If you hear of Newington boys being followed by teachers from class to class over the next couple of weeks, don’t be alarmed. It’s a new initiative introduced by Head of Learning and Teaching Mr Sean Corcoran to better help teachers understand learning from the student’s perspective. The ‘Step inside the shoes of a student’ idea hopes to bring empathy and perspective through authentic observation of student learning. It’s also possible to observe similarities and differences across different departments.

The idea sprung from the Classroom Observation Professional Learning Group (PLG). This PLG is exploring a number of different classroom observation methods to best explore student learning and this model is based on some of the positive experiences from other teachers who have trialled this at other schools.

So far, seven teachers have volunteered to shadow one of their mentees or students from period 1 to 6 for a whole day. Some of the focus questions teachers are required to keep in mind include:

• What did you observe in the classroom around student learning?
• What did you observe in the classroom around teaching practice?
• What did you not see around both areas?
• What did you notice about the use of space?
• What did you notice about the use of time?
• What similarities and/or differences did you note across classes?
• What conclusions can you draw over the six period day?
• What challenges or concerns has this brought up for you?
• What questions has it caused you to ask?

As an extra precaution to make sure the teacher observation experience is authentic, teachers are urged to debrief with the student over the course of the day to find out.

• How similar or different was the day to a “normal” day?
• How similar or different were the students in the classes?
• How similar or different was the teaching in the classes?
• How similar or different were the learning activities?

According to Mr Corcoran, this is the first time during his career at Newington something like this has been conducted. Teachers will meet after their observations to report on their findings back to all staff members in Term 4.

Stay tuned!