Skill 1: Learning to Observe

Learning to make high-quality observations is a transferable skill to many aspects of teaching, including child assessment. We can support our students to move from making subjective and general observations to making objective, specific, and behavioral observations grounded in understanding of teaching knowledge and skills.

We can also support students to move from focusing on children as a whole group to focusing on individual children’s words and actions, from focusing mostly on children’s behavior to their development in specific domains. When watching video of themselves, students may be tempted to first focus on how they appear on camera and the quality of the video. Over time, we can support them to be less self-conscious and better able to focus on their practice and its impact on children.

Observation Examples

Low-level example that is subjective and general:

"You were really nice and the children were learning."

High-level example that is objective, specific, and behavioral:

"You smiled, asked Maria an open-ended question, and Maria replied with a complete sentence using the novel word that you had just introduced."

Skill 2: Learning to Interpret

Teachers need to internalize the practice of interpreting children’s actions and words and their own actions and words in-the-moment. Teachers aren't simply memorizing teaching behaviors and then enacting them reliably, but are holding the intended impact of their actions at the forefront of their minds as they constantly reason about what they observe. They are seeing with purpose, constantly interpreting children's actions and words and their impact on them in order to support learning. Making interpretations based on observational evidence allows teachers to move beyond simply stating what happened and making personal judgments about it, to instead making sense of what they saw and how it connects to children’s development, learning, and pedagogical decision-making.

Interpretations use observations of words, actions, drawings, gestures, or other moments as evidence, demonstrating insight into them.

Interpretations connect with the focus in terms of one or more of the following:

A specific early learning outcome
A teaching pedagogy
A teacher-child interaction
An assessment
Another principle of teaching
If known, knowledge of a specific child's background and learning needs

Interpretation Examples

Low-level example:

"The child liked the book."

High-level example that uses observational evidence and interpretation:

"When the book ended, the child clapped and asked you to read it again. This made me think that the child was engaged and would benefit from repetition."

Skill 3: Learning to Act

The most effective video analysis guides students to propose specific alternative practices that the teacher in the video, whether it is them or another teacher or peer, could have done to improve the impact on a child. This encourages the connection between seeing and doing, honing in on the action portion of reflection-in-action.

Action Examples

Low-level example:

"I should ask more questions."

High-level example that uses observational evidence and suggests alternative practice:

"I notice at 1:32, Robert is very interested in talking about the monkey.

Instead of moving on quickly, I wonder if I asked him an open-ended question such as 'How do you think the monkey will solve the problem?' if he would have made a prediction that I could have expanded and connected to later in the book."