Before Observation
Observations will be effective when you plan well. Together, the observer and the one being observed can make a list of what is to be observed. This will ensure that the observation is specific and focused.
Here are few tools that you can use to plan your observations:
1. Rubrics
Rubrics are scoring/evaluating tools which will tell you how a person has performed with respect to particular aspects of teaching. There are many rubrics publicly available that cater to teacher development. These rubrics focus on the core competencies that a teacher should have. During observations, rubrics can be used to understand where your peer is with respect to a particular competency that they want to focus on. 
Example: CENTA Standards is an example of a rubric for teacher professional development. If a teacher wants to focus on their classroom management skills, you can use the following part of the rubric to evaluate where the teacher is at.
2. Guiding questions
Guiding questions are a list of questions that you will answer during the observation, which are related to teacher practice in the classroom. You can come up with these questions along with your peer depending on what they want to focus on in the observation. We discussed some examples of questions that you can be prepared with. Here are a few more:
3. Reflection Sheets
A reflection sheet is a tool that can be filled in by the person being observed (before the observation). It will contain details about the lesson objectives, what they are focusing on in the lesson, practices that they are working on etc. The responses from this sheet will let the observer know what they need to look out for in the lesson. You can create your own Pre-Observation Reflection sheet or use ones that are already available. Here is an example of a pre-observation reflection sheet that you can use.
You can use either one or a combination of these tools to prepare for your observations. Once you are prepared, you can use these during the observation to guide the process.
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