The Criteria Used to Make Judgments in Evaluative Teaching Observation - Research Paper Example

 The Criteria Used to Make Judgments in Evaluative Teaching Observation My teaching observation process has been extremely positive. The observers gave excellent feedback on aspects of my performance, including my body language and my level of preparedness, and they were very encouraging. They also gave me feedback such as observing that my eye contact suffered because I read everything on the Power Point slide, and this is something that I will definitely work on, since eye contact is crucial for engaging students in their lessons. The teacher also noted that there were formatting issues with my Power Point that could be improved, and that there was a spelling mistake. Again, these are issues that can detract from my lessons, so I was glad to get this feedback, so that I can improve the formatting and fonts on my Power Point in later presentations. The observers did feel that I had good communication skills, and was approachable as a teacher, so I was happy to get this feedback as well. It seemed that the main areas for improvement were technical issues that can be easily fixed, as opposed to my overall teaching style, so it made me realize that my overall style of teaching is good. I just need to work on my technical issues, including my issues with formatting PowerPoint. These all focus upon the practice as teacher, so the in this paper, this will be the focus. I will also focus, in this paper, the explicit and implicit criteria that is used in evaluative teaching, and I will conclude by making recommendation for improving the process of teaching observation by focusing on making explicit the criteria by which judgments are made and empowering observer and observe to be in control of the feedback process. My teaching observations were in line with the research on the topic. Donnelly (2007) notes that peer observation of teaching is a necessary component for good practice in teaching, and that dialogue and open debate are encouraged, and risk taking is supported in teaching. Although I didn’t necessarily take risks with my teaching, when I was being observed, I did notice that there was good dialogue between myself and my observers. They were more than happy to let me know when they liked something that I was doing, or if they thought that something needed to be improved upon, and this dialogue was very stimulating and enlightening. I also note that Gosling (2002) identified three different types of observations in teaching – evaluation, development and peer review. The evaluation is conducted by superiors and is a formal assessment of one’s competencies. This might take the form of annual appraisals and is used to manage employees. Development is used not to manage employees, but to give an overall overview of one’s teaching competencies. This is also conducted by a superior, and this review is also formal. The third kind, the peer review, is much less formal. This is observation and discussion, and the feedback, while critical, is considered to be non-judgmental and constructive. This takes place only in an atmosphere where both parties are genuine peers, and there is not a power imbalance between the two, and there is a mutuality and respect for one another. My experience definitely falls under the third assessment, as the observation was not a formal one, and there was not a formal assessment of my skills. It was non-judgmental and very gentle criticism that was extremely constructive. Moreover, the observation was truly a peer observation, which was helpful, because there was considerably less pressure on me to deliver. I feel that if the observer is somehow a superior, this is not as effective as if the observer is a peer, because if the person is a superior than it might create a degree of nervousness on the part of the observed which, in turn, might make the lesson somewhat artificial. Weller (2009) defines a peer as somebody who has similar expertise and power as the person who is being observed. She also notes that there should be an equality and a mutuality in the exchange. This was the case with this observation – I felt that I was on equal footing with the observer, and this meant that this person has the same level of expertise and power as I do in the system, and that would also mean that this person has had similar experiences and might know what works and what doesn’t work in the situation that I was in. This was very helpful to me in this process. At the same time, I felt that the process was a little bit more informal than many peer observation processes. It might have relied upon my demonstration of tacit knowledge, which means that, within the realm of expertise, there are certain subjects which cannot be explained because it is just something that one knows (Kinchin et al., 2008). Therefore, there might have been less of a formalized structure because there were aspects of my lessons that were just intuitive for me, therefore these aspects would be difficult to criticize, because they would be difficult to quantify. Another difficulty with regards to observation is that much of teaching is centered upon reflection. A good teacher reflects on what he or she does in the classroom, and, from there, creates solutions to making the classroom performance better. However, reflection is ambiguous and difficult to quantify, therefore it also would be difficult to put into a rating by the observer. Jay and Johnson (2002) note that reflection is complex and ambiguous, and very difficult to teach to somebody. Reflection is not a technique – it is something that is much more complex than a rote technique. Reflection is something that I engage in, and it is a crucial part of my teaching, but, since it is difficult to quantify and difficult to teach, it is not necessarily something that would be a focus of a standard critique. Because of this, I feel that much of my teaching was not captured by the critique. Whatever the reason for the informality of the rating, the critique of my performance was definitely informal and was not standardized. There was not a standardized rating which is often used in many American colleges and schools (Trujillo, 2008). There was not a scale of one to ten that was used to assess my performance, and there wasn’t even a kind of guideline that was used by the observer. It was simply a review of my performance, without ticking off any kind of boxes on how I did on certain aspects of my teaching. This was both beneficial and possibly detrimental. It was beneficial because it gave me a way to relax when the observer was present. Moreover, a checklist is limited in that it is technical and instrumental, which means that it would not stimulate as much discussion about my teaching abilities. I didn’t have to become too self-aware that I was hitting this category or that category. That would have made my lesson more forced, and it would have led me to overthink it. At the same time, it might have been useful for the observer to be able to focus upon specific aspects of my performance, and this would have given the review a bit more structure. One solution for this would be interactive cover sheets, which would mean that the observee can give the observer a list of criteria that the observer should be looking for. This would give the observation review more of a structure and framework. Having a rating sheet in front of them would force them to evaluate aspects of my performance that perhaps they were not even looking at, and this would have led to something that was more well-rounded with regards to my strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, I needed to take into account the critique that Blackmore (2005) offered for peer reviews. This critique is that peer reviews might be self-congratulatory, which would, in turn, mean that they might be a bit inaccurate. Blackmore (2005) states that because peer reviews might suffer from this kind of inaccuracies, there should be a series of checks and balances which would be designed so that this becomes somewhat less of an issue. Moreover, there is a fear of being critical, and this is another drawback that was observed by Blackmore (2005). One of the checks and balances that was recommended by Blackmore (2005) is that the review process by the peer should be triangulated with student reviews. This has not been done yet. Blackmore (2005) offers a valid critique of the process – the peer might be shy about rating the teacher, knowing that his or her turn would happen, and what goes around comes around, as it were. In other words, if they are overly critical, they might face a peer who is overly critical of them. Add to this the sense that he or she is a true peer, therefore the person might feel that he or she has no right to judge anybody, and what might occur is that the person is afraid to give honest criticism. This dynamic crossed my mind when reading the rather soft review. There was only gentle criticism offered by the reviewer, and it was tentative, almost apologetic. I wondered if there was actually harsher criticism that should have been offered to me, and this would have actually been more beneficial to me in the long run. At the same time, however, I have to admit that I was relieved to only get soft criticism, because harsher criticism might have been something that was a little discouraging for me in my teaching practice. So it is a double-edged sword. I also did observe that there was good factual critiques that were helpful for me, because it gave me something concrete to work on. I was grateful for this, because ambiguous commentary is less helpful to me. For instance, regarding the PowerPoint presentation, the observer noted specifically that there were inconsistent fonts and formatting issues, and that this was a distraction. While it would have been even better if there were specific examples of this occurring, the criticism was specific enough that I would go back and try to change these issues. It was much more helpful than, say, a critique that observed that there were problems with PowerPoint, or some other vague criticism. The factual observation is an element of a good critique, according to Fullerton (2003). She states that a good critique both makes specific factual comments, and gives constructive feedback on how to address these specific factual circumstances. My observer did this very well – she not only noted the problems, but made suggestions that I needed to observe my fonts and formatting for consistency, as well as adding a summary slide, references and citations. Therefore, she gave good feedback in this regard. My reviewer also followed along the guidelines for how to do a peer observation (How to Do a Peer Observation). What I mean by this is that she was not overly critical and did not engage in judgmental comments, nor was she overly negative. She also did not try to speculate on what she would have done in the same situation. Therefore, she was able to follow along with these particular elements of a good peer review, which was very positive for me. She didn’t say things like I was overpowering or that something didn’t work, because these were judgmental statements. Her critiques were factually based – for instance, she could have said something like my PowerPoint wasn’t working, but she did not. She merely made factual comments and moved on. She also began the critique in a way that builds confidence, which is another aspect that is encouraged (How to Do a Peer Observation). She started out her critique by stating the good aspects of the teaching – my open body language and communication, and good introduction. Conclusion This observation was valuable for me. It helped me in point out my weaknesses, which include issues with my PowerPoint, and also that I needed to make more eye contact with the class, instead of reading too much from the PowerPoint. It also helped me in identifying my good aspects, which gave me confidence in my overall teaching abilities. The observation also helped me to know what was not working as well. Also, it gave me confidence in knowing that the very most important aspect of teaching, communication, was not a problem for me. At the same time, I think that it would have been even more valuable if the review had more of a guideline and structure. There are aspects of teaching that the observer might not even think about, if there is not a guideline for them to look for the element. Therefore, having a specific criteria might have been even more valuable. For instance, there could have been a criteria to judge me on the strength of my lesson plan, with specific criteria that would go into why the lesson plan was effective or ineffective. This would have also been more helpful, because it might have forced the reviewer to be more critical. I do feel that there is a specific danger in the observer giving reviews which are “fluff” - which means that they are congratulatory as opposed to being true critiques. A true critique is something that would be more structured and formal, and would have more guidelines and specific elements which are looked for in every teacher’s performance. If there is not this structure, then it is very difficult to elevate a critique above the self-congratulatory mode. It becomes more of a review that says that “everything’s fine, you just need to work on x, y and z,” as opposed to a critique that has specific headings and things to look for. At the same time, I did note that the critique avoided some of the negatives which are warned about in this type of scenario. Such negatives as making a judgment and putting herself in my shoes was not observed in this critique. There was never a judgmental statement, such as “the students didn’t like x, y or z,” and there was never a statement such as “Olawale did this, and this is not how I would’ve had done it. I would’ve done it like x, y or z.” These types of statements are not generally helpful, because they assume a somewhat narcissistic way of evaluating the person, and the observer avoided these, which makes the observation better in my book.   Sources Used Blackmore, J. (2005) A critical evaluation of peer review via teaching observation within higher education. International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 218-222. Donnelly, R. (2007) Perceive impact of peer observation of teaching in higher education. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 117-129. Fry, H. (2003) A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. London: Routledge. Fullerton, H. (2003) Observation of Teaching. In Fry, H. (2003) A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. London: Routledge. Griffith Graduate Attributes Critical Evaluation Skills Toolkit. Handout. Jay, J. & Johnson, K. (2002) Capturing complexity. Teaching and teacher education, vol. 18, pp. 73-85. Kinchin, I. (2008) Using concept mapping to locate the tacit dimension of clinical expertise: Towards a theoretical framework to support critical reflection on teaching. Learning in Health and Social Care, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 93-104. McMahon, T. (2007) Using observation of teaching to improve quality: Finding your way through the muddle of competing conceptions, confusion of practice and mutually exclusive intentions. Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 499-511. How to Do Peer Observation. Handout. Trujillo, J. (2008) Development of a peer teaching-assessment program and a peer observation and evaluation tool. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, vol. 72, no. 6, pp. 1-10. Weller, S. (2009) What does peer mean in teaching observation for the professional development of higher education lecturers? International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, vol. 21, no. 1, 25-35. Read More