Observation Skills for Effective Teaching

Book excerpt: The sixth edition of Observation Skills for Effective Teaching focuses on observing others and incorporating the right tools, knowledge, and skills into your own practice - key principal means by which you can become an effective and professional teacher. Using this text, you will learn to observe in the following eight areas: learning climate, classroom management, lesson clarity, instructional variety, task orientation, student engagement, student success, and higher thought processes. These eight areas have been found by researchers to be related to desirable cognitive, social, and emotional outcomes in learners. This book will also teach you how to decide what to observe, how to effectively and efficiently observe in the classroom, and how to apply what you have learned through observation to grow as a reflective teacher. In addition, the book provides methodological concepts, observation instruments, and dialogues designed to help you see and practice research-based patterns of effective teaching. General Methods K-8 and Student Teaching