Why Principals & Coaches Are Wasting Their Time With Observations - And How to Fix Them.

Teacher Classroom Observations Will Never Be Enough

It is often said that teachers make more than 1,500 decisions per day - second only to air traffic controllers and ahead of brain surgeons(!).

But to anyone who has ever been in the classroom, this is no surprise. Heck, it is something that more people should know! 

At its core, teaching is as much (if not more) about navigating an incredibly complex and ever-changing set of situations as it is about mastering course content. 

It is like being a skier and going down a slightly (and sometimes drastically) different set of slopes and moguls for 8 hours straight...every day...for 9 months.  Teachers have to contend with different sets of 25-35 highly variable variables (i.e. students) every 45-90 minutes.  It is like trying to be the “control” in “controlled chaos” - which is to say, it can be chaotic.

Over the course of a school year, a teacher is likely performing >1,000 hrs of instruction in those varying conditions while making 3-4 decisions per minute.

Needless to say, when trying to support and evaluate teachers, it is important to respect this complexity, duration, and variability.  But no one does....

That is why we think observing a teacher for 30 minutes here and 15 minutes there, over the course of an entire semester (or school year) provides us with sufficient information and data to manage our teachers. 

Surely watching a teacher a couple of times gives you a robust perspective on what their strengths are, how they are doing, and what they need right?

Of course not.  But don’t just take it from us - The New Teacher Project released a report in 2013 that arrives at the same conclusion.  It has been 7 years and, unfortunately, much of what we do when it comes to observations remains the same.

Don’t worry though - more observations by coaches or peers or parents or cameras is not the answer to this problem.

Observe the Entire Teaching Cycle

On the contrary, we need to pay more attention to the pre- and post-teaching steps.  Before a class is held, every teacher goes through some sort of planning and prep process. 

And after a class is over, you can bet that every teacher (at least briefly), spends time reflecting on how well they executed while reviewing assignments to see if their perceptions match with the actual results.  

There is a wealth of information flowing through the pre- and post-class phases of the teaching cycle - but our existing processes and theories neglect this data almost entirely, leaving principals and instructional coaches nearly incapable of having any sophisticated understanding of their teachers at all.

Without understanding what led to certain results in the classroom and how the teacher is processing those results, no amount of observations will prove enough to improve teacher development, evaluation, and retention.  

Streamline Teacher Support

While supporting teachers with engagement strategies and intuitive planning guides, TARA streamlines the coaching process, making lesson plan review, tracking observations, and submitting evaluations significantly more effective.  

And for school leaders, TARA doesn’t just make your teachers’ lessons easier to access (although it is nice to have everything in a single tab). It also makes the teachers themselves easier to access and support throughout the course of the year. You can push shortcuts and resources to them at any time and not just through the lesson plan review process.

Instead of regurgitating broad platitudes about working hard and loving students (although both can be important), imagine spending time delving into instruction with your faculty, digging into what strategies they find effective and what that says about their students and what they need.

Imagine being in your school where your vision is understood down to the daily practice of every instructor together.

Imagine being in your classrooms where your observations can be strategic and maybe - just maybe - even enjoyable.  Instead of mental cringing and seat squirming, you actually just sit back as a spectator who gets the beautiful opportunity to watch teaching and learning happen every day as part of their job.

Let’s aim for that school - the one you imagined leading in the first place.

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