The Power of Observations

As a teacher, we know that observing our students and what they do in the classroom everyday is critical to understanding what they know and how they learn and are progressing towards the learning targets. I do this often in the classroom trying to make a few observations about at least ten students a week in math and reading. I use a great log that I created that works for me. But, this week I learned that the power of an observation lies with more than just watching our students.

I had the opportunity to observe another teacher within my district teach her reading workshop block, Karen Terlecky. Earlier this year I spoke about how valuable observations are here. I find them to be so helpful to my teaching that I felt the need to reflect about them once again.

While on my observation, I found myself feeling so overwhelmed with questions and thinking about my classroom. I mentioned my feeling of grief about not supporting my students in a way that I felt they deserved from me this year. I wanted to be better for them in my classroom and wanted to start the year over to do that. The time I had to observe gave me a fresh perspective on what I am doing well and what I need to reevaluate in my classroom.

I left with so many reflections and questions for myself to consider as I complete this school year and start next year. I spent this year focusing on math, creating a math workshop that was supporting my students in a way they needed, and learning the content. I invested so much time in this that I found my reading block lacking in many ways. Sure, my kids were still getting instruction and are growing as readers this year, but not as much as I want them to.

The funny thing about my focus on math is that I started the year saying that math was my weaker area while language arts... well I had that one figured out. At the end of the year, I am realizing how very wrong that statement was. I can see that I will never have things "figured out" like I thought.

My observation spurred me on to try some new things. The kids are at the end of the year, state testing is almost here and done with, and I need to keep them focused for one more month. I decided the best way to keep their attention was to through something new and exciting into the mix.

I think it is so important for my kids to see how adults are reflective in their practice and decisions. I often try to model this for my class. I decided that I was going to be honest with my kids. I told them that I had been on an observation of another teacher and that I wanted to change some things for next year. I shared with them all the things I saw and learned. I then asked them, which new ideas sounded the most interesting to them for us to "practice" for my class next year. They decided on two focuses: read aloud notebooks and a bi-weekly blog post.

So, I promptly set me kids up on kidblog.com and we are going to jump in feet first on Monday with this. I don't know how it will go, but I have a lot of confidence that my class will teach me a lot that will make next years class better. Since we are going to do a reading blog as a class, I decided my reading notebooks (letters) were too repetitive. So we turned these into our read aloud notebooks. This has been a bit rocky, but after four days of intensive instruction on their use and long conversations around them, I can already see improvement.

Observing not only another teacher, but my students practice these new ideas is only going to make me a better teacher next year and has already made me better for my kids this year. I am finding that this is the time of year to do this! I am learning so much and I get to try it without worry of the failure it could bring. Happy observing in your own classroom!