Peer observation at Ipswich Girls’ Grammar School is the process whereby a teacher arranges
to come in and spend some time in the classroom of another teacher looking at the strategies
that are used within the class. We have a specific focus in that we’re looking at
lesson structure and particularly the articulation of lesson objective. When we started our quality
teaching project, the first thing we did was quite an extensive literature review, and
it was very clear from the literature that peer observation was one of the best strategies
for professional development that we could provide for our staff. The teachers would
have a short meeting before the lesson, where they talk about what's going to happen in
the lesson, what the objective is going to be and how the lesson is going to flow.
Well, this is a grade 5 class, and our lesson today is teaching the children about how words are
used by authors and readers to take meaning from different texts. I’m really keen to
see how you explicitly give your objective to the class and also your anticipatory set.
That's something that I really want to focus on in my teaching. So class, today’s lesson,
as you know, is about teaching and understanding tone and mood. The teacher who’s doing the
observing goes in. He or she will have a little worksheet that they fill out. We call our
peer observation’s VOTs, which is Visit Other Teachers each term. And so the teacher
is looking at VOT did I see, VOT did I learn, VOT can I do to improve my own teaching as
a result of what I’ve seen. As we spoke about before the lesson, I was really keen
to look at how you stated the objectives to the students and also the anticipatory set
that you used. The anticipatory set, which was something that I was really interested
in, was fabulous. The use of multimedia engaged the students straight away. The images that
were used were fabulous. They were targeted right at the students’ level. They were
laughing along with the clips. They were really interested in the images that were being shown.
And certainly, it introduced the lesson on tone and mood really well. Do you think you
could use this sort of thing in home economics? Absolutely. While I was watching your lesson,
I was thinking that, how could I use this in my subject area, and I was thinking that
the use of images would be perfect, particularly when we’re doing a practical lesson. If
we were making something like cupcakes, then I could show them some clips from Masterchef
or Cake Boss showing them the production, showing them the end product so they see what
they're going to be doing in that lesson in short, sharp grabs so their attention’s
gained straight away. The response from teachers to peer observation has been very positive.
I think as they’ve undertaken the observations, they've realised that this is a way that they
really can pick up some new ideas, some new strategies, some different approaches. And
it gives them an opportunity to actually see what happens in someone else’s classroom.
So that’s been very positive. It’s been fantastic, particularly for my own teaching.
I’ve really been able to get some new teaching methodologies that maybe I’d had a few years
ago that I’d forgotten to use. It’s that real cross-fertilisation of looking at what
someone else does and what they have success with and then being able to implement that
into your own classroom. Implementing peer observations are challenging for all parties.
Initially, teachers may feel hesitant about having somebody else in their classroom. Sometimes
you can feel a little bit embarrassed. And just having an understanding that they're
there not necessarily to judge you but to watch what you do and take things from it
in a positive way has certainly helped people to overcome that fear or that concern about
the agenda behind it all. I think one of the most interesting things that we’ve learned
is that teachers have so much to learn from one another, not just within their narrow
subject areas or year levels but from across the school. It’s been a great way for us
to showcase what we’re doing as a school to improve the quality of our teachers and
our teaching. Peer observation changes the way I think about teaching by encouraging
me to reflect more on my own practice and making sure that I am covering the steps that
the quality teaching teams have shown us work better for student learning.