Observed Lessons and Co-Teaching

by Georges Regner

In music schools in Switzerland the subject of observing each others’ teaching and co-teaching (2 or more teachers cooperating with a student) is a current question. It is a recommended Standard of developing quality teaching in the Canton Solothurn.

Music teachers have great reservations about this form of developing quality. For many years, teachers were left alone in a very individualistic process ( lessons with a single student). Once in a while the member of a commission (not a singing professional), the head of the music school or a parent came for an occasional visit. In all three cases, the visit was considered to be supervisory or corrective – that is, a disturbance!

Colleagues were competitors in the fight for students and teaching capacity. They were not allowed to look into each others’ activities: criticism was a threat.

This situation needed to be defused and changed before we could begin introducing observed lessons and co-teaching. It was necessary to set up clear rules:

1. Promise of secrecy

All teachers present at a lesson, are bound to secrecy. Only those actually present are allowed to speak about what they have observed in a closed room. When they leave the room, they are bound to absolute secrecy. Should the head of the music school ask for a report, the following points will be mentioned:

- Date, time, place

- Those present

- Results – what each party learned, progress made by the student, or lack thereof

- Planned continuation

2. Learning instead of teaching

All those involved must bring the desire to learn, and not to teach their colleague something new. Curiosity and questions are a good means of achieving this goal.

3. Agreements on observation and participation in the lesson

The discussions following such a lesson can be endless if it is not clear, what the teacher would like to learn. Therefore the possibilities of intervening in the lesson are limited to that which serves his goal. He may ask that the discussion deal only with the question of the teacher-student relationship (did I meet the student’s need? Did I understand his body language, his spoken words correctly? Were my instructions in the right language for the age of the student? Etc.) or the methodology (was this the right was of solving the problem? Are there other ways ofdoing it?) or any other specific subject.

4. The pedagogical responsibility remains with the teacher with which the student is officially registered.

Only if this person clearly gives permission, is another teacher allowed to intervene in the lesson. Every form of trying to win a student must be impossible.

Olten, March 2007