Classroom observations in theory and practice

This essay explores the dialectic between theorizing teachers’ decision-making and producing a workable, theoretically grounded scheme for classroom observations. One would think that a comprehensive theory of decision-making would provide the bases for a classroom observation scheme. It turns out, however, that, although the theoretical and practical enterprise are in many ways overlapping, the theoretical underpinnings for the observation scheme are sufficiently different (narrower in some ways and broader in others) and the constraints of almost real-time implementation so strong that the resulting analytic scheme is in many ways radically different from the theoretical framing that gave rise to it. This essay characterizes and reflects on the evolution of the observational scheme. It provides details of some of the failed attempts along the way, in order to document the complexities of constructing such schemes. It is hoped that the final scheme provided will be of some value, both on theoretical and pragmatic grounds. Finally, the author reflects on the relationships between theoretical and applied research on teacher behavior, and the relevant research methods.