Questioning and Discussion Observation and Analysis Checklist

A tool for peer observation, self reflection, instructional coaching, or administration's observation of teachers, this checklist allows you to organize the analysis of the rigor of questions used during an observed lesson or lesson plan using the new Bloom's taxonomy: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create. It dissects the discussion techniques a teacher uses: the initiator of the question (teacher or student), the dynamic of the discussion (T-T: teacher talking to self; T-S-T-S: teacher posing questions and responding back and forth only to teacher; T-S-S-S: teacher posing questions and students engaging in a dialogue and shared understanding, or S-S-S-S: student generated questions causing a genuine student to student dialogue). There is a column to record wait time. Finally, there is a category to analyze the length and depth of students' explanation of thinking. Chicago Public Schools is using these concepts to evaluate teachers in their use of questioning and discussion techniques (using an adapted model of Charlotte Danielson- Framework for Teaching 3B). I have taken what is in the rubric and created an analysis tool. I usually scribe an observed lesson and then transfer it onto here in order to fully dissect the elements of the observation (so it can be used as a coaching tool for both instructional coaches and administrators). Teachers can use this to self reflect or during peer observations.

At the bottom, you can calculate the percentage of questions. For instance, if 5 questions were "remember" 3 were "analysis" and 2 were "create," the percentages are as follows: 50% remember, 30% analysis, 20% create.