Week+5+-+Your+thoughts

Discuss below:
 * your thoughts about whether observation instruments should include specific ratings or responses in narrative form

Cindy:
 * 1) Specific ratings with space for comment help to quantify the observation and make analysis easier
 * 2) Specific ratings help to form a "common knowledge" base - help to start the discussions
 * 3) Specific ratings would help the "training" aspect of using this new instrument. Could be faded out, if comon vocabulary/terminology/understandings were internalized by the teachers and observers

Allyson: I think whether an observation form has ratings or not depends on it's purpose. Having done walk-throughs both with the class and as part of the school leadership team I think that for quick observations ratings are crucial. Ratings allow you to combine data and look for trends easily. However, for single class informal observations I found I preferred narrative formats as it allowed me to observe what was happening without judging it and to be able to look for a variety of trends in the class later while analyzing the data. So the narrative form allowed for a more authentic observation.

**Adrienne Specific ratings are more generalized which I feel offers a more general constructism. In a narrative form, in my opinion a person could lean more to a subjective observations. An example of my thoughts is when teachers grade reports with or without rubrics. A rubric gives you a more baseline of what is expected, but a commentary to your grade can offer more criticism and subjectiveness to the report.**

I'm going to take the cop-out way here and say yes. I think a good tool can have the presence of both ratings and narrative. There are certainly things that an administrator can quantify with a rating scale, such as the overall learning environment created by a teacher. However, some things just don't lend themselves to such scales. An administrator likely needs to write some narrative piece interpreting results or even specific observations with things like teacher/student interaction and explanations of the learning taking place in the classroom. -Ben