Toward the Development of a Rigorous and Practical Classroom Observation Tool: The Uganda secondary school project

在世界范围内，人们对理解素质教育的本质越来越感兴趣。这一探索的一个主要关键在于教室里发生了什么，孩子们在这里获得了大部分的学术和社会学习的日常经验。虽然学校建筑的物理条件、教科书和教师学位等因素对儿童的学习和生活结果起着作用，但它们是小而间接的。教师的教学实践和课堂过程，就支持性和组织性而言，在儿童的学习和幸福结果中起着相当大的作用。然而，许多改进（和评估）教育项目的尝试的重点是基于经典的，尽管简单的投入产出模型。换句话说，先进行干预，然后衡量孩子学业或社会成绩的变化。这种类型的研究可以被视为“黑箱”研究；它们告诉我们的只是这个项目是否有效。它们无法为我们提供如何更有效地促进深度学习的见解。要做到这一点，我们首先需要能够有效地衡量教学实践和课堂过程。测量教学实践和课堂过程最准确的方法是使用观察方法。迄今为止，对于大规模评价研究或在日常实践中使用，现有的方法过于劳动密集和昂贵。我们需要可靠、有效、经济、实用的工具。这一点在低收入和脆弱国家体现得最为明显。这就是拟议调查的目标。为了实现这些目标，我们利用了世界银行（WB）与乌干达教育和体育部（MoES）合作在乌干达公立中学开展的一项大规模实验性学校和课堂干预计划。在该项目的第二阶段，世界银行邀请纽约大学（NYU）在干预年度之前、中期和结束时，使用一种名为TIPPS的创新工具，通过现场观察来检查教学实践和课堂过程，以补充影响评估。这些教室的样本也被录下来，以便进行更深入的分析。这些数据提供了一个独特的机会，可以进一步开发和验证一种创新的、负担得起的、可扩展的、实用的评估教师实践和课堂流程的工具。它还具有向教师提供反馈的潜力，特别是在与指导和改进教师绩效的反映实践结合使用时。我们进行了一系列的科学研究，以确保该仪器的可行性、有效性和实用性。除了开发和验证一种有效的课堂观察仪器外，我们还希望确保它在乌干达的政策和实践中得到应用，并最终在其他低收入和脆弱国家得到应用。因此，在项目年伊始，我们将与各利益攸关方团体（部委、工会官员、学校管理人员、教师和世界银行非洲地区工作人员）密切合作，促进参与和所有权。我们将让他们参加面谈和焦点小组，以便向他们介绍该文书，并在组织年终讲习班方面获得他们的协助，以最大限度地提高效率。这些研讨会的目标是解释我们关于干预措施和工具的研究结果，更重要的是，在工会的协助下，该工具可以由部委在政策层面实施。这样一来，这个工具就可以在全国各地的中学，最终也可以在小学中实际使用。

Worldwide, there has been growing interest in understanding the nature of quality education. A major key to this quest lies in what goes on inside classrooms, where children derive the bulk of their daily experiences in academic and social learning. While factors like the physical condition of the school building, textbooks, and teacher degrees play a role in children's learning and life outcomes, they are small and indirect. Teacher instructional practices and classroom processes, in terms of supportiveness and organization, play considerable roles in children's learning and well being outcomes. Yet, the focus of many attempts to improve (and evaluate) educational programs has been based on classic, though simple, input-output model. In other words, an intervention takes place, and then the change in child academic or social outcomes are measured. Studies of this type can be viewed as "black box" studies; they tell us little more than whether the program worked or not. They fail to provide us with insights on how to more effectively facilitate deeper learning. To do this, we first need to be able to effectively measure instructional practices and classroom processes. The most accurate way of measuring instructional practices and classroom processes is with the use of observational methods. To date, available methods have been too labor-intensive and costly for large-scale evaluation studies or for use in daily practice. Reliable, valid, cost-effective, and practically useful tools are needed. Nowhere is this truer than in low-income and fragile states. This is the goal of the proposed investigation. To achieve these ends, we capitalize on a large-scale experimental school and classroom-based intervention program undertaken in Ugandan public secondary schools by the World Bank (WB), in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES). In a second phase of this project, the WB enlisted New York University (NYU) to supplement the impact evaluation by examining the instructional practices and classroom processes with live observations using an innovative tool, known as TIPPS, before, in the middle, and at the end of the intervention year. Samples of these classrooms are also videotaped for more intensive analysis. This data provides a unique opportunity to further develop and validate an innovative, affordable, scalable, and practically useful tool for assessing teacher practices and classroom processes. It also has the potential to provide feedback to teachers, especially when used in tandem with mentoring and reflected practice for improved teacher performance. We conduct a series of scientific studies to assure the viability, validity, and utility of this instrument.In addition to the development and validation of an effective classroom observational instrument, we want to assure its use in policy and practice in Uganda and eventually in other low-income and fragile states. Thus, we begin the project year by working closely with the various stakeholder groups - ministry, union officials, school administrators, teachers, and World Bank Africa Region staff - to facilitate buy-in and ownership. We will engage them in interviews and focus groups to both inform them about the instrument and to gain their assistance in structuring the end of the year workshops for maximum effectiveness. The goals of these workshops are to explain our findings with regard to the intervention and the tool, and more importantly, so that the tool can be implemented at policy levels by the ministry, with the aide of the unions. In this manner, this tool could then be put into practical use in secondary schools around the country, and eventually primary schools as well.