Schools are risky places: the risk of a poor Ofsted report, the risk of sliding down league tables, the risk of teachers abusing children, the risk of teachers being falsely accused of abuse. As a result of risk anxiety and the ever-increasing sophistication of technology, the surveillance of teachers has proliferated, becoming a future-oriented…

Observing teaching with a practiced, professional eye can yield valuable insights into the specific learning opportunities that students are (or are not) provided. However, recent policy initiatives have emphasized using formulaic rubrics and checklists to rate teacher behaviors and evaluate their use of particular instructional moves. Rather than…

Classroom assessment is an essential part of education. The study investigated teachers' perceptions of classroom assessment and their current classroom assessments practices in secondary science in Bangladesh. Specifically, the study sought to gain an understanding of to what extent teachers use different classroom assessment strategies to…

The aim of this article was to find the connections between teachers' actions (N = 7) and their 3rd graders' performances (N = 86) when solving an open problem. A lot of information about the teaching sessions was gathered by video recordings and collecting pupils' solutions. Teachers' actions were analysed carefully through the phases of a…

Learning from the practice of teaching teachers is a promising approach for mathematics teacher educators to attain the extensive knowledge and abilities needed for their roles. As mathematics teacher educators ourselves striving to develop across our professional lifespans, we used one such approach, known as a lesson experiment, to investigate…

Teacher adaptability is a key disposition for teachers that has been linked to outcomes of interests to schools. The aim of this study was to examine how the broader disposition of teacher adaptability might be observable as classroom-based adaptive practices using an argument-based approach to validation. The findings from the initial phase of…

Improving teacher evaluation is one of the most pressing but also contested areas of educational policy. Value-added measures have received much of the attention in new evaluation systems, but they can only be used to evaluate a fraction of teachers. Classroom observations are almost universally used to assess teachers, yet their statistical…

Background: Assessment "for" learning (AfL) is now marketed across the Western world as a key to an improved goal attainment in most school subjects. The concept has also attracted increased interest in the international research field of physical education (PE) in recent years. According to (Chan, K., P. J. Hay, and R. Tinning. 2011.…

This paper presents findings from classroom observations of one teacher (Beth). It focusses on the development of conceptual understanding of fractions with her students, articulated in Kieren's sub-constructs (Kieren, 1980,1988), and Hansen's progressions (Hansen, 2005). The study covers three lessons within a six week unit. Findings from this…

A growing body of literature recognizes the affordances of video in education, especially in relation to lesson observation and reflection as part of teachers' initial teacher education and continuing professional development. Minimal attention has been paid to the outcomes of video-enhanced observation as a source of multiple modes of data for…

Teacher evaluation systems commonly rely on observation of teaching practice (OTP) by school principals. However, the value of OTP as evidence of teacher effectiveness depends on its psychometric quality. In this study, we address a key aspect of the psychometric quality of principals' OTP ratings. Specifically, we investigate the degree to which…

Students attending alternative provision (AP) schools have typically disengaged with their education. They present with multiple problems and complex support needs which makes their re-engagement back into education challenging. This study examined educational re-engagement using the self-system model of motivational processes. Teacher (or other…

Mentors' feedback can assist preservice teachers' development; yet feedback tends to be variable from one mentor to the next. What do mentors observe for providing feedback? In this study, 24 mentors observed a final-year preservice teacher through a professionally video-recorded lesson and provided written notes for feedback. They observed the…

We draw on Engeström's (2011a) formative intervention approach to bring together mentor teachers and university supervisors to construct a tool for structuring observations and mentoring student teachers. Data include videos and transcripts from seven meetings where participants discussed mentoring and viewed video records of teaching practice to…

This study investigates reading activities in Swedish primary school classrooms during the late 1960s. Sound and video recordings of 223 Swedish lessons held between 1967 and 1969 are used to analyse the activity of reading as taught and performed. The results indicate that the practice of informational reading, often based on finding…