Skip to content

Observation

Element · All elements
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 design), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description

Observation is the short-form canonical target for instructional activities in which learners watch people, processes, or contexts carefully in order to notice patterns, behaviors, or constraints.

Observation also functions as a teacher's primary informal assessment tool — continuously monitoring students' learning and motivation during instruction in order to decide whether to adjust teaching in the moment (Airasian, 2005). This is demanding in practice: beginning teachers find it harder than experienced ones, since it requires improvising responsively to student needs while simultaneously tracking the lesson's own goals and plan (Borko & Livingston, 1989). Observation-as-assessment covers both non-verbal behavior (who's looking out the window during a demonstration) and what students say (comments in a group indicating confusion), and feeds a range of in-the-moment decisions: who to call on next, whether to speed up or slow the pace, when more examples are needed, and whether a behavior problem is emerging. Moving around the room helps teachers observe more effectively from more vantage points, but the sheer pace and complexity of a real classroom limits how much any teacher can actually take in this way — a real constraint on how much can be inferred from observation alone, not a failure of technique.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

  • A clear purpose for what to notice
  • Prompts or criteria that focus attention

Constraints

  • Unguided observation may stay impressionistic

Target Learning Goals

  • Improve noticing, evidence gathering, and situated understanding.

Affordances

Claims

Key Sources

  • Schon, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner. Basic Books.
  • Airasian, P. W. (2005). Classroom assessment: Concepts and applications (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
  • Borko, H., & Livingston, C. (1989). Cognition and improvisation: Differences in mathematics instruction by expert and novice teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 26(4), 473-498.
  • Arduini-Van Hoose, N. (2020). Teacher-made assessments. In Educational psychology. Retrieved from https://edpsych.pressbooks.sunycreate.cloud. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Page metadata
Field Value
type element
id observation
title Observation
description Observation is the short-form canonical target for instructional activities in which learners watch people, processes, or contexts carefully in order to notice patterns, behaviors, or constraints.
status review
canonical True
generated by claude/unspecified on 2026-08-29
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content

Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.