Hello. I am Sean Owen, Associate Research Professor and Assessment Manager at the Research and Curriculum Unit (RCU) at Mississippi State University. Founded in 1965, the RCU n. The RCU benefits K-12 and higher education by developing curricula and assessments, providing training and learning opportunities for educators, researching and evaluating programs, supporting and promoting career and technical education (CTE), and leading education innovations. One of my roles at the RCU focuses on providing our stakeholders practical strategies to inform their practices better and to guide future processes.
Lessons Learned:
Technology can be your best partner. We all agree the rate of development of technological advancements has increased at a rapid pace in recent years. Muhammad Yunus said, “While technology is important, it’s what we do with it that truly matters.” In our group, we have started leveraging Google Forms with a combination of add-ons to increase the efficiency of our classroom observations. One of the keys to implementing effective observation systems is a failure to use observation rubrics that are concise, focused, easy to use, and digestible.
Hot Tip:
Explore add-ons for Google tools. There is a vast community of developers creating Add-Ons for Google’s Suite of Tools. As Alice Keeler has shown in recent months, anyone can create add-ons for the Google Suite to best suit the processes of their work. As we continue to forge ahead in a climate of tight budgets, evaluators using cost-effective and efficient practices have become even more important. To learn more about developing Add-ons for the Google Suite, navigate to the Google Developer site.
Rad Resources:
- Explore the advanced functionality of the Google Sheets Add-on autoCrat. This Add-on can merge data from spreadsheets into a document using merge tags linked to the spreadsheet. Automated triggers can be set to populate one document or multiple documents when the observer submits a new form.
- The evaluator/observer can set the observation feedback document to get automatically emailed to the educator or other individuals using the autoCrat Add-On or the form results in email format using the Google Forms Form Notifications Add-on.
- Review this report from the Report Support Network regarding best practices of purposeful observations systems for educators. Using observations to improve teacher practice—how states can build meaningful observation systems. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation-support-unit/tech-assist/usingobservationstoImproveteacherpractice.pdf
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