this
case, you do not decide the focus the teacher does. It is worth
remembering, in this discussion on focus, that if a teacher asks you to
focus on aspect X of their lesson, then aspect X is what you give feedback
on. If, in your professional judgement, there are other areas which need to
be addressed, then you need to find another way of doing this perhaps
through another observation, perhaps through your in-service training
programme. Dealing with aspects which the teacher has not requested
you to focus on is a sure-fire way to break down any relationship of trust
between you and the teacher, and to send the clear message that you are
only really paying lip-service to the idea of consultation and negotiation.
Talk to the students about the lesson
The question to be asked here is, why are you talking to them about the
lesson? The students may have a different perspective on the lesson from
you, and their perspective is valuable and should not be ignored. But
discussing an observed lesson with the students of that lesson is a pretty
risky manoeuvre. It can send the message that you need the students
input to support points that you might wish to make, for example. It can
suggest that you are asking students to be critical of their teacher, which
in some contexts is culturally unacceptable. The point about observation
is that it leads to a dialogue between two professionals, and should be
conducted on that basis. Soliciting student feedback on teaching overall
has its place in the life of the organisation, but not in the context of an
observed lesson.

Participate in the lesson

Correct the students sitting in front of you
These two points are related. You should only participate in the lesson if
the teacher invites you to do so. If you are asked to join in pair or group
work, then there might be a case for helping/correcting the students with
whom you are working. This is reasonable, if done with a light touch. If it
turns in to a mini-lesson conducted by you for your group it is very
undermining for the teacher, however. Equally, if you lean forward and
correct a student whom the teacher has not corrected, you are
undermining the teacher. If you feel that there is an issue in the class
about how correction is handled, then this is something you can discuss
with the teacher afterwards. As an observer, you have the luxury of
coming in to a lesson and then leaving it! The teacher has to return to
that class next time, and this can be very difficult if they have been in any
way undermined by you during the observation process. It will also create
a negative climate for observations with other teachers in the future.
Managers often forget that teachers talk to each other about what is
happening to them!
Tell the teacher what went wrong in the lesson
We discussed this earlier, when we talked about suggesting alternative
approaches. There may be a situation where your opinion of what
happened and the teachers opinion diverge so greatly that you will have
to tell them what went wrong but this moves the observation from
developmental to evaluative, which may not be what you want. [Although
always remember that it may be what your teachers expect.] Its always
better to try and encourage the teacher to identify their problems and
their solutions your role is to support them in this process, perhaps by
asking particular types of questions. Starting off with a bluff Well, that
didnt go too well, did it? It all went pear-shaped after the listening
doesnt
exactly encourage teachers to reflect on the lesson and on how it could be
improved. Remember too, that you dont always have to look at what
went wrong; rather you can look at what happened for the students.
Grade the lesson
To be avoided unless it is an external or organisational requirement, for
many of the reasons cited earlier. Be careful, though grading is more
than saying that lesson was satisfactory/below standard. You can apply
what we could call covert grading by the language you choose to use in
the post-lesson discussion [covered in more detail in the section on giving
oral feedback.] Comments such as thats exactly what we want to see
here or thats not really the way we deal with vocabulary here are
covertly grading what has happened and saying whether the teacher is up
to scratch or not.