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The nature of observation in the classroom
Reflections on school observation
Reflections on school observation
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Recommended: The nature of observation in the classroom
Observation provides important information that will help you better understand your students so you can teach them based on your observation results. I believe one of the most important things I learned during my observations was that if you know what level your students are at and what they need to work on it will help guide you with what you should be teaching them. All children are unique and learn differently from one another, therefore it is important to closely observe each child. It was very interesting for me to see how different each child was from one another, each child was working on achieving a different milestone. Formal and informal are the two different methods you can use when observing. I found that informal observations
For less than two hours, I observed the grandson of a visitor at my aunt’s home.
Observation is very important in young children because that is how you get to know a child better. While observing how a child interacts with their peers, adults, and how they behave in different settings, you are getting to know the child without speaking to them.
I carried out two types of observation: these being narrative observation and time sampling. I chose to do both because the strengths of each help to support the weaknesses of the other. The main weaknesses of time sampling are that it causes the observer to miss potentially important behaviours that occur between the times the child is being observed and that the context of the behaviour is not recorded meaning that no cause and effect can be seen. It is because of these weaknesses that I chose to perform a narrative observation as well; this type of observation has ample detail and focuses on the whole of a scenario: that being the cause of a behaviour, the behaviour itself and the result of the behaviour. These strengths make up for the weaknesses of time sampling however, narrative observation also has weaknesses. Narrative observation is very time consuming and, especially when done for short periods, can be limited in the breadth of information gained.
For 12 weeks I observed a young pre-schooler Child C aged 31/2 years old, through my account I would give an observer’s view of Child C, three theories peculiar to Child C and my the emotions evoked in me as an observer. My observation assisted in my understanding of the changes in Child C as the week progressed over the 12 weeks.
In this project I learned a lot of ways of observation and teaching. For example, I learned how to record the data when I observed Chris in the baseline and intervention period, such as the Event Recording Sheet for 2 competing behaviors. Also, I really liked the Skill Training Script strategy,
The child I observed was born on February 21st, so the baby that I observed is just weeks old. The baby is white and a male. The baby is a friend’s child and I observed him in the living room of their home and in his personal bedroom while he was in his crib. There was two couches in the living room, a television, two end tables, and a big sectional rug which was where the child was most of the time. There was 4 adults. The mom, the dad, my mom, and I. There were no other children in the house at this time.
I observed toddlers at the Little Sprouts Early Education and Child Care Center. Upon entering I did had certain expectations and a sense of what I was prepared to observe. However, I was very surprised in my observations. All the children were well behaved and they got along. It was interesting to see how different each toddler was and their physical and intellectual abilities. The toddlers engaged in all types of play including imaginative, active, dramatic, pretend, and cooperative play. Play is significantly important in child development, especially in early childhood because it allows children to explore and learn new things. Children develop a number of skills during play. They develop in social, emotional, language, thinking, and nurturing skills. Language developmentalists believe that play is the most productive and the most enjoyable activity that children engage in (Berger, 2015).
Social Development. Austin is pretending to be a dinosaur to his mom and Grandma. “Plays pretend using sounds and words.” (Gronlund & Engel, 2001, p. 34)
What are the purposes of the observation? The purposes of the observation could range from teaching evaluation, learning to teach, learning to observe, collecting data for research purpose and finally to become more self-aware as teachers and as mentors (Gebhard, 1999). The most important purpose is to become self-aware of the practices and the rationales behind these practices. Self-awareness is achieved through learning how to visualize and verbalize teaching practices and decisions (Oprandy, 1999).
Observations of a young child’s behavior have seen to be beneficial to the observer because it allows the observer to determine what that specific child is interested in and how they react to certain situations. For my observations I observed two children who were both the age of three, one being a boy and the other a girl. One interesting fact about the little boy is that he is autistic and that these children happen to be cousins. This observation was made during a huge family get together and there were other toddlers present as well, however I’m only focusing on the young boy and girl. While observing the little girl for the first part of my observation there were quite a few characteristics that stood out to me. One of those being that
Observation is important as the practitioner can find out what the child is interested in and what motivates them to learn alongside their progress and how they behave in certain situations, additionally at the same time it identifies if children need assistance within certain areas of learning or socially (DCSF, 2008). Furthermore the observations check that the child is safe, contented, healthy and developing normally within the classroom or early years setting, over time the observations can be given to parents as they show a record of progress which helps to settle the parent and feel more comfortable about their child’s education. Observations are not only constructive within learning about an individual child, they can be used to see how different groups of children behave in the same situation and how adults communicate and deal with children’s behaviour (Meggitt and Walker, 2004). Overall observations should always look at the positives of what children can complete within education and not look at the negatives and all observations should become a fundamental part of all practitioners work alongside reflection (Smidt, 2009).
In the classroom I was in there are four infant and four toddlers. The infants were sleep and the toddlers were at the playground. When the toddlers came into the classroom they begin to cry because they saw a new person in the classroom. I was stranger danger to them and infants wake up crying because of the noise. There were only two teachers in the room. One of the teacher went to the toddlers telling them "this is our friend and she is going to be with us for a while". She gives them hugs and kisses and telling "it’s okay". At first, she seems a little stressed out because they all started crying at once and did not know who to go to but eventually she went to the child that was having difficulty having someone new in the classroom. The
Observation technique often refers to job shadowing or following people around, it is technique used to elicit requirements used by business analyst. It involves monitoring work environment and daily tasks performed by end users, documenting process when need to be improved. Observation is a great method and most successful for collecting and understanding requirements to obtain enterprises goals. According to Training and Development book job shadowing may be recommended technique in many instances of back up training. Involves observing a job expert at work, harmonized with trainee note taking, and follow up question/answer period later. It is a great form of learning, ant therefore sometimes ideal for veteran stuff learning from one another. It is also best tool for demonstrating complicated tasks
In observation is watching a person’s behavior and their actions. They prefer this method because it allows them to see how situation and environment influences behavior and to note a range of behaviors. When this takes place, you get to witness everything first hand in a natural state.
observation is a skiil neded on the science field , so the most effective solution that scientist had for their student to obtain it , is by taking paitnting and drawing classes . all the typed of observation can be useful for scien whwtehr is vius, oral or tacticale (Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 1999) one comman exmle , physisttius who has a musical backrogound are more abler to use sthoscopes from those did has have any (Mangione &