A checklist development for meaningful learning in classroom observation

Classroom observation is generally regarded as an important tool for improving the professional development of teachers. It needs a good checklist for teachers and observers to communicate those performed and missed points to improve teaching practice. However, most of the publicly used checklists tend to lack meaningful learning from classroom observation. To overcome this shortcoming, this study incorporated fundamental professional development pedagogies (e.g., pedagogical knowledge (PK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK)) to form the checklist, and subjected it to a reliability test (Cronbach's α from .861~.869) and expert validity test to explore its applicability. Moreover, analyzing classroom observation in teaching practices, the results of this study indicated that PCK for lesson planning, PK for teaching method and strategies including cognitive strategies and affective strategies (i.e., in lecturing, in discussion, and in project working) were more applicable to be observed. However, such TPCK, in this study, was discovered that most of the participating teachers had doubts about the applicability of the dimension in the current class observation activities.