Open source observations


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Under the heading of “Where the heck have you been?” I can say 2008 has been off to a rough start with a pair of sick kiddos. For those keeping track, though, I’m hoping to get back into some regular posting soon as well as find time to record a new ep of the Practical Principals with Melinda.

For today, though, I am putting out there a couple of forms that we have been using at my school this year. Our district has no “standard” form for classroom observations of walk-throughs so we decided to create our own. We aligned the forms with specific school and district initiatives as you will see. But I hope that you will feel free to download them and tweak them for your particular situation.

I’m particularly proud of the walk-through instrument which I have pared down to a very manageable 3×5 size. I’ve seen some walk-through data-collection instruments that were multiple 8.5×11 pages long. In my mind, it’s not a walk-through if it takes me 15 minutes to navigate the form.
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These are in 4-up format so I print a few on card stock, guillotine them down to size, and hold the stack together with a binder clip a la the Hipster PDA. I keep the stack in my pocket and try to hit a couple of classrooms right after class change since I’m already in the halls. When I’m finished, I am able to file them neatly in a 3×5 card holder for later reference when it comes time to write my narratives for teacher evals.

So here you go. Each .zip includes the original document created in Pages as well as a PDF and a Word file. Since I created them in Pages, it doesn’t always translate correctly to Word, but it’s close enough that you can tweak until your heart’s content.

I hope that if you modify or tweak, you will share the changes you made on your blog or email me with them. Decent observation instruments are not easy to find.

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January 25th, 2008
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Mr. K
Posted on:
January 25, 2008 at 6:43 pm

Should I find it ironic that your hPDA cards have an entry for “Tech Use”?

I use an hPDA myself - I regularly pull it out to demonstrate that low tech solutions are often superior to high tech.

(I actually use a fair bit of tech, but it is a means to an end, and I’m frustrated with it being treated as an end in itself.)

Aside from that - nicely done.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Scott Elias
Posted on:
January 25, 2008 at 7:28 pm

I love irony. And I’m with you on tech not being an end in itself. The “Tech Use” entry is more for ongoing assessment of staff development opportunities rather than an all-or-nothing measure of teacher quality.

In the college class I teach, they actually got a kick out of my paradoxical obsession with my iPhone and MacBook Pro as well as my Levenger notebooks and fountain pens. The iPhone is awesome for a lot of stuff, but it will never beat a nice pen and paper for jotting down notes.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Mike Waiksnis
Posted on:
January 25, 2008 at 10:22 pm

We have discussed before my search for a “perfect” way to record my walk throughs. I have tried the PDA’s with sleek software and I always want to go back to paper and pen. The tech route was great–a few clicks and drop down menues, sync with the computer and I was all set. However, I found much of my observation time was spent clicking and entering information on the PDA. I felt half of my attention was on the PDA. I am going to modify a few things on your cards to suit our school’s needs and give the 3×5’s a try. I will keep you updated.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Scott Elias
Posted on:
January 26, 2008 at 4:14 pm

We have one admin on our team who brings a laptop to observations and does the narrative for the teacher on the spot. I’d feel like I was missing out if I spent the whole time typing - much like you feel clicking away on your PDA.

As much of a fan of technology as I am, it is not always the answer. Especially when it is more of a distraction than productivity enhancer.

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Benjamin Baxter
Posted on:
February 3, 2008 at 10:55 pm

If, hypothetically, I were an administrator doing observations with my handy PDA, I wouldn’t be doing observations. I’d be playing Tetris.

I’m a pen-and-paper kind of guy for this sort of thing.

http://awaitingtenure.wordpress.com/

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
John Hendron
Posted on:
February 6, 2008 at 8:28 pm

I like your inclusion of technology on the card-based form. It’s simple. We have attempting using LoTI with the numbers; I am not sure all principals can spot the LoTI numbers super-accurately, however. And then it we list the qualifying words, the form gets mighty big.

I am wondering if there’d be sense in including some measure of… “the best technology was used” for the lesson.

Do you feel your larger form would work as well for project-based lesson style teaching?

You might like to use a Fujitsu Scansnap if you want to fill these out on paper.
Thanks for sharing these!

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Scott Elias
Posted on:
February 7, 2008 at 9:07 am

Benjamin - Don’t give away my secrets. I’m a Tetris champ!!

John - I like that idea but I’m wondering how one could quantify “best” in an objective way. I think sometimes the “best” may be an overhead projector, but there would be some techno-fundamentalists who would disagree.

I would LOVE a Fujitsu Scansnap, too. Especially with all the paper I end up accumulating in my grad school classes. Integrating a Scansnap and DevonThink Pro Office is kind of a goal of mine when I get closer to dissertation time.