Classroom observation methods and practices

Educational Observation

I observed a high school English teacher as the teacher led the students through a study of Shakespeare's Hamlet. While the students have to complete a certain number of English classes to graduate, they can choose most of the English classes they take. This was not an advanced placement class, but the students in it had chosen it and so presumably had an interest in Shakespeare. There were 18 students in the class.

The teacher used a variety of activities to encourage her students to think about what Shakespeare really was trying to communicate and to foster a deeper understanding of the play.

She fostered intellectual development -- increased understanding of the play with the activities; social development as students produced projects in teams of three students; personal development as they were encouraged to find creative new ways to present old information. Students knew from near the beginning of the unit what kinds of projects they could choose.

She said that the teachers met periodically to plot out when they would have large projects due so that students did not have to prepare a large project such as what she would require for this unit, and studying for a major test in another course, and a large research paper, all due in the same week.

She connected lessons to the students' lives today. One example of this is a class discussion prompted by the question, "This is a political play. It's about someone who wants to lead his country and who finds a way to get the top job. Today, he would be president. How could the story of Hamlet relate to modern life?"

The teacher was well prepared and expected her students to come to class as well. For one homework assignment, given two days before the actual class discussion related to it, she asked them to write three ways Hamlet might have some kind of parallel to today's politics in any country in the world. This was not time-consuming homework but it supported what happened in class very well. She said that even though it was not a time-consuming assignment, she gave them two nights because of the many things that compete for high school students' time outside of school including extra-curricular activities and part-time jobs.

One of the most interesting responses to this came from a student who said, "What if Lyndon B. Johnson had plotted to have Kennedy assassinated so he could become president?" Another suggested, "What if the monarch for Great Britain was chosen from among all the royal heirs instead of automatically going to the first-born child of the king or queen?" How would they decide who inherited the crown?"

The topic of another day's discussion was "What kind of play would Shakespeare write today?" Again the students were given two nights to generate ideas. This approach assured that all the students would be able to participate in class discussion. Some of the students suggested that he might write about Al-Qaeda, or the assassination of Martin Luther King.

For the project, she allowed a large variety of approaches. She had some ideas for them including:

-- Rewrite part of a scene into today's language

-- Rewrite a scene humorously

-- Act out a scene

-- Make a model of what a set for the play might look like

-- Write and act out an interview with Hamlet. What would you ask him?

She provided a grading rubric along with guidelines about how it would be used to grade the project. Each project had to be accompanied by an oral presentation. For instance, if a group acted out a scene, they had to explain what their character did in the scene and how it contributed to the play.

Some of these projects were very entertaining. One group took Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech. One student tried to speak the speech while the other two peppered him with humorous questions. Another group took the opening scene and acted it out as Monty Python might have.

The teacher used a computer program in this unit. The classroom had five computers. She taught the students to use Idea webs by putting large sheets of paper across the board and mapping students' comments. The students decided through discussion how the different pieces of information inter-related, and she drew lines to connect the concepts. The students then used INSPIRATION, a web-generating program, to illustrate any point they wanted from the play. The teacher demonstrated self-initiative in broadening her teacher skills, as she took the time to learn the INSPIRATION program herself for use in her class.

The teacher gave the students a timeline for their study of the play and for their work for the year. Timeline included when they would start and finish each unit, and when projects would be due with three dates for each project ... A date by which their proposal must be approved by her, the date for the project to be finished, and a span of time for projects to be presented to the class.

She encouraged student participation by periodically reminding students that there are no right or wrong questions to ask or comments to make during class. She did not tolerate any kind of "putting down" of one student by another, and used seemingly silly comments to get to an important point. This had the effect of discouraging silliness for the sake of silliness but allowed the students to include appropriate humor in class discussions. It helped keep the study of the play from becoming dry and overly academic. Most of the students seemed interested in what was going on in class most of the time.

She invited a local actor to come in and explain how an actor plays a Shakespearean role so the audience will understand the play, follow the story and be entertained. The actor was particularly interesting, as he took the rhythm of Shakespeare's play -- iambic pentameter -- and demonstrated how it could be read aloud to increase understanding. He used the famous speech from Act 3, scene 1.