What's Working?

This unit is guided by the following goals:
1. Students will learn and practice effective communication skills to become a successful team of observers.
2. Students will understand and engage in the entire observation process, from pre-observation interview to observation (including note taking) to post-observation feedback meeting.
3. Students will develop a practice of considering issues of equity and identifying assumptions.
4. Students will be exposed to and use the concept of culturally relevant teaching in their observations.

To accomplish these goals, this unit requires 4 days of class time for preparing students and weekly sessions to support students as they review and write up their observations as well as to problem solve. (Additionally, there is much prep by the teacher to work with staff at staff meetings and get volunteers to be observed by the students.)

Class 1
Do Now - Reflection and Discussion: “Describe a time when you received feedback that was less than helpful. What would have made the situation better?”
Direct Instruction - Class reviews overview of all the larger process, observation forms, etc. Students use popular movie clips to practice using the forms in providing teacher feedback. Students peer edit forms; review and discuss as a class.
Closing Reflection/ Homework - Read "Best Practices" article.

Class 2
Do Now - Pair Share/ Discussion: "What did you learn from the article assigned for homework? What ideas did you get? What problems do you anticipate?"
Direct Instruction - Teacher provides Culturally Relevant Teaching presentation and training. Students role play pre-observation interview and post-observation feedback meeting.
Closing Reflection/ Homework - Interview a family member and ask what was the most effective teaching styles and practices for them.

Class 3
Do Now - Written Reflection: "What do you have in common with the family member you interviewed? To what extent is this cultural? Why or why not?"
Direct Instruction - Teacher provides direct instruction on constructive feedback - focusing on warm, cool, hard. Students give mini, group presentations on different types of feedback and then practice with feedback card game.
Closing Reflection/ Homework - In the next 24 hours, listen for and record examples of warm, cool and hard feedback in your other classes.

Class 4
Do Now - Table Talk: "Share your feedback examples; determine which examples you agree are warm, cool and hard."
Direct Instruction - Students review strategies for taking accurate notes (different strategies for note-taking, including tallying, verbatim and mapping.)
Closing Reflection/ Homework - Take notes for any 30 minutes of television. (This can be adapted for students who don't watch TV.)

Class 5 and beyond (depending on level of staff participation and available class time)
Students will be released in teams of three to conduct pre-observation interviews and class observations. Before being released for the post observation feedback meetings, students will meet in class to combine and calibrate their feedback and to formally write it up to submit to the teacher during the post-observation feedback meeting.