A Bank of Common Emails About Observations

To Tell the teachers who will be formally observed to select a date:

Good morning, Jared, Sarah, John, Mike, Kate, Will, and Jennie,

Now that we’re a couple weeks in, Jared and I are beginning to think about formal observations for the semester.

I have created a rough schedule for formal observations for this semester.  This is a preliminary schedule.  Please take a look at your calendar and select a day that you’d like to be observed in the month.  (You can change month, too, if you’d like.  I’ve made this schedule to make MY life easier.)  Please let me know the date and period you’d like to be observed.   I’ll then set up Outlook Invites for the pre- and post- observations.  Please let me know by Thursday, September 6.  (If we need to adjust the date later, that’s cool… I just want to get these on the calendar so that we have a default time and date.

September – Friebel, Scholz

October – Dunlavy, Palmquist, Saunders

January – Ejzak, Grigas

As always, let me know if you have any questions.  Have a great day!

David

 
 To tell teachers who will be INFORMALLY observed....

Happy Tuesday!

Now that we’re a couple weeks in, Jared and I are beginning to think about observations for the semester. I am writing because you are on my list for an informal observation, and I plan to begin them in the next couple weeks. As a reminder, informal observations are: (a) not announced; (b) at least 15 minutes in length.

Last year, Jared and I often spoke to teachers the morning before informal observations to ask whether the day would be a good time to stop by. With this said, Jared and I know some days don’t go as planned. If we come into class and it’s a bad time, just let us know and we’ll return another day. No worries.

As always, let either Jared or me know if you have any questions.

David

After hearing back from teachers about formal observation dates the email is scheduled on Outlook:

You should have received Outlook invites for the observation date that you selected, plus one for the pre- and post- meetings.  Let me know if you didn’t get those invites or if you’d like to adjust any of these dates.

Before you complete the Pre-Observation Form, you might want to check out the Helpful Hints document on the English Department Google Classroom page, which has lots of good tips and tricks.

If you need anything before our Pre-Observation, just let me know!

I look forward to seeing you in the classroom!

David

After a formal observation
Hi, _____

 

Thank you so much for having me in today.  It was such a pleasure to watch you work with our students.

Go ahead and fill out the post-observation reflection form, and feel free to use my raw notes attached.

I am looking forward to our upcoming discussion.

Best wishes,

After an informal observation

Thanks again for allowing me to drop in to observe your E3 class on Wednesday.  It was great to see you skillfully lead our students through the literature lesson.  I have submitted the TalentEd form.  I especially liked how you are using “domain specific vocabulary” in the opening write.  As you can see from my notes, you are doing a very wide variety of things very well.  My only suggestions are in the “Domain 3 overall suggestions” section.  I would be glad to chat about these suggestions (and review the “raw notes” from which I drew the evidence) if you’d like… there’s no requirement to do that.  I am always exciting to talk about curriculum and pedagogy!