Dear Faculty... What Do We Really Want From Classroom Observation?

I just sent the following note to my faculty in preparation for classroom visits by our academic administration team. Your feedback is much appreciated.

Dear Faculty,

Lesson Observation Sessions (and I choose my words quite deliberately) will take place during the next two weeks. I will ask our admin team to have brief pre-lesson meetings with you, followed by observations and a post-lesson conference. We've been meeting to discuss upcoming faculty observation, and wanted to share some important notes that frame the entire process.

We know from the educational literature that the act of reflecting on instructional practice is a critical component of sustaining quality instruction. The experience of Dr. Lee Shulman on this topic has become legendary. Shulman is one of the most distinguished thinkers in the realm of teacher training, evaluation and is the creator of a paradigm of thinking known as pedagogical content knowledge-what we would call the “tricks of the trade” that are unique to teaching varying subject areas. After years of outstanding work, Shulman was awarded tenure at Stanford, arguably one of the best universities in the world. Shulman refused to accept tenure, and sent a note to the chancellor of the university declaring that he would never serve an institution that refused to evaluate and help him think critically about the quality of his own work on an ongoing basis. The discussion ended with a compromise. Shulman would accept tenure if Stanford would create a panel of advisors to evaluate his work.

In elementary and middle schools, I have been dismayed to see evaluation poorly deployed and therefore undervalued. When I used to speak with fellow teachers who worked in public schools, they described unhelpful policies in which supervisors entered their classrooms (often arriving late enough to miss the “best” part of the lesson) armed with check lists and seeking such banal accomplishments as “objective is clearly written on the board” or “teacher is covering curriculum at an acceptable pace.” These are worthless evaluations and bring no sense of improvement or added value to the learning process. Worse, they contribute to a trend that my PhD advisor, Dr. Steven Selden, describes as the “de-skilling” of the teaching profession. What is really needed?

At root, evaluation and assessment of classroom instruction can help schools the most when it focuses on the formative aspects of assessment. Trying new ideas. Reviewing how one’s approach is working. Sharing technique and perspective with another individual. This happens to reflect my own ideal of how a community of educators should work together.

In meeting and speaking with the administrative team, I have asked them to create a process that will allow us to maximize our opportunities to reflect on practice, while preserving reasonable oversight of the classroom. I asked members of our administrative team to use the following process:

• Set dates for classroom visits.
• Schedule a conversation with you to understand the goals of your lesson prior to visiting.
• While visiting, take open notes about the lesson.
• Follow up by sharing those notes with you and engage in open reflection about the lesson.

This is not a summative evaluation. Our desire is for us to have a chance to speak about teaching and learning, while giving the administrative team a better sense of what work you are doing, what techniques you are using and what future objectives you set for yourself. I feel that this approach is in line with the best practices in the field of education, and offers maximum benefits both to you as a faculty and us a learning community.

Best,

Rabbi Selis