WCPSS Secondary Observation Tool

Teacher______Date of Observation______Time______

Room #______Course______Unit/Lesson/Topic______

Classroom Environment
Seating: / £  Singles
£  Pairs/Trios
£  Groups
/ Seating Orientation: / £  Students face towards teacher
£  Students face towards each other
Room Arrangement: / £  Inhibits student interaction
£  Allows student interaction
£  Facilitates student interaction
/ Classroom displays: / £  Learning aids, concept-related items
£  Ongoing activities, projects
£  Examples of student work
£  Student recognition
£  Applications, careers
£  Racial, cultural diversity
£  Extracurricular opportunities
Lesson Overview: / £  Written objectives
£  Written agenda
£  Assignments posted
Classroom Culture
Major activities
of teachers & students / £  Lecture/note-taking, teacher-led work
£  Class discussion, small group discussion, student presentation or modeling
£  Hands-on activity following specific steps
£  Hands-on activity with open-ended instructions/latitude to decide steps
£  “Seatwork”: reading text, working on worksheet, questions, problem set
£  Processing: represent/analyze data, find patterns, write/reflect on learning
£  Assessment: test/quiz, performance task, questioning to assess learning
/ Using Discourse / £  Teacher-- Students
£  Students--Students
£  Both
Collaborative culture / £  No collaborative culture
£  Some evidence of collaborative culture (e.g. group roles defined)
£  Evidence of collaborative culture
£  Collaborative norms clearly defined
Technology
£  Teacher-driven / £  Student-driven / £  Lesson Enhanced
Technology used: iPad/iPod Document Camera Computer Projector Calculator Interactive Board Other
Researched Best Practices
Old skill/information/spiraling
New skill/information
Similarities & Differences
/ Summarizing /Note-taking
Reinforcing effort
Homework & practice
/ Nonlinguistic representation
Setting objectives/feedback
Generating/testing hypotheses
Cues, questions, organizers
Standards for Literacy
Text Complexity / £  Complexity meets or exceeds grade-level band (CCSS)
£  Complexity is below grade grade-level band (CCSS)
£  No text used during observation / Text –Dependent
Questioning / £  Questions are developed in sequences that call students to examine textual evidence and discern deep meaning
£  Questions are confined to recall of text
£  Questions do not directly relate to the text
£  No questions observed during observation
Writing / £  Evidence of some writing
£  On-demand writing
£  Process writing / Writing Type / £  Argument
£  Information/Explanatory
£  Narrative
£  Undefined/Warm-up/ General reflection/Journal / Writing Strategy / £  Integrated with reading to develop thinking
£  Writing from models
£  Writing conferences
£  Other
Vocabulary and Language
Use / £ Students have opportunities to gain indirect acquisition of vocabulary through reading and writing / £  Students are prompted to focus on the nuances of words in context and their effect based on context, syntax, and structure / £  Students engage in discipline- specific direct instruction of vocabulary through researched best practices (e.g. Marzano’s) / £  Students engage in learning academic vocabulary / £  Students are provided lists of vocabulary to learn
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