"Effective teachers are 'kid watchers,' a term Yetta Goodman coined to describe the 'direct and informal observation of students," (Tompkins, 81).
In all honesty, this is one of the things I am most worried about with teaching: I feel like there will be so much going on with trying to keep control of all the students while trying to keep them engaged in learning specific content, that I will not be on top of things enough to remember to always be observing the students' performance. It is so important though, because as you make the ongoing observations, you will have a better feel for how to adjust your teaching for next time, but more importantly for the next few minutes. You will be much more effective if you are teaching and can pick up on the instructions you need to try to re-word or elaborate on further while you are still on the topic of instruction, rather than having to go back and re-teach it later.
How important is it to make "anecdotal notes" during formative assessment, and are they supposed to be made while walking around the room as the students are working (it seems tricky to do while instructing)?
Honestly, this is a question I myself have had. I can definitely see the value in having notes on individual students or situations to refer to when you are teaching that lesson plan again, but I do feel it would be extremely difficult to take time while you are teaching do to it. I know you'd want to record what happened as soon as possible, so maybe these type of notes could be recorded during recess or a silent work period. I'd be interested to learn more about how to manage this as well, however.
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