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Maths observations - how can you make the most of them?

Friday, 25 November 2016
Lesson observations, with the opportunity to see other teachers in action and the learning that takes place, are a great way to improve your own teaching skills. This is even more the case if you have been involved with the planning process so you can share thoughts and ideas with the teacher. I have a prompt 'bookmark' sheet of questions to guide my observations that you can give a try.
A Lesson Study approach is a model that is being used in many schools now, with collaborative teacher-led research, planning, teaching, observation and reflection used to develop specific aspects of teaching and learning. It is a strong model and one that is well worth trying.
 
You can certainly use the principle of Lesson Study in a less formal way to make observations of value to all staff involved. It helps if you can determine specific questions about children’s learning that you wish to try to answer from the observation, agreed between you and the teacher being observed.
 
It is also a good idea to identify the aspects of the pedagogical subject knowledge of the teacher that you wish to focus on. It may be the use of mathematical language, an understanding of lines of progression, the quality of the interaction or how misconceptions or errors are dealt with.
 
It is a lot to look out for, so I’ve produced a prompt ‘bookmark’ sheet of questions to guide observations and discussion to use alongside the school observation sheet. The prompts are in 5 areas based on my research into ‘deep subject knowledge’ with a bank of questions for each area. They are detailed below and are also available as a file with two bookmarks on an A4 sheet.
 
I always see it as a privilege to be in a classroom to observe the teaching and learning, and there is no doubt that as I observe, reflect and discuss afterwards I always learn something new.

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This is a ‘poster presentation’ of my MA study.
Identifying deep subject knowledge
To read more, download the poster presentation and notes or read the whole study from the link.
beliefsobs
connections
representationobs
progressionobs
interactionobs
Download the prompt ‘bookmark’ sheet of questions to guide observations and discussion to use alongside the school observation sheet.
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