Educational Psychology Third Edition Kelvin Seifert and Rosemary ...

Cultural and individual
differences in the meaning of
verbal and non verbal
behaviors
Record keeping
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also teach.
Be cautious in the conclusions that you draw from your observations and
questions. Remember that the meaning and expectations of certain types of
questions, wait time, social distance, and role of “small talk” varies across
cultures (Chapter 4). Some students are quiet because of their personalities not
because they are uninvolved, nor keeping up with the lesson, nor depressed or
tired.
Keeping records of observations improves reliability and can be used to enhance understanding of one student, a
group, or the whole class' interactions. Sometimes this requires help from other teachers. For example, Alexis, a
beginning science teacher is aware of the research documenting that longer wait time enhances students’ learning
(e.g. Rowe, 2003) but is unsure of her behaviors so she asks a colleague to observe and record her wait times
during one class period. Alexis learns her wait times are very short for all students so she starts practicing silently
counting to five whenever she asks students a question.
Teachers can keep anecdotal records about students without help from peers. These records contain
descriptions of incidents of a student’s behavior, the time and place the incident takes place, and a tentative
interpretation of the incident. For example, the description of the incident might involve Joseph, a second grade
student, who fell asleep during the mathematics class on a Monday morning. A tentative interpretation could be the
student did not get enough sleep over the weekend, but alternative explanations could be the student is sick or is on
medications that make him drowsy. Obviously additional information is needed and the teacher could ask Joseph
why he is so sleepy and also observe him to see if he looks tired and sleepy over the next couple of weeks.
Anecdotal records often provide important information and are better than relying on one’s memory but they
take time to maintain and it is difficult for teachers to be objective. For example, after seeing Joseph fall asleep the
teacher may now look for any signs of Joseph’s sleepiness—ignoring the days he is not sleepy. Also, it is hard for
teachers to sample a wide enough range of data for their observations to be highly reliable.
Teachers also conduct more formal observations especially for students with special needs who have IEP’s. An
example of the importance of informal and formal observations in a preschool follows:
The class of preschoolers in a suburban neighborhood of a large city has eight special needs students
and four students—the peer models—who have been selected because of their well developed
language and social skills. Some of the special needs students have been diagnosed with delayed
language, some with behavior disorders, and several with autism. The students are sitting on the
mat with the teacher who has a box with sets of three “cool” things of varying size (e.g. toy pandas)
and the students are asked to put the things in order by size, big, medium and small. Students who
are able are also requested to point to each item in turn and say “This is the big one”, “This is the
medium one” and “This is the little one”. For some students, only two choices (big and little) are
offered because that is appropriate for their developmental level. The teacher informally observes
that one of the boys is having trouble keeping his legs still so she quietly asks the aid for a weighted
pad that she places on the boy’s legs to help him keep them still. The activity continues and the aide
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