Common Core Math Observation

For this activity, I observed a third grade teacher doing a common core math lesson and used the categorical frequency instrument to determine the Bloom’s level of the questions being asked by the teacher. This shows me how often higher order thinking questions were being used versus lower level questioning. I never realized before how many low level questions teachers ask their students, that do not require comparison, problem solving, or critical thinking. I chose this technique because our district is working to improve critical thinking by asking deeper questions. This data can be used to help the teacher develop better questioning in the future through understanding what level of questioning they use most often. For example, the teacher
could have added more analysis and synthesis level questions by adding questions where students created their own problems for their partner to solve or by comparing and contrasting the various methods they used to solve the problem. This activity helped me to understand how to use collected data to provide constructive feedback. I realized it is important to help teachers understand the data and how to apply the information that was gathered to improve their teaching.

Through completing this activity, I learned that simple evaluation and feedback can be very powerful. During my teaching, I have always received complicated forms with a lot of information, but these forms have never been as useful to me as I wish they were. However, by simply tallying the level of each questions asked, I can show the teacher how often she is making her students think critically and how often she is having them simply recall information. This feedback could be more useful than a very complicated form that teachers do not fully understand or read completely.

While I really enjoyed using this data collection technique, I struggled with keeping up with the rate the teacher was questioning.
I found myself pausing the video, which I could not do in a normal observation. I think I need to use the form a few more times and get more familiar with the levels of Bloom’s in order to be effective with this observation form. I might also want to record the teacher my first few times observing to make sure I catch everything. Next time, I would also have a Bloom’s taxonomy guide next to me while observing as a quick reference tool. I think being more familiar with the collection technique, recording the lesson, and having a Bloom’s reference guide would help me better collect the date and provide better feedback.

I would still like to learn more about the other data collection techniques that the text mentions, and I would like to try each out in the classroom. I could talk with our district’s instructional coaches about various data collection techniques and how they are best used. I could then use my plan time or more online instructional videos to practice the data collection techniques. I think this would help me to provide more meaningful and detailed feedback as a leader and
evaluator.