Overview

An observation is the record of one classroom visit: who observed whom, when, in which school and class, and what the observer saw. Observers fill in a form set your district chose, from a quick walkthrough to a formal evaluation visit, and the teacher reads the result once it is submitted.

This article explains how observations work. The rest of this section covers each task:

• Conducting Your First Observation: start, fill in, save, and submit an observation.
• Managing Observations: the My Observations, Conducted Observations, and All Observations lists.
• Scores and Reopening: read the points on an observation, and reopen one that needs changes.
• Comments and Attachments: question feedback, file attachments, and the Discussion thread.
• The Observation Page: every part of the observation page, its status messages, and its buttons.
• Your Observations as a Teacher: what teachers see and do.

What an observation records

• Details: the observer, the teacher being observed, the date and time, the school (organization), the class period, the grade level, and the content area. Class period, grade level, and content area are required on every observation.
• Formal or not: on accounts with performance reviews, an observer marks an observation as Formal or not. Formal observations can be attached to a teacher’s performance review.
• Answers: the observer’s selections on each question in the form set. Questions with point values add up to the scores shown on the observation.
• Feedback: written feedback on individual questions, where the form allows it, and Overall Feedback for the whole visit.
• Attachments: files attached to questions that allow them.

The steps an observation moves through

Every observation shows one of these statuses in the lists and on its page:

Status	What it means	Who acts next
Open	A draft the observer is still working on. The teacher cannot see it yet.	Observer
Awaiting Reflection	Submitted, and the form set asks the teacher to reflect.	Teacher
Awaiting Acknowledgment	Submitted, and the form set asks the teacher to acknowledge it.	Teacher
Awaiting Closure	The teacher has responded.	Observer or administrator closes it
Closed	Finished. It can no longer be edited unless someone reopens it.	Nobody

If the form set asks for neither reflection nor acknowledgment, submitting closes the observation at once. The form set’s settings decide which steps apply; see Reflection & Acknowledgment.

Who takes part

Person	Role	What they do
Coach, assistant principal, principal	Observer	Start observations of teachers in their schools, fill them in, submit, and close them
Teacher	Observable	Read submitted observations of themselves, reflect, acknowledge, and comment
Principal, district administrator	Organization Administrator	See every observation in their schools on All Observations, close and reopen them

An observer can observe only teachers who belong to the observer’s schools and have the Observable role. To start an observation, a person needs the Observer role, so a principal who visits classrooms needs both Observer and Organization Administrator.

Where to find observations

The OBSERVE heading in the menu opens an Observations page with a card for each list you can see (My Observations, My Conducted Observations, All Observations) and New and Print Blank buttons. The same lists are in the menu below the heading. See Managing Observations.

Print Blank downloads an empty copy of a form set as a PDF, for a visit where you would rather take notes on paper and enter them later.