ABSTRACT
Classroom observation is great help to assess the performance of the teachers. It gives the school heads opportunities to give technical assistance and improve the delivery of instructions despite of pandemic. However, there are several challenges and issues that need to be address to improve the classroom observation practices of the school heads. This research aimed to determine the classroom observation practices of the school heads in Taysan District, Division of Batangas Province with respect to pre-observation conference, during classroom observation and post-observation conference to come up with supplementary classroom observation tools and to improve classroom observation. This study used descriptive type of research utilizing researcher-made questionnaire and data obtained from interviews and focus group discussions.
The participants of this study were 26 school heads and 18 master teachers of Taysan District, who performed classroom observations. Highlighted here were the problems encountered during the classroom observation, and to find immediate solutions or interventions. This study found out that the time to conduct the classroom observation/visitation due to overlapping schedule was the foremost issue and problem encountered in the classroom observation practices and less likely the bias in evaluating teachers’ performance.
Keywords: classroom observation, monitoring and evaluation, supplementary classroom observation tool, practices.
Introduction
Learners’ achievement can be measured through the quality of teachers as it is the most important school-related factor influencing the schools’ success. Creating quality teaching can be determined by the teacher’s quality. Teachers have an important role in the process of creating good education. They are the active agent of the learning process that leads to good learning outcomes. Learning success or failure is a great responsibility of teachers. This would mean that every school needs to have effective and committed teachers under the tutelage of highly effective school heads.
The school heads are the instructional leaders who are helping teachers to make their classroom instructions effective as possible. They also lead teachers in developing and creating concrete and effective instructional plan. School heads need to adapt to the environment to meet the needs of each of the people around them. Furthermore, they must develop solutions for each individual problem as it arises, rather than using the same strategies to address different problems. The improvement of teaching and learning is the general purpose of instructional supervision. The basic premise of supervision is that teacher’s instructional behavior affects student learning.
Sergiovanni and Starratt (2008) stressed out that an examination of instructional behavior can lead to improvement in teaching and learning. Classroom observation is the most common instructional supervisory practices used by school heads to improve teaching and learning. It is intended to enhance the professional growth of teachers. Researchers have agreed on the indispensable nature of classroom observations in schools.
see PDF attachment for more information