techniques of classroom investigation 1

TECHNIQUES OF

CLASSROOM INVESTIGATIO

N

Cleopatra Kisau (D20081032083)Kelvin Naga Anak Pengabang

(D2008103278)Olivia Sendie Anak William

(D20081032085)

IntroductionSometimes teachers are not able to use

the events happened in the classroom to develop a deeper understanding about teaching which is actually essential for their critical reflection. Therefore, teachers have to find ways to gather the full information of the events by developing their own strategies. According to Richard, J.C. & Lockhart, C. (1994), there are some procedures that can be used to help teachers investigate classroom teaching.

Why do teachers investigate?Hopkins, D. (2008:1 & 6)

Undertaking research in their own & colleagues’ classrooms is one way in which teachers can take increased responsibility for their actions & create a more energetic & dynamic environment in which teaching & learning can occur.

Improves teaching & the quality of education in school by looking critically at their own classrooms

Aims of investigative projects

- To provide student teachers to gain new awareness of the interaction happen in their classrooms

- To consider how they would approach a lesson differently

(Gebhard, J.G, Gaitan, S. & Oprandy, R.)

Why student teacher observation

Developing a terminology for understanding & discussing the teaching process

Developing an awareness of the principles & decision making that underlie effective teaching

Distinguishing between effective & ineffective classroom practices

Identifying techniques & practices student teachers can apply to their own teaching

(Richard R. Day., 1990)

Criteria for classroom researchTeacher’s primary job is teaching & any research

method shouldn’t interfere with the teaching commitment

The method of data collection must not be too demanding on the teacher’s time

The methodology employed must be reliable to allow teachers to formulate hypothesis confidently & develop strategies applicable to their classroom situation

The research focus should be one to which he/she is committed

Teachers should pay attention to the ethical procedures surrounding their work

Classroom research should adopt a ‘classroom exceeding’ perspective

(Hopkins, D., 2008)

Richards, J.C. & Lockart, C. (1994)

Approaches to classroom

investigation in teaching

Teaching journalsLesson reportsSurveys and questionnaires

Audio and video recordings

ObservationAction research

JOURNALS Written or recorded accounts of teaching experiences. A journal is a teacher’s or a student teacher’s written

response to teaching events. Keeping a journal serves two purposes:i. Events and ideas are recorded for the purpose of

later reflection.ii. The process of writing itself helps trigger insights

about teaching. Serves as a discovery process. Many different topics from classroom experiences can

be explored through journal writing;a. Personal reactions to thing that happen in the

classroom or in the school.b. Questions or observations about problems that occur

in teaching.c. Ideas for future analysis or reminders of things to

take action on.

Bailey (1990,) Porter et al. (1990), & Walker (1985)

– recommended procedures for keeping a journal Make entries on a regular basis Review journal entries regularly Ask questions while reviewing the journal

What do I do as a teacher?What principles and beliefs inform my teaching?Why do I teach the way I do?What roles do learners play in my classes?Should I teach differently?

Keeping a journal can also be beneficial when one or more colleagues share their journals and meet regularly to discuss them. (Brock, Yu and Wong 1992)

LESSON REPORTS Written accounts of lessons which describe the main

features of the lessons. A structured inventory or list which enables teachers to

describe their recollections of the main features of a lesson. Purposes: give the teacher a quick and simple procedure for

regularly monitoring what happened during a lesson, and how much time was spent on different parts of a lesson, and how effective the lesson was.

A lesson plan describes what a teacher intends to do during a lesson, a lesson report describes what actually happened from the teacher’s POV.

Serves as a useful record of many important features of the lesson and can hence be used to help monitor the teacher’s teaching.

To be effective, lesson report forms should be prepared by a teacher or group of teachers to match the goals and content of the particular course they are teaching.

The following procedures are recommended in preparing self-report forms:

1) First, identify in as much detail as possible the philosophy underlying the course and the different kinds of teaching activities, procedures and resources that you expect to use in the course.

2) Next, prepare a lesson report form.3) Use the lesson report form on a regular basis to

record the activities, procedures, and resources used throughout the course.

4) Meet periodically to review and compare lesson reports with those of other teachers teaching the same course. Discuss any differences that are emerging in the way you teach the class and the reason for these differences.

An alternative approach to lesson reporting is simply for the teacher to spend a few minutes after a lesson writing answers to questions such as the following:

What were the main goals of the lesson? What did the learners actually learn in the

lesson? What teaching procedures did I use? What problems did I encounter and how did I

deal with them? What were the most effective parts of the

lesson? What were the least effective parts? Would I do anything differently if I taught the

lesson again?

SURVEYS AND QUESTIONNAIRES

Activities such as administering a questionnaire or completing a survey, designed to collect information on a particular aspect of teaching or learning.

Useful ways of gathering information about affective dimensions of teaching and learning, such as beliefs, attitudes, motivation and preferences, and enable a teacher to collect a large amount of information relatively quickly.

AUDIO OR VIDEO RECORDING

Recording of a lesson, or part of the lesson. Advantage : Relatively easy to carry out. Disadvantage : Obtain subjective impressions of

teaching and by their nature can capture only recollections and interpretations of the events and not the actual events themselves.

Advantages of recording a lesson:I. Allows choice of focus – this could be the teacher or a

particular group of students.II. The recording can be replayed and examined many

times and can capture many details of a lesson that cannot easily be observes by others means, such as the actual language used by the teacher or learners during a lesson.

Limitations of recording a lesson:

I. Recording device may be disruptive.II. Recording device have a limited

range (e.g: they may capture only students seated in the front row.)

III. Reviewing a recording is time consuming.

OBSERVATION Tasks completed by a students teacher observing

a cooperating teacher’s class, or a peer observation. (e.g: tasks completed by a teacher visiting a colleague’s class)

Involves visiting a class to observe different aspects of teaching.

Suggested as a way of gathering information about teaching, rather than a way of evaluating teaching.

In order for observation to be viewed as a positive rather than a negative experience, the observer’s function should be limited to that of gathering information.

The observer should not be involved in evaluating a teacher’s lesson.

ACTION RESEARCH Implementation of an action plan designed

to bring about change in some aspect of the teacher’s class with subsequent monitoring of the effects of the innovation.

Teacher-initiated classroom investigation.Seeks to increase the teacher’s

understanding of classroom teaching and learning, and bring about the change in classroom practices (Gregory, 1988; Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988).

Involves a small-scale investigative projects in the teacher’s own classroom, and consists of a number of phases which often recur in cycles:

Planning

Reflection

Observation

Action

1. Select an issue or concern to examine in more detail.

2. Selects a suitable procedure for collecting information about the topic.

3. Collect the information, analyzes it, and decides what changes might be necessary.

4. Develop an action plan to help bring about the change in classroom behaviour.

5. Observe the effects of the action plan on the teaching behaviour and reflects on its significance.

6. Initiates a second action cycle, if necessary.

TECHNIQUES AND INTRUMENTS FOR

OBSERVATION

i. Qualitative approachesii. Quantitative approaches

Richard R. Day (1990)

QUALITATIVE APPROACHES

Qualitative approaches Advantages Disadvantages

Several terms, including educational ethnography (Good and Brophy 1987) and wide-lens (Acheson and Gall 1987).

General goal-to provide rich, descriptive data about what happens in the second language classroom.

It takes a highly trained observer to do a competent and reliable observation.

Attempts to capture the essence or spirit if what was going on during the observer’s presence.

It is useful when the observer wants to capture broad picture of a lesson rather than focus on a particular aspect of it.


Written Ethnography

•Classic technique

•should be as descriptive and objective as possible

•should not be judgmental or evaluative.

•often goes beyond observing the teacher, the students, and he interaction between them.

•includes information about the classroom (e.g., size, seating, furnishing, physical equipment), and the quality and quantity of visual aids, room temperature and so on.

•helps to sensitize students teachers to the complexity of teaching and to bring to their attention events of which they might not be aware.

To introduce students teachers to the complexity of the second language classroom.

It takes a highly trained observer to do a competent and reliable observation.

Help students teachers to see the multiple roles of the second language teacher.

Too many activity make students teacher often has a great deal of difficulty in keeping up with the action.

Allow the students teacher to compare and contrast a teacher’s use of both subject-matter knowledge and action-system knowledge during a lesson.

The student teacher may tire quickly, a and fail to keep an accurate record of events.

It provides more information about the social context of the classroom, which may be useful in interpreting behaviour.

Written ethnography may be affected by the biases of the students teacher.

It does not address specific questions; therefore, the information collected is often inappropriate for addressing specific issues.

It is difficult to compare the results with other classes since it does not focus on a particular set of classroom behaviours.


Audio and video recordings

Its permit teachers to see and hear themselves as their students see and hear them

Intrusive

Its have the potential of capturing the essence of the classroom

Need to set up the equipment before students arrive.

Its can be listened to or viewed over and over

Allow students to examine the equipment before class begins.

Allow participants to agree on an interpretation of an event or behaviour.

Teacher might take advantage of the equipment as a focus for part of an activity or lesson.

Most useful results are obtained when the camera is focused in the teacher.

The increase number of students will increase the degree of complexity of the observation.


A limited or selected ethnography or recording

•focus on the whole class, without regard to any particular issues or behaviours.

•It is possible to modify the procedure to focus on individual behaviour or set of behaviours.

Students teacher’s attention is focused on the particular behaviour being observed.

If the teacher is aware that the students teacher plans to record uses of yes/no questions, for example. the teacher might modify his or her behaviour.This allows the student teacher the

opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the behaviours.

Objective natural of the data, even if the observation is written and not recorded in some fashion.-record only a selected set of behaviours.

If the student teacher could choose rather uninteresting or trivial behaviours on which to focus, it will be apparent when the student teacher examines the data that there is very little to be learned about what was recorded.

Written technique is easy to use-observer do not have to be highly trained to do full-scale ethnography.

The data are often relatively simple to interpret.

QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES

Quantitative approaches Advantages Disadvantages

•take the form of a check list or a form to be filled in or completed.

•The behaviour or behaviours in question are indicated in some fashion, and the observer's role is to record their occurrence and, as appropriate, the time.

•Many instruments as there are observers, for they are easily devised and employed in the classroom.

•These instruments may be divided into frequency counts or classroom observation scales and are designed to examine teacher behaviour, students behaviour, or the interaction between the teacher and the students or among students.

Simple to construct or revise and to use.

It may not be trivial aspects of the teaching and learning process.

Observer does not have to be highly trained.

It may not be crucially involved with or related to the concerns or purpose of the observation.

It may give actual number of behaviours per unit of time, allowing for comparison among students or across classes.

The actual behaviours observed may not explain all of the facts of the focus of the observation or the problem.

The teacher will most likely not know what else the students did during the observation period.

The advantages and disadvantages of low-inference instruments

Advantages Disadvantages

Inference•A major factor associated with quantitative approaches.

•Instruments may be differ as to a degree of inference they require the observer to make, ranging from relatively low-inference items to high-inference items.

•Low-inference=readily recognized and specific.

•High-inference=more convert, less specific behaviour.

Easy to use. It have to do mainly with their nature.

Their confidence can be placed in the data they generate.

Reliability.

Advantages Disadvantages

Seating Chart Observation Records.

•SCORE (Acheson and Gall)(1987:97)

•Simple concept= using a seating of he classroom to be observed, the observer records the occurrences of the target behaviour or behaviours.

Ease of use and interpretation. Same with other low-inference instruments.

A great deal of information about classroom interaction can be consolidated on one page.

Allow examination of individual students without losing sight of the behaviour of the other students in the classroom.

Allow observer and the teacher to examine important features of classroom behaviour.

SCORE instruments Advantages Disadvantages

Teacher and student talk

•Acheson and Gall (1987:105)=verbal flow=technique used to record who is talking to whom and how frequently.

Record teachers’ questioning behaviour and how they praise students,

To code student questions and responses.

At-task It gives the teacher knowledge about what students are doing in the classroom.

High-inferential task

Information obtained=to have a conference with the students-to determine what the student’s problem were.

Low-inferential task

Movement patterns

To chart the movements of the teacher or students, or both, during a lesson.

May indicate biases toward certain students.

Trace what a teacher does during activities that are not teacher-fronted.

DATA GATHERINGField notes

Audiotape recordingPupil diariesInterviews

Videotape recorder & digital cameraQuestionnaires

SociometryDocumentary evidence

Case studyMapping techniques

Pupil drawings(Hopkins, D. (2008)

Field Notes – reporting observations, reflections & reactions to classroom problems

Advantages DisadvantagesVery simple to keep: no outsider neededProvide good ongoing record; used as a diary they give good continuityFirst-hand information can be studied conveniently in teacher’s own timeAct as an aide-memoireHelp to relate incidents, explore emerging trendsVery useful if teacher intends to write a case study

•Need to fall back on aids such as question analysis sheets, tapes & transcripts for specific information•Conversation impossible to record •Notebook works with small groups but not with a full class•Initially time-consuming•Can be highly subjective

Audiotape recording Advantages Disadvantages

•Very successfully monitors all conversations within range of the recorder•Provides ample material with great ease•Versatility – can be transported/ left with a group•Records personality developments•Can trace development of a group’s activities•Can support classroom assessment

•Nothing visual – does not record silent activity•Transcription largely prohibitive because of expense & time involved•Masses of material may provide little relevant information•Can disturb pupils because of its novelty; can be inhibiting•Continuity can be disturbed by the practical problems of operating

Pupil diariesAdvantages Disadvantages

•Provides feedback from pupil’s perspective•Can be either focused on a specific training episode/related to the general classroom climate•Can be part of a lesson•Can help in identifying individual pupil problems•Involves pupil in improving the quality of the class•Provides a basis for triangulation

•May not be established practice in the school•Difficult for younger children to record their thoughts & feelings•Pupils may be inhibited in discussing their feelings with the teacher•Pupil’s accounts are obviously subjective•May raise ethical dilemmas

Interviews – teacher/pupil Advantages Disadvantages

•Teacher in direct contact with pupil•Pupil(s) familiar with teacher, more at ease•Teacher able to seek information directly•Can be done in lesson time/outside the class•Can follow up problems immediately & get information while minds are still fresh

•Time-consuming•May be carried out with some form of recording equipment, with attendant disadvantages•Difficult to get younger children to explain their thoughts/feelings

Interviews – observer/pupilAdvantages Disadvantages

•Leaves teacher free as the interviewer discovers initial information from the pupil(s)•Pupil(s) often more candid with the outsider than with class teacher•Outsider is likely to be more objective•Outsider can focus the information provided along predetermined lines of investigation

•Pupil(s) unfamiliar with the observer may be reluctant to give relevant information•Mutual uncertainty•If the teacher is the primary agent in the research, they will get their information secondhand & subject to the biases of the interviewer•Time-consuming •Difficult to obtain a skilled outsider

Interviews – pupil/pupilAdvantages Disadvantages

•Pupils may be more candid with each other•Leaves teacher free•Can occur during lesson time•May produce unanticipated/ unusual perspectives

•Pupils may find the activity too unfamiliar•May encourage disruption•Has to be recorded and played to teacher

Videotape recorder & digital camera

Videotape recorder Digital camera

Advantages-Enable all situations to be reviewed-Origin of problems can be diagnosed-Behavioural patterns of teacher & pupils can be seen-Patterns of progress over long periods can be clearly charted

Disadvantages-Can be very conspicuous & distracting-Operator only record which they deem to be importance

Advantages-Advantage may be obtained by looking at images of kids working/at end products of their work, & as stimulus for discussion-Helps to get observation & comment from other teachers who were not present at the time

Disadvantages-Shows isolated situations; difficulty of being in the right place at the right time; concentrates on small groups & individuals; records nothing in depth-Images may not truly depict the activities

QuestionnairesAdvantages Disadvantages

•Easy to administer; quick to fill in•Easy to follow up•Provides direct comparison of groups & individuals•Provides feedback on:-Attitudes-Adequacy of resources-Adequacy of teacher help-Preparation for next session-Conclusions at the end of term•Data are quantifiable

•Time-consuming•Extensive preparation to get clear & relevant questions•Difficult to get questions that explore in depth•Effectiveness depends very much on reading ability & comprehension of the students•Students may be fearful of answering candidly•Students will try to produce ‘right’ answers

SociometryAdvantages Disadvantages

•Simple way to discover social relationships in class•Provides guide to action•Can be integrated into class activity

•Possibility of compounding the isolation of some pupils

Documentary evidenceAdvantages Disadvantages

•Illuminate issues surrounding a curriculum/teaching method•Provide context, background & understanding•Provide an easy way of obtaining other people’s perceptions

•Obtaining documents can be time-consuming•Certain documents may be difficult to obtain•Certain persons may be unwilling to share ‘confidential’ documents

Case studyAdvantages Disadvantages

•Simple way of plotting the progress of a course/a pupil’s reaction to teaching methods•Information yielded by case studies will tend to give a more accurate & representative picture than will any one of the research methods detailed above: case studies draw on data gathered by many methods

•Time-consuming•Feedback available to teacher only after considerable lapse of time

Pupil drawingsAdvantages Disadvantages

•Easy, fun & quick approach to gather pupil’s views & reactions to teaching & to life within the school•Information can be informative & could depict accurately students’ views & experiences

•Analysis of the drawings could be challenging•Some students may feel threatened & provide invalid data•Students could provide the ‘right’ answers

My plans for semester 8

project paper

techniques of classroom investigation 1

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