Good afternoon! I'm Juliya Kuzmina. And I would like to tell some ideas about observation as a key for teacher's development.
To my mind, a teacher should take it for granted, because he's not judged and an observer is a kind of helper for self-improvement. And the main point about observation that it's always stressful for teachers nowadays. In my opinion, in order to lessen this problem a teacher should take some courses or it should be explained when he/she is a student, a teacher should get familiar with all the pecularities of observation and practice it so many times until the fear disappears.
During my study at Kansk Pedagogical college (Russia) we have a special kind of practice at school, it lasted for 2 weeks approximately. So during this time I was asked to fill in especial FOCUSED OBSERVATION DIARY. Вy the end of the practice, when this diary was fulfilled, I realised, that I'm not affraid of observers anymore, because I've such experience, I've seen and discussed 21 lessons from varied point of view (it depended on the topic of diary's chapter) and many of my lessons were discussed, so this time was fruitful for me.
I suggest other teachers to have similar practice, it really works, stress disappears with knowledge and experience.
Our diary included the followng chapters:
- attendance list
- introduction (description of evaluation and outcomes)
- description of school and teacher's cabinet
- teacher's interview, classroom environment (seating arrangwement, classroom's equipment and its use)
- beginning of the lesson and objectives/aims
- stages of the lesson and teacher's instructions
- varied focuses (we observed only specified lessons, so to say, focus on the part of the lesson devoted to grammar, reading and so on)
- planning a lesson (comparison of the plan and the lesson itself)
- organisation of cooperation during lesson
- also we had to create and set and dicuss ai PLD an extra-curriculum work
- I was glad to have lots of empty boxes to share my impressions, ideas, reflections, questions, there was a case for mentor's and tutor's reflection upon me
I had "A" mark, I had experience, and now it's not sressful to have "unprepared open lesson". We as teachers always should try to do our best daily
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Observing a class means to help the teacher become better and have more effective strategies to teach. But teachers usually think observers are their greatest enemies.
When an observer enters a class, the situation suddenly changes and the teacher starts to do something else to pretend he is very active. Students are smart enough to sense the feeling of the teacher. When they see the teacher is confused and has changed his methodology, they prefer to be silent and not to take part in activities. That’s why as teachers, we must try to eliminate the fear.
Amir Abbass Ravayee
To me, teaching is a dynamic system which requires maintenance and improvement all the time, therefore every teacher must have a self-observation/evaluation system in himself that is we should evaluate our work before observers carry out a proper evaluation of what we do in the classrooms. This system of assessment requires a good knowledge of how well to do the job we have been assigned to perform. The best criteria are the works of people who have been pioneers in this job and also our initiative. We have to see what prosperous teachers have done and compare it with what we are giving to the students. I am on your side that we have to practice and prepare ourselves before presenting something for the students which will result in performing our job free of stress. Teaching is an art and good artists may repeat an action several times to get the maximum quality of their performance.