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Introduction

For the final PfPC article of the year I’m going to completely swerve away from the theme of the rest of this academic year’s articles, and am instead going to offer some personal reflections on an aspect of my recent practice that didn’t go as well as I would have ideally liked.  In so doing I will draw upon the spirit and messages of Black Box Thinking, Matthew Syed’s engaging and inspirational book on the importance of systematically learning from failures.
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Background

So far, this series of articles has outlined a psychology-informed coaching approach to lesson observations that can be applied to support education practitioners to reflect on and further develop their classroom practice (see the APS blog archives).  In this article I’m going to expand on one particular component of this approach – how we can support and guide reflection on practitioners’ successes – while also highlighting how we can use the process to develop teachers’ skill at being reflective.
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Background

​My previous two articles have focused on:
 
  1. Problems associated with traditional lesson observation procedures (September 2016).
  2. How principles from evidence-based psychological approaches can be applied to transform the practice of lesson observations (November 2016).
 
This post represents the third part of this series of articles, outlining a seven-step psychology-informed framework (Adams, 2015) that can be applied in the context of lesson observations to support practitioner learning and development.
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Background

A central concern for any school is how to support and enhance the performance and development of its classroom teachers.  It is for this reason that observations of classroom practice have become such a prominent feature of the landscape in education settings, with observations now taking place many times during the academic year for each individual teaching practitioner.  Observation processes are linked to and inform, among other things, performance management appraisals, school inspections, and continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers.  Being observed at work can be, in my view, a good thing, in that it can bring strengths to one’s attention, inform consideration about areas for development, and raise awareness about blind spots one might have about one’s practice.  It stimulates learning and reflection, guards against complacency, and is a helpful vehicle for challenge.  Observation is thus a key tool for supporting practitioner learning and development, which in turn supports the ongoing process of school improvement.  It is also a potentially valuable component of coaching engagements in schools if the aim is to support the development of classroom practice.  However, there are a number of factors associated with observation procedures that, in my view and experience, can either confound the process or interfere with the aim of supporting practitioner learning and development.  This blog post outlines some of these factors.
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Psychology for Positive Change is a blog about constructive applications of psychology to everyday living.
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Author

​Mark Adams is a Chartered Psychologist and Accredited Coaching Psychologist who is passionate about how psychology can be applied to make a positive difference to lives and society.  He is the author of Coaching Psychology in Schools, published by Routledge in November 2015.

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