MAEL 213
Lesson Observation and Educational Mentoring
This module sets out to help Education Leaders reflect on the purpose of lesson observations and on different manners of how these can be conducted. It will also focus on the use of mentorship in schools. Thus, various issues and debates related to lesson observation and educational mentorship will be tackled.
By the end of this programme, participants should be able to:
a. Plan effective and consequently evaluate strategies with which, as education leaders, they inform, encourage and empower the educators in their institution to perform peer-to-peer observation sessions;
b. Systematically develop a lesson observation report which includes effective and constructive feedback as a tool for reflective practice;
c. Implement and bring about meaningful and sustained improvements in teaching and learning across the educational organization, s/he works in, through the vehicle of lesson observation and educational mentorship;
d. Set high expectations which inspire motivate and challenge pupils
e. Manage the information acquired in a way to ensure that learning is enjoyable, reachable and accessible to all, while leading teachers to ensure that they develop their cognitive and non-cognitive behaviour for learning to take place;
f. Ensure a secure environment to develop self-efficacy and self-belief;
g. Lead in the creation of a socially just environment where all learners and all learning are valued;
h. Lead educators to be responsible for the holistic well-being of each learner
i. Guide teachers on achieving best practices of collaboration with the Learning Support Educators to create an environment conducive to learning;
j. Collaborate closely with all the school staff to enhance the daily learning experience of each learner.
a. Comprehend that lesson observation can have an evaluative or developmental e purpose;
b. Achieve a good understanding of the crucial elements for effective educational mentorship.
c. Demonstrate a critical awareness of power relationships involved in different lesson observation strategies and mentorship.
d. Demonstrate critical awareness of innovative strategies of conducting a lesson observation which promotes good progress and outcomes by pupils;
e. Demonstrate an awareness of ethical considerations when conducting lesson observation.
f. Demonstrate good subject and curricular knowledge.
a. Select high-level readings – literature written in a critical and nuanced way, underpinned by solid, convincing arguments built on a critical analysis of robust data;
b. systematically understand key concepts related to lesson observation and educational mentorship;
c. systematically and creatively deal with complex issues related to lesson observation and educational mentorship.
d. Draft SMART action plans for the introduction of educational mentorship and power-balanced lesson observation strategies.
This programme adopts continuous and summative methods of assessment including assignments, online tasks, reflective journals, projects and video presentations. For further details, kindly refer to the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Policy and Procedures.
1. O’Leary, M. (ed) (2016) Reclaiming lesson observation: supporting excellence in teacher learning. Routledge; Abingdon.
2. Garvey, B., Stokes, P. and Megginson, D. (2018). Coaching and Mentoring: theory and practice. Sage; London
1. Blackmore, J. (2005); ‘A Critical Evaluation of Peer Review via Teaching Observations with Higher Education’ in International Journal of Educational Management, vol.19(3), pp.218-232.
2. Buskist, W., Ismail, E. and Groccia, J. (2014) ‘A Practical Model for Conducting Helpful Peer Review of Teaching’; in Sachs, J. and Parsell, M. (eds.) Peer Review of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education – International Perspectives. Dordrecht: Springer Science + Business Media.
3. Cerbin, W. and Kopp, B. (2006) ‘Lesson Study as a Model for Building Pedagogical Knowledge and Improving Teaching’. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 18(3), 250-257.
4. Cladingbowl, M. (2014); ‘Why I Want to Try Inspecting without Grading Teaching in Each Individual Lesson’, June 2014, No. 140101, Ofsted.
5. Copland, F. and Mann, S. (2010); ‘Dialogic Talk in the Post-Observation Conference: An investment for reflection’ in Ciroki, A., Park, G. and Widodo, H. (eds.) Observation of Teaching: Bridging theory and practice through research on teaching. Munchen, LINCOM Europa, Germany, pp.175-194.
6. Dominguez, N. and Hager, M. (2013). Mentoring frameworks: Synthesis and critique. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 171 – 188.
7. Jewitt, C. (2012) ‘An Introduction to Using Video for Research’ (National Centre for Research Methods Working Paper 03/12). Available at:
http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/2259/4/NCRM_workingpaper_0312.pdf. Last accessed 19th March 2018.
8. Hatzipanagos, S. and Lygo-Baker, S. (2006); ‘Teaching observations: promoting development through critical reflection’, Journal of Further and Higher Education, vol.30:4, pp. 421-43.
9. Lofthouse, R. and Birmingham, P. (2010); ‘The Camera in the Classroom: Video-recording as a tool for professional development of student teachers’. TEAN Journal, vol. 1(2), December 2010 [Online]. Available at: http://bit.ly.tyfj5M.
10. Marriott, G. (2001); Observing Teachers at Work. Heinemann Educational Publishers, Oxford.
11. Montgomery, D. (1999); Positive Teacher Appraisal through Classroom Observation; David Fulton Publishers Ltd, London
12. O’Leary, M. (2012) ‘Exploring the Role of Lesson Observation in the English Education System: A review of methods, models and meanings’ in Professional Development in Education, vol. 38(5), pp. 791-810.
13. O’Leary, M. (2014) Classroom Observation: A guide to the effective observation of teaching and learning. Routledge, London.
14. Peel, D. (2005) ‘Peer Observation as a Transformatory Tool?’ Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 10(4), pp. 489-504.
15. Shortland, S. (2004) ‘Peer Observation: A tool for staff development or compliance?’ Journal of Further and Higher Education, vol. 28(2), pp. 219-228.
16. Takashi, A. and Yoshida, M. (2004) ‘Ideas for establishing Lesson-Study communities’ in Teaching Children Mathematics (May), pp. 436-443.
17. Taylor, L., Dee, S., Richardson, J., Richardson, B., Bayliss, P. and Kill, T. (2009) Engagement. Promoting the development of teaching and learning through a participatory observation process. The Westminster Partnership CETT.
18. Washer, P. (2006) ‘Designing a System for Observation of Teaching’. Quality Assurance in Education, vol. 14(3), pp. 243-250.
19. Wood, P. and Cajkler, W. (2016) ‘A participatory Approach to Lesson-Study communities’. International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies ,vol. 5(1), pp. 4-18.
20. Wragg, E. C. (1999) An Introduction to Classroom Observation, 2nd edition. London: Routledge.
The Institute for Education is a Further and Higher Education Institution with Licence number 2016-006
Popular Links
© 2023 Institute for Education | Accessibility Statement
Web Design and Development in Malta:
Web Design and Development in Malta:
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
