I recently posted a quick picture of something that I use all of the time for classroom observations that has been gaining me a lot of popularity with classroom teachers…and we all know we, school psychologists, don’t need any more attention than we already have…

So simple, yet, so effective. There, in colorful, easy to read data, an exact narrative of a student’s on and off-task behavior. I include these on my psychoeducational reports when we are looking at attention as an area of concern, and I do these on the regular for intervention students when a teacher has questions about the impact of attention.

Both times I have mentioned these reports, other people have reminded me that there are now fast and efficient apps that put this information in for you. I used one for a year, and still went back to the pen and paper version. My reasons were 2-fold:

• Lost time: When I use a pen and paper BOSS copy, I quickly glance at the timer every 15 seconds and draw a tally. In the apps that I’ve used, it just takes up too much time for me to tally and write down notes ( I write down lots of antecdotal notes during my observations), that it just added to my time.
• Lost observation: When I use the apps (and maybe it’s just me!) I feel like I spend too much time looking down at the apps, and miss those quick behaviors that happen within observations.

So, I’m sticking with my pen and paper, and then this data sheet that I can quickly enter in my percentages and come out with lovely pie charts (I’d recommend downloading it to Excel vs. Google). Then, I plug in charts and a few notes on a friendly teacher form, and done! I can get an observation and notes done in 30-40 minutes now.

What is your observation style?