Classroom Observation

A Guide to the Effective Observation of Teaching and Learning

Matt O'Leary

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781317246442
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Building on recent changes and debates surrounding the use of observation, this fully updated second edition of Classroom Observation explores the role of lesson observation in the preparation, assessment and professional learning of teachers, lecturers and educators at all levels and across all educational organisations. Offering practical guidance and detailed insights on an aspect of training that is a source of anxiety for many teachers, this thought-provoking book offers a critical analysis of the place, role and nature of lesson observation in the lives of education professionals.

Updated to incorporate the latest research, policy and practical developments on observation, this new edition also includes greater coverage of research and developments in the field of observation beyond the UK. Enabling readers to use observation as a lens for understanding, informing and improving teaching and learning, and equipping them with structured frameworks for applying observation, this book includes sections on:

• Teacher autonomy and professional identity

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• Performance management, professional standards and accountability

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• Peer observation, self-observation and critical reflection

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• Educational assessment and evaluation

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• Peer-based models of observation

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• Using digital technology to inform learning.

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Written for all student and practising teachers as well as teacher educators and those engaged in educational research, Classroom Observation is an essential introduction to how we observe, why we observe, and how it can be best used to improve teaching and learning.

Part 1

Exploring the role of classroom observation in teaching and learning

Chapter 1

Classroom observation in context

Understanding the background to its emergence and its role in the teaching profession

Introduction

Over the last three decades, classroom observation has emerged as a pivotal tool for measuring, assuring and improving the professional skills and knowledge base of teachers and lecturers in schools, colleges and universities. Understanding why and how observation emerged as a key instrument requires an insight into the socio-political and historical contexts in which this occurred. As James and Biesta (2007: 11) contend:

Teaching and learning cannot be decontextualized from broader social, economic and political forces, both current and historic, and that addressing this complexity directly is the most likely route to acquiring an understanding that will be most useful to policy and practice.

Thus, if we are to appreciate fully why observation has become such an important mechanism then we need to examine how it fits into this wider backdrop. This is the focus of this chapter.

Focusing on the English education system as an exemplar case study, this chapter situates the emergence of observation against the wider socio-political forces underpinning the educational reforms responsible for its implementation as a tool in the education sector. In drawing on aspects of Foucauldian theory, as well as the twin phenomena of new managerialism and performativity (discussed in detail below), it provides a critical analysis of these wider socio-political developments and elucidates their role in contributing to the prominent position that observation currently holds in the training and assessment of teachers and what it means to be a ‘professional’ in the field of teaching in the twenty-first century. It discusses significant education policy milestones and reforms over the last five decades and how these have shaped the way in which observation has come to be conceptualized and used in education.

The origins of classroom observation: an overview of its emergence and policy backdrop

The origins of classroom observation in England can be traced back to the middle of the nineteenth century where its emergence in state schools coincided with the government’s introduction of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI), whose remit was to assess whether public money was being well spent in the newly created ‘schools for the poor’ and to identify ways in which the then governmental office of education could help to further improve provision (Grubb 2000). Since then it has come to be largely associated with teacher education/training and appraisal. As Lawson (2011: 3) comments, ‘it was first associated with pre-service training, then with initial training in a first job, then with competency procedures, and only more latterly with inspection and quality assurance measures.’ Despite this longstanding history, it is only over the last two decades, in particular, that schools and colleges in England have witnessed the widespread use of observation on a regular basis outside of the initial teacher education (ITE) context. In this short space of time, it has become the cornerstone of quality assurance (QA) and quality improvement (QI) systems for teaching and learning.

Understanding the context and rationale for the emergence of observation requires the sewing together of a patchwork quilt of governmental policies and initiatives produced as part of the on-going reform agenda that has characterized the English education system in recent times. As this chapter discusses, one of the key drivers of these reforms has been the heightened emphasis placed on teaching and learning in spearheading the drive for continuous improvement in educational provision. This policy focus subsequently resulted in the development of a package of reforms and initiatives aimed at measuring attainment, raising standards, with the purported aim of improving the quality of teaching and learning. It was in light of this that classroom observation emerged as an important multi-purpose vehicle for policy makers and practitioners alike.

These initiatives were themselves linked to a wider neoliberal reform agenda intent on transforming the working cultures of public sector institutions by introducing new systems of management from the private sector that were designed to improve levels of performance, productivity and accountability. This approach to management is commonly referred to as ‘new managerialism’ or ‘new public management’ and has become associated with the way in which schools and colleges have operated since the early 1990s in England (e.g. Ball 2001). This will be discussed in detail below but before doing so, it is important to chart some of the key milestones that paved the way for such change.

Over four decades ago, Paulo Freire, one of the most prominent educational thinkers and theorists of ‘critical pedagogy’ during the last century (see Chapter 7 for more detail on critical pedagogy), argued that education and politics were inextricably linked. Freire viewed all educational activity as a political act, particularly emphasizing the strong bond between education and power. Thus, for Freire, the decisions teachers make concerning their approach to the curriculum and the teaching and learning experience per se are ultimately political. In other words, there can be no such thing as a ‘neutral’ pedagogy. Although Freire’s reference to the ‘politics’ of education was meant in the wider rather than the party political sense, his work coincided with a period in which government intervention in the educational curriculum was on the increase.

Roughly around the time of the publication of Freire’s seminal text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire 1972) in the 1970s, the OPEC international oil crisis occurred, which was to have far-reaching and damaging financial reverberations for many of the world’s leading economies. One of the neoliberal responses to this crisis was to hold the educational establishment responsible for the subsequent economic downturn. ‘Under achievement’ and ‘poor teaching’ were blamed and the need for a greater reliance on market forces was emphasized (Maguire 2010). The OPEC oil crisis was thus to become the catalyst for a ‘new context for governments’, which was to result in a reconfigured globalization as Mahony and Hextall (2000: 5–6) describe:

The 1970s and 1980s [w]as a significant period in which a number of material and political factors came together to provide a new context for governments. The power of Western governments to deliver prosperity, security and opportunity to their citizens within ‘walled’ economies controlling the movement of capital, goods and services was undermined by a world recession created by escalating fuel prices following oil crises in the 1970s (Halsey et al. 1997). Falling profits motivated multinational corporations to seek new markets, with increasing deregulation of the world economy and financial markets in the 1980s and 1990s making it easier for them to do so. This was sustained by the increasing political influence of the New Right and their mobilization of reaction against Keynesian economic and welfare policies. In this context, the ‘competition state’ was born, pressuring governments to seek reductions in public expenditure (in order to attract inward investment) and to secure maximum returns from public-sector resources.

During the 1970s, the political landscape of England began to change. The links between education and politics were about to become more apparent as the government embarked on a more actively interventionist role in defining and shaping the curriculum and the educational agenda than it had done previously. This change was triggered by the so-called ‘Great Debate’ speech.

The ‘Great Debate’ and the politicization of the curriculum

In 1976, the then Prime Minister, James Callaghan, delivered his now famous ‘Great Debate’ speech at Ruskin College. The speech is commonly acknowledged as a major turning point in the history of the English education system and considered the catalyst for greater central government involvement in the curriculum and ensuing educational reform.

A major theme in Callaghan’s speech was the need to close the perceived gap between the skills and knowledge acquired by learners in schools, colleges and universities, and what the world of industry demanded of them. He insisted that ‘it was the right (and even the responsibility) of central government to see that this was delivered by those within the education system’ (Lowe 2007: 3). Callaghan also made reference to aspects of pedagogy and what he described as the ‘unease felt by parents and others about the informal new teaching methods’ and what some perceived as a decline in standards in schools (Callaghan 1976). He called for the need for greater ‘value for money’ and ‘as high efficiency as possible’, arguing that ‘we cannot be satisfied with maintaining existing standards … we must aim for something better’ (ibid.).

In many ways, Callaghan’s speech was prophetic in that it touched on key aspects of the role and purpose of education in society, pedagogy and the role of the State in shaping education policy. All of these aspects continue to provoke intense debate even five decades later. The speech was also a watershed moment for educational provision in England in the sense that it paved the way for unprecedented governmental intervention in the curriculum and greater accountability for teachers. Successive governments were to ensure that the ‘educational experience’ (i.e. the content of the school curriculum, how it should be taught and how it should be monitored) would no longer be left to the teaching profession, but would be determined by the State and a host of closely aligned external agencies. The most conspicuous of these agencies to emerge over the last three decades in England is the inspectorate, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). It has played a significant role in policing the curriculum, as well as elevating the importance of observation as a means of gathering data about classroom teaching, as discussed further below.

Unwittingly perhaps, Callaghan’s speech also prepared the ground for the radical right initiatives of the Thatcher era during the 1980s and a redefinition of educational objectives, along with the introduction of a national curriculum. Many of these initiatives were underpinned by principles that had been taken from the world of private enterprise and were to become commonly known as the three ‘Es’ (i.e. Economy, Efficiency and Effectiveness). There was also a direct appeal to market forces with increased emphasis on competitiveness, attempts to measure performance and the decision to make school inspection reports public, along with the publication of exam results in league tables in later years. These were all key elements of the introduction of performance management systems designed to control educational policy from the centre. Mahony and Hextall (2000) quote from Hoggett (1996) to illustrate the controlling and regulatory technologies designed to enhance the ability of government to steer policy from the centre:

In virtually all sectors, operational decentralization has been accompanied by the extended development of performance management systems. Such systems seem designed to monitor and shape organisational behaviour and encompass a range of techniques including performance review, staff appraisal systems, performance-related pay, scrutinies, so-called ‘quality audits’, customer feedback mechanisms, comparative tables of performance indicators including ‘league tables’, customer charters, quality standards and total quality management.

(Hoggett 1996: 20, cited in Mahony and Hextall 2000: 31–2)

These ‘regulatory technologies’ were to become what Foucault (1980) refers to as the ‘apparatuses of control’ of successive governments in their attempts to raise education standards from the Thatcher regime to the Conservative government of 2019. We will return to discussing Foucault’s ‘apparatuses of control’ below, but before then it is worth outlining some of the key reforms that have given rise to the increased reliance on classroom observation over the last three decades.

Government reform, performance management and the creation of the ‘new professional’ in colleges, schools and universities

In the case of schools in England, the process of reform was encapsulated by several key legislative changes, which were to change the education landscape as well as the role of teachers immeasurably. The most notable among these were: the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA), the introduction of a National Curriculum, the Local Management of Schools (LMS) in 1991, the introduction of a national teacher appraisal scheme in 1992 and the implementation of a new inspection regime. Each of these reforms was underpinned by an ideology of increased accountability and greater parental choice, ultimately rendering schools more answerable to central government. At the same time, the Thatcher government in particular was also ‘keen to displace the participation of teacher associations, trade unions and local authorities from the policy process’ (Ball 2016: 3).

In the mid-1980s, the then Secretary of State for Education, Keith Joseph, declared that ‘the only way to remove unsatisfactory teachers from a profession where they can do much harm’ (cited in Wragg et al. 1996: 9), was by introducing a system of teacher appraisal, which would be based on classroom observation. This policy became a legal requirement in 1986, yet it was not for another decade before it became common practice for teachers to be formally observed and for these observations to underpin a formal appraisal process. As Wragg et al. (1996: 141) describe:

The introduction within appraisal of a formal system for observing teachers teaching was for many teachers the first time they had been officially observed since they were trainee teachers or probationers … until appraisal it was rare for teachers to be observed with the specific purpose that their teaching should be analysed and commented on.

Teacher appraisal for schools prescribed two classroom observations bi-annually, an appraisal interview with the member of staff’s line manager and the subsequent drawing up of a list of targets to be achieved within an ag...