The year 2020 was a year full of challenges to everybody around the world, as Covid-19 pandemic brought the world almost to a standstill for a considerable period of time. The field of teacher education, especially pre-service teacher education, was not spared here and educators with educational institutes started going completely virtual.

Our setting

The pre-service teacher education in Sri Lanka is mainly handled by the National Colleges of Education, where students who get through the A/Ls with a good Z-score are taken in and given a two-year fully residential institutional training, which is fully funded by the government. A/Ls is the Advanced Level exam we have at the end of our General Education, which is also the entrance exam for University. Since Sri Lanka runs a national curriculum, the A/L exam is taken by all the students who are studying in the senior secondary classes (Grade 13). Unfortunately, only 6% who sit for the exam gain entrance to the University. Education is provided free of charge from the kindergarten to the university level in Sri Lanka, and this means a large number of students sit for this exam. We have only 15 state universities, which are not able to take in all the students who get qualified. To select the students who have scored highest marks in different subject streams, we have the Z-score. It’s a calculation based on how many students sit for a particular subject and how many get through. It is a kind of a score that calculates the difficulty level of the subject. This score is compared against the score that each student has received, and the average is calculated. Each student chooses three main subjects, so the Z-score is calculated out of 3. This score is released by the national exam department, and this decides who is entitled to secure a place at university. Depending on the slots available at each university, the universities then release their cut-off marks. After this institutional training, students are sent to schools on internship for a period of one year. Here, about 10−15 teacher trainees get allocated to a supervisor and these teacher trainees in small groups of 3−4 are stationed in a single school for the duration. The supervisor has about 3−4 schools, and they visit one school each week.

Before the pandemic started, the teacher trainees had completed 4 spells of 10-day block teachings where they gained practice teaching in different schools. In March 2020 with the first outbreak of the pandemic, the student teachers were sent home and a semester work was carried out online. They came back in July 2020 and were sent for their one-year internship in mid-August.

I as the supervising lecturer got 3 schools with 11 interns, and these schools were situated far apart. (The interns got schools closer to their homes, but I have to cross my district to reach them). Having to observe at least 7 lessons of each intern and travelling amidst a pandemic became a daunting task. If I visited a school, I had to observe at least 6−7 lessons, which is not very practical as trainees’ periods clashed with one another’s. On top of everything, travelling beyond one’s district was not encouraged by the government. Still, I had to complete my observations and help my interns to grow with their practice but things became pretty complicated.

Suddenly an idea struck me; I can get my interns to video record their lessons! I discussed it with them and asked whether it is possible for them to get their lessons recorded. They agreed. First I thought it would be possible for me to get these videos through WhatsApp, as we already have a WhatsApp group, but the trainees informed me it was too difficult as the video files are too big (30−40 minutes). Then one of my interns came up with a bright idea! She said it’s possible to upload them to Google drive. Everybody agreed. I created a file in my Google drive, added their email addresses, gave them viewing rights and sent the link to them via email. My interns uploaded their classroom teaching videos through the link to my drive. Before they did their lessons, they emailed me their lesson plans. I went through them and if there were any issues, I discussed it with them, and they addressed it before the lesson.

I asked them to observe their peers’ lessons and to be ready with their comments. (They had to inform me first of the peer they were pairing with, and that way every trainee had a partner to give peer comments). To give their peer comments, they were given peer observation criteria. By the end of each week, the whole group met virtually and shared their comments. Then I gave my feedback to each of them. In giving my feedback, the peer comments also came in handy. Sometimes, I may have not have noticed certain things, but from the peer comment, it could come into focus. So in a way, these feedback sessions helped me to develop the feedback I gave them. With the feedback, I gave them the action points they needed to take up in planning their next week’s lessons. I told them to change their peer observation partners regularly, so that they got to observe different teachers. The teacher also got comments from a different peer that way, so both parties benefitted.

When the pandemic eased a bit in 2021 January, February and March, I started visiting the schools again, supervising my interns onsite. But I noticed, the online observation had more benefits than the onsite lesson observation, for the following reasons:

• The trainee who was conducting the lesson was more relaxed as the supervisor was not physically present.
• Only one or maximum two peers could observe the teacher in the classroom as more people could distract the students and it was against Covid restrictions.
• The other teachers did not get a chance to observe the lessons or to learn from them and giving feedback.
• The supervisor could watch the videos several times and could use the playback option to confirm the peer comments. This developed the quality of the feedback given.
• The supervisor, the trainee who did the lesson, and peer observers could watch the video together and forward their comments.
• The videos can be re-used with new teacher trainees as critique lessons, before they go for practicums. The videos will give them lot of input as they get to view real classrooms and teachers in action.

In 2021 April, the third wave of the pandemic hit the island very hard, collapsing the whole system of internship. Schools were completely closed down; everybody got stuck in their homes. It became totally impossible to have any physical teaching. The schools started going completely virtual once again, and interns were asked to conduct classes online.

I still had lot of observations to carry out and my interns had completed about 4 months from their one-year internship. Suddenly it dawned on me that I could join their online classes and conduct my observations but of course the criteria I used to evaluate them needed to be adapted. Trainees could also record their online classes and several peer observers could join the lesson to carry out peer observations. I informed my student teachers of this new kind of lesson observation and they were more than happy to try it. So I first created a checklist for my students to be able to be involved in peer observation of lessons conducted online. This checklist could be used as marking criteria also if needed.

Next, I created an online supervision criteria to observe online lessons. I posted both these sets of criteria to trainees’ WhatsApp group and asked them to make themselves familiar with them.

When trainees do online lessons, they share their link with me and the whole group, so I along with others join the lesson online. Before the lesson, the teacher posts the lesson plan to the group, I go through it and have a discussion with the teacher if any changes are required. The others too can forward their ideas on the lesson plan so there are a lot of opportunities for the trainee teacher to get the lesson well planned before delivery.

When the lesson is going on, I use the chat box to communicate with the teacher. The peer observers too can use this facility, to chat with me and the teacher if they want. We use the private chat box, so the students neither see nor get disturbed by our communication.

When students complete their round of online teaching for the week, we meet online and have our feedback sessions. First, I invite the teacher who conducted the lesson to express his/her ideas about the lesson; then the peer observers get their chance to give their comments. Finally, I give the feedback and draw the teacher’s attention to the action points to take into account when planning the next lesson. Conducting lessons online has lots of plus points:

• Teacher trainees are in their comfort zones and so feel relaxed doing their lessons.
• Any number of student teachers can join the sessions to do peer observation without disturbing the students of the class.
• Student teachers get an opportunity to observe live lessons done by their peers.
• Student teachers get an opportunity to chat with the trainee teacher giving the lesson and even the supervisor, using the chat box at the time of the lesson.
• Everybody, including the supervisor, has enough time to go through the recordings if needed, to replay them to have better idea of the lesson.

The pandemic has succeeded in turning the world topsy-turvy but I feel it had also given us its share of positive things; till now we have not paid much attention to teaching online let alone online classroom observation. But out of necessity we tried out many things and it has given us very positive outcomes.

In Sri Lanka, in the rural parts of the country, teachers undergo lot of hardships with their classroom teaching and aspects of pedagogy and finding somebody to assist them had been quite impossible. But this online observation experience has given me lot of hope and after my trainees leave the college and take appointments in places all over the island, they still can get my support. I can observe their lessons from time to time and assist them in developing themselves. It comes as a very exciting revelation for me and my students. I am sure that my experience will give lot of ideas and hope to others to try out different things. We must always try to think out of the box when we are faced with challenges. The checklists we use are provided. I am sure they can be adapted for other contexts. Creativity and innovation is, after all, the key to success!

Online lesson observation – Supervisor’s observation check list

Online Peer Observation – Observer check list