BACOT - Classroom Observation

BACOT (Berg Ashmann Classroom Observation Tool) is designed to create a running record of teacher and student behaviors during a lesson that can be significantly analyzed to assist the teacher in improving teaching practice. BACOT is an effective tool to be used in all phases of the observation of a lesson, including a pre-lesson conference between the teacher and the observer, the observation of the actual lesson, and a post-lesson conference that allows the teacher to reflect upon the lesson and the observer to make suggestions for improvements based on a rich and diverse set of valid and objective data. The amount of time spent on various behaviors and the number of occurrences of these behaviors during a lesson are gathered and can be extensively analyzed at the classroom level, or specific to individual student engagement and misbehaviors. BACOT is a tool that can be used with many recent initiatives within the field of education, including the edTPA, Danielson Framework, Next Generation Science Standards, discourse analysis, enhancing student engagement, dealing with student misbehaviors, and measuring wait-time.