How to monitor a teacher's lesson?

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azkado

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Hello dear forum members,

I would like you to shed light basically on the issue of routinely monitoring teacher perfomance. I am in charge of superivsing and evaluating the teacher-student performance throughout the lesson. However, the problem is that whenever an 'outsider' is seen in the classroom things get comlicated and are not as they should be.
I would be much grateful if you could share your experience as a teacher or a supervisor.
Questions for teachers:
1. Is it normal for you to see someone in your classroom watching it throughout the lesson (just for evaluation reasons?
2. Do feel comfortable if supervisors attend your lesson continuously?

Questions for supervisors:
1. Do you think it is important to stay from the very beginning of the lesson till the end if you wish to get the general picture and be able to make your critical and objective evaluation?
2. What would you suggest to improve the quality of teacher performance?

I am looking forward to your soonest replies.
Thank you so much.
 

emsr2d2

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Although I don't teach in a classroom setting any more, when I did, I wouldn't have liked having someone observe me in a lesson but I would have understood why it was necessary and I would have put up with it. I would expect the observer to sit in on the lesson from beginning to end to see how the teacher deals with the students from the moment they walk through the door until the moment they leave.
 

azkado

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Dear teachers and friends, I would appreciate it very much if you could share your experience so that we could arrive at a sound conclusion regarding the issue of teacher evaluation. Your helpful pieces of advice or stories you post in this forum would also contribute to further research work in this area.
Please, accept my humble gratitude for your support.
 

jutfrank

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As an experienced teacher and teacher trainer, I feel I can answer your questions quite reliably.

Questions for teachers:
1. Is it normal for you to see someone in your classroom watching it throughout the lesson (just for evaluation reasons?
2. Do feel comfortable if supervisors attend your lesson continuously?

1. Yes, it's a routine and necessary part of the job.
2. Largely, no. Very few teachers feel completely comfortable with this. Even very experienced ones.

Questions for supervisors:
1. Do you think it is important to stay from the very beginning of the lesson till the end if you wish to get the general picture and be able to make your critical and objective evaluation?
2. What would you suggest to improve the quality of teacher performance?

1. It really depends on why exactly you are observing. It's okay to pop into a class for just ten minutes if you only want to get an idea of how things are going, but of course, if you want the whole picture, you need to see the whole lesson. (A way around this is to ask teachers to submit their lesson plans.) It's less disruptive for the class, too, when you don't have to walk into the room while the lesson is in progress.

2. At my school we have a programme of teacher development sessions. This involves talks on improving teaching skills, using different methodologies, swapping ideas for activities, comparing and sharing experiences, etc. I think it's also very important for teachers to take the opportunity to reflect on their own performances. This can be done in several ways. In the past, I have filmed myself teaching lessons. Although this is often quite uncomfortable to watch back, it can be a really valuable and interesting way to self-evaluate, without the need for an 'intrusive' supervisor sitting in the room.
 

jutfrank

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I would appreciate it very much if you could share your experience so that we could arrive at a sound conclusion regarding the issue of teacher evaluation.

I don't know what kind of conclusion you want to draw. Read Piscean's post #4 very carefully.

If I was to reiterate one thing mentioned in that post, it would be the importance of learning outcomes: A good lesson is much more about the learning that takes place than about the teacher's performance.

As an observer, ask yourself at the end of the lesson: What did the students learn from the lesson? How do you know that they did?
 
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