PORTFOLIO O&R

PORTFOLIO:
OBSERVATION & RESEARCH IN THE CLASSROOM

GENERAL INFORMATION

The portfolio must be compiled following the indications given below regarding
structure, content and stages of portfolio creation. The portfolio is an individual
activity.

The following formal requisites must be followed.

- Length: 5 to 7 pages (without including cover, index or appendices if there are

any).
- Font type: Arial or Times New Roman.
- Font size: 11.
- Spacing: 1.5.
- Alignment: Justified.

The assignment must be written in this Word template and has to follow the
instructions on quotes and references detailed in the Study Guide.

Also, the assignment has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the
document: Subject Evaluation. Sending it to the tutors e-mail is not allowed.

It is strongly recommended to read the assessment criteria, which can be found in

the document Subject Evaluation.
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Important: you have to write your personal details and the name of the subject on
the cover (see the template on the next page). You have to include a table of
contents after the cover. Assignments that do not fulfil these conditions will not
be corrected.
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Portfolio

OBSERVATION AND RESEARCH

Students full name :

NOELIA FUENTES RIVERA GAMARRA

Group: 2016-06

Date: November 21, 2017

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Training and professional experiences related to observation and research in the

classroom, reflective practice and professional development.

According to my long work experience as an English teacher I would like to state that
being an English teacher involves a lot of preparation, there is a variety of resources on
the teaching and learning process a teacher need to use. I may say that to succeed not
only as a teacher, but also with the wide number of learners I may have and identify the
types of learners they may be, I must be in constant training and take international
exams, to deal with great English teachers there are in our career.

It is not just teach a new language, as teachers we need to be engaged with new tools,
technology and other different strategies to succeed on the learners learning.

It is a long process and I feel I am engaged with the learners actions during this
continuous learning. I need to pay critical attention to the practical values and theories
which inform everyday learners actions.

It is also an important way to bring together theory and practice; through reflection I am
able to see and label forms of thought and theory within the context of the learners
work. A person who reflects throughout his or her practice is not just looking back on
past actions and events, but is taking a conscious look at emotions, experiences, actions,
and responses, and using that information to add to his or her existing knowledge base
and reach a higher level of understanding.

I need to know every learners ups and downs I am in charge of, to see how to work with
each of them and find out the tools, or strategies that help them. On the contrary, when
the weaknesses of the learners are not seen or they are not helped, they will not be glad
and they may be bored, sad or when there is a lack of interest; learners stop the course.

When I feel something is not working well, that is the moment for me to find out the
solution and make the learner feel comfortable and both succeed, but sometimes it is
really hard to deal with a learners behavior or learning and for this reason I am sure I
must go on with training and preparation.
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The general aim of all placements is to promote clinical reasoning and analytical and
evaluative abilities in students through reflective practice. Professional bodies
incorporate the benefits of applying reflective practice for both students and health
professionals in their learning strategies.

According to the educator Professor David Boud, effective learning will not occur unless
you reflect. To do this, you must think of a particular moment in time, ponder over it, go
back through it and only then will you gain new insights into different aspects of that
situation. According to Kolb (1984) reflecting is an essential element of learning. This is
shown through an experiential learning cycle illustrated below

But how will this course help me?

Systematic classroom observation is a quantitative method of measuring classroom

behaviors from direct observations that specifies the events or behaviors that are to be
observed and how they are to be recorded. Generally, the data that is collected from this
procedure focuses on the frequency with which specific behaviors or types of behavior
occurred in the classroom and measures their duration. There are several elements that
are common to most observational systems.

a purpose for the observation

operational definitions of all the observed behaviors
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training procedures for observers

a specific observational focus
a setting
a unit of time
an observation schedule
a method to record the data

Prior to the use of systematic observational methods, research on effective teaching

typically consisted of subjective data based on personal and anecdotal accounts of
effective teaching. In order to develop a scientific basis for teaching, researchers began
to use the more objective and reliable measures of systematic 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.

Learning experience

I would like to take as an example the study of this course, Observation and Research
in the classroom.

Its name itself implies a lot of information I must find out and know. There are lots of
things I do not figure out, but according to what I have understood I am trying to do my
best.

Observation and Research in the classroom is a formal or informal observation of

teaching while it is taking place in a classroom or other learning environment. It is
typically conducted by fellow teachers, administrators, or instructional specialists,
classroom observations are often used to provide teachers with constructive critical
feedback aimed at improving their classroom management and instructional techniques.
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School administrators also regularly observe teachers as an extension of formal jobs

performance evaluations.
Classroom observations may be called learning walks, teachers observations,
walkthroughs, and many other things, and they may be conducted for shorter or longer
periods of timefrom a few minutes to a full class period or school day. Educators may
also use a wide variety of classroom-observation methodssome may be nationally
utilized models developed by educational experts, while others may be homegrown
processes created by the educators using them.

Personal experience.

Every professional of different careers is constantly growing to be better than others, for
this reason I must say that taking this course is part of the goal I have in order to get my
degree.

When working on the different courses I take, I find out that the effects they have are
better and more interesting between them. For instance, I do know that after doing this
course at all, I will see that I was worth it due to the fact that is it being part of my
preparation as a professional.

I may recognize that there are some concepts that I do not assimilate yet but I also know
that if I really study it or with practice I might succeed. As I mention before, teaching is
hard work that is why we as teachers are in constant training. I do not think that keeping
our doubts with us will last forever because the purpose of each person is to become
better than others.

Personally, I would like to say that the personal achievements I have about Observation
and Research in the classroom is challenging and I think there are not any limitations to
figure it out. I am very concerned in learning a lot about it because I do know that in the
near future I will really realize that it is going to say a lot about my profession.

I am aware that competence in every professional area is nowadays something to deal

with regarding the many great teachers there are.

Other relevant experience.

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I have been an English teacher for about 15 years, working with different kinds of
learners, children, adults, teenagers; and I want to say it again that my learning to be a
teacher or better one will not stop, I think I will never stop learning.

Everything that has to do with teaching is of my concern, the training I usually have is
meaningful so, I take advantage of every thing I learned to use them in my class with my
students.

Teaching English involves a wide number of skills and each of them needs to be worked
properly well but having in mind that the tools presented to develop them are also
changing every time, that is why we as teachers have to take all the training we can take
in order to reinvent ourselves.

Self-evaluation.

I think I need to deal more with the subject due to the fact that there are lessons I do not
figure out yet.

Analysing data is complex although I know it has to be with organization and the
hypothesis formulated and the analysis that leads to the final conclusions of the research.

All these aspects need to be done carefully on the contrary my work will not worth it, I
might say that I will need the help of a tutor on the process to finally succeed only in this
way.

Anyway I am sure my performance as a student in the subject has improved, the different
aspects I have studied about the course have reinforced my learning but I feel it is not
enough.

At the end of the course I will see how much I really improved and learned.

Action plan.

After studying the course, challenges have appeared and I must face them at the
moment I start a final work. Doing a research implies deep research so it means it is
going to be hard work despite the fact, I am completely sure I will succeed because I will
be able to solve the difficulties I encountered. A good problem statement begins by
introducing the broad area in which research is centered, gradually leading the reader to
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the more specific issues you are investigating. The statement need not be lengthy, but a
good research problem should incorporate the following features:

1. Compelling topic.

Simple curiosity is not a good enough reason to pursue a research study because it does
not indicate significance. The problem that we choose to explore must be important to
us, our readers, and to a the larger academic and/or social community that could be
impacted by the results of our study. The problem chosen must be one that motivates us
to address it.

2. Supports multiple perspectives

The problem must be phrased in a way that avoids dichotomies and instead supports
the generation and exploration of multiple perspectives. A general rule of thumb in the
social sciences is that a good research problem is one that would generate a variety of
viewpoints from a composite audience made up of reasonable people.

3. Researchability

This isn't a real word but it represents an important aspect of creating a good research
statement. It seems a bit obvious, but we don't want to find ourself in the midst of
investigating a complex research project and realize that we don't have enough prior
research to draw from for our analysis. There's nothing inherently wrong with original
research, but we must choose research problems that can be supported, in some way,
by the resources available to us. If we are not sure if something is researchable, don't
assume that it isn't if we don't find information right away.
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REFERENCES

https://www.deakin.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/681025/Participant-
observation.pdf

https://scholar.google.com.pe/scholar?q=data+portfolio+in+observation+and+research
+paper&hl=es&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6r8-
Bts_XAhXKQyYKHZr1CesQgQMIKzAA

WEBIOGRAPHY

http://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/introduction/researchproblem

http://www.edb.org.hk/HKTC/download/eras/11-12/ERAS1112_R02.pdf

http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1835/Classroom-Observation.html