Using an Online Classroom Observation Tool to Collect Evidence

November 2, 2016

Resource: Blog Industry: Education, K12

Tags: K12 Education, Vector Evaluations+

How are you recording and collecting qualitative and/or quantitative evidence during your formal and informal classroom observations/walkthroughs? How are you sharing this feedback with your teachers and encouraging reflection to foster professional growth? Recently there has been an increased focus on formative evaluations to improve educator effectiveness.

A growing number of districts are putting a greater emphasis on more frequent and shorter ”pop-in” three to six-minute observations/walkthroughs to provide on-going feedback to their teachers during the year. Besides principals and assistant principals, districts are beginning to consider or are now using coaches and/or peers to conduct classroom observations as part of the evaluation process to document what they saw, provide suggestions for improvement, and offer encouragement and praise as needed.

Types of evidence collected during observations & walkthroughs:

1. Brief comments of what was observed
2. Scripting notes on what the teacher and students are doing and then tagging notes to the rubric
3. Response(s) to some agreed-upon open-ended question(s)
4. Quantitative data by checking what was observed from a list of possible responses (i.e. rubric indicators, student engagement activities)
5. Artifacts from the walkthrough (i.e. student assignment, lesson plan, photo taken during observation, post-conference reflection notes)

Benefits of collecting evidence with an online tool:

1. Tag comments or artifacts collected to your teacher rubric
2. Provide timely feedback to teachers for reflection to foster ongoing collaboration on performance
3. Produce reports for observers on data and insights collected over multiple observations to facilitate coaching conversations
4. Generate quantitative data collected for both evaluators and teachers to identify possible areas for professional development
5. Save time completing summative evaluations by easily reviewing written comments or artifacts tagged to your rubric
6. Review data and insights on quantitative data to focus on district initiatives or to manage professional growth across the school or district

Are you spending more time with your current evaluation system collecting and reviewing evidence from observations/walkthroughs vs. coaching your teachers and managing professional development? To learn more about how TeachPoint’s online evaluation tool can save you time while also drive a culture of more frequent classroom observations and walkthroughs, please reach out to us at [email protected].