Could this new observation method boost behavioral and academic outcomes?

CAT Tracks Editor's Note:

To answer the question:

"Could this new observation method boost behavioral and academic outcomes?"

In a word:

NO!

You want me to elaborate?

Okay:

HELL NO!!!

It's just another tool to measure what teachers have known forever...

...that students who "show out" or "act up" (in the vernacular, are a daily pain in the a**), are "crying out for attention."

Well, whatever. What's a teacher to do, just ignore them and hope they get the message some day to behave themselves, do their work, and then all will live happily ever after.

Speaking of tools...

...if your administrator is one, well, s/he now has something to support his/her assertion that you are a bad teacher for trying to maintain order in your classroom so that those who do want to learn can.

At CHS back in the day, we had an administrator who kept a chart on the wall, where he would tally how many students a teacher sent to the office...

...to interrupt his day, to make him do his job, to earn his higher-than-any-teacher's pay.

When the teachers found out, because he had berated a teacher for sending a student to the office that day, pointing to the chart as proof of incompetence, well the reaction was predictable. Many insecure (especially non-tenured) teachers did not send students to the office anymore, instead, put up with even more sh*t from the misbehaving, "attention-seeking" students.

Did the learning atmosphere in that room, in the entire school, get better as a result?

Bears repeating:

NO!

You want me to elaborate?

Okay:

NO EFFING WAY!!!

So, in conclusion...

The Brief Student-Teacher Classroom Interaction Observation (ST-CIO) model is misnamed.

It should be:

The B*ll Sh*t Teacher Classroom Interaction Observation (BS-TCIO).

POSTSCRIPT:

Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don't...

Let's say the principal comes in to evaluate you.

You decide to go with the research and dazzle the principal with your commitment to avoiding "negative (encouraging-bad-behavior) attention" when a student uses the school-provided iPad to play video games. So, instead of telling the student to get back on task, you praise the student for personal appearance (no, not in a catty way, since the student had been absent for the past two days, but for grooming and attire.)

If you were expecting praise from the administrator in your post-evaluation conference for how you handled the student's aberrant behavior, well, silly you.

Very predictably, the administrator will indicate in your evaluation that you "need improvement" on classroom management, that you did not keep your students on task.