Advanced Edition Comments Bug 11/10/08

A bug in the Advanced Edition comments was reported by a user last night. I want to alert you and offer a work-around.

The bug:   if you type extensive comments into any one comments window, either the individual comments or the general 'Add Comments' windows, only the first page of the comments will appear in the reports.

The workaround: open additional comments windows using the 'Add Comments' button, bottom of the screen when in an observation. Title them Comments 1, Comments 2, etc. Limit the amount you type into any single window, and all the text will appear in the report. 

Our solution: we're wrapping up an update, due out by the first of the year (2009), and we'll include the fix in it. We'll notify everyone on how to update. This is a free update for Advanced Edition license holders.

NOTE: if you are experiencing any other issues, this is the time to let me know. The new edition will add Palm and PocketPC to the Advanced Edition, plus fixing as many of the nagging issues as we, and all you observers, can find. Email me at   john@ecove.net

The New Teacher Travel Tool

In the Basic Edition there is a 'Teacher Travel' tool that can be used to track where a teacher (or a student) moves in the room, and can also be used to track discussions - what part of the room is participating in the discussion.

That tool is not in the default set of tools, and that was a mistake. We'll be adding some form of tracking movement, and here are three ideas. I'm VERY interested to see if you think these will work.

The LOCATION TIMER Tool. 

This tool is similar in function to the Basic Edition tool. It tracks 9 areas of the class (front left to rear right) and an 'Other Location'. Click the button that matches the desired location. This is the tool to primarily track movement or area of focus.

The LOCATION COUNTER Tool.

This tool is used to track incidents in room locations, e.g. call outs, hand raised, misbehavior, questions, etc -- just about any individual behavior. Just click to record the location of the behavior. The 'Other location' button is for locations not in the set of nine, e.g. teacher's desk, out of room, etc. Describe the location in a general comments window.

The LOCATION-GROUP TIMER Tool.

This tool is similar to the Location Timer except that it has five groups identified to enable the observer to gather data by group rather than physical location. The default tool has 5 groups, but on the laptop there can be up to 9 groups (plus the 'Other location' button.

PLEASE leave a comment. Will these tools work for collecting location data? Should there be a Location-Group Counter tool? Other ideas for location data?

You can create these tools in the Advanced Edition/Preferences/Manage Toolsets/New Tool area. Be sure you choose the Timer or Counter Template as needed.

Response to Misbehavior Tool

Ever wonder how consistent you are in responding to student mis-behaviors? 

Here's another of the new tools in the eCOVE Software Advanced Edition that will help answer that question. The Response to Misbehavior tool will track the teacher's response to misbehavior incidents. Some discussion about what constitutes 'misbehavior' is worthwhile so there is common understanding. For example, there is a difference between a student forgetting a rule and flaunting a rule, and you can collect one or both - just make a note in a comments area for later reference.

Teachers ignore misbehavior incidents much more than they realize, and also attend to certain individuals' or groups' misbehavior different than others, again often without being aware of it. I'm not talking about keeping on top of the kid with the regular outbursts, but about two kids who misbehave at the same rate, but one gets corrected more often than the other.

The "Call On Student" button tracks how often the teacher handles a misbehavior with a content related response - "OK, Billy, what's the answer to problem three?" There's no judgment or recommendation about this practice - just want to let people know what they are doing so they can test the effectiveness of it.

The "Physical Correction" can range from holding a student's hand briefly to stop him/her from tapping on the desk to a total physical restraint with an out-of-control student. It's a good idea to identify the details in a comments window.

[a blog note: if you'd like to be informed of new postings, please sign up. You need to sign up for both blogs separately.  Here's the link to the Data-Based Observation Model blog ]

Observing the Classroom: Improved Class Learning Time Tool

The Advanced Edition is in full swing and is being very well received. There is an simple way to gather data and a more focused way, and both are easy. The increased power in creating reports brings new insights to the classroom.

Among the new tools is an update of what I think is the most powerful tool in the set of 40 - Class Learning Time. This is a tool that generates what I call 'keystone data'; if you can improve the amount of class learning time, you will increase student learning (and the scores, too).

The Class Learning Time tool in the Basic Edition has two buttons - Learning Time and Non-Learning Time. In the Advanced Edition it now has three buttons - Learning Time, Non-Learning External, Non-Learning Internal.

Non-Learning External  is clicked when the interruption to the learning comes from outside the classroom - PA announcements, someone at the door collecting a student, etc. It's anything that draws the attention of the class that is beyond the control of the teacher. The data here will indicate a school problem, not a teacher problem; it's likely to be fairly consistent across classes.

Non-Learning Internal is clicked when the interruption is within the class - a class management issue that stops the learning or a transition that doesn't include learning/reviewing, etc. There will always be some non-learning time within a lesson; it's useful to know how much. Remember, the tools are floating now so you can run more than one at once.

Go to the website, eCOVE Software, to download the trial version.

Advanced Edition Home screen

Exciting times as the Advanced Edition moves through the beta testing process.

This is the home screen. Although this is a much more powerful program, we've tried to keep the navigation simple.

The Observation Room is where you set up your classroom, import and arrange students. You'll proceed from there to do an observation.

Create Report is where you pick from the 5 types of reports (which now include bar graphs of the data).

Observation Review is where you can look interactively at previous observations, viewing the data with different configurations of students and tools.

More later -- back to testing.

Beta testing of the eCOVE Advanced Edition

This is really an exciting day for us. After almost 4 years of working on the eCOVE Classroom Observation Software: Advanced Edition, the laptop version is now in public beta. I'm working on simple 'How-To' instructions and will be sending the package to those who have volunteered to be beta testers next week. The PDA beta will be coming when we finish with the laptop.

The Laptop version is finished as of February, 2008; the PDA version is still being in the works. If you'd like to help with the beta testing, please email me at   John@eCOVE.net.

The Advanced Edition, Laptop version is, well, advanced. It has a seating chart, importing of class lists of students, importing of student attributes and values, multiple tools operating at once, ability to create tools and toolsets, five different types of reports, and more. You can even change the color of the tool buttons, delete a single observation, and do an interactive review of any observation without printing. The Administrator version will come with 40 tools. There will be Special Education and Second Language Instruction versions, and I'm working on a Classroom Teacher version, each with their own specific set of tools.

Student Question Type Tool

This tool tracks the type of questions asked by the students. The six buttons are Procedure, Clarification, Content-Low, Content-High, Management, Unrelated.

If questions are all about procedure or clarification of instructions, the student's mental engagement with the content is probably low, or the instructions by the teacher unclear. Likewise, low level questions related to the content ("Is this the right answer?" "When was the automobile invented?") indicate a matching level of engagement. 

Best, of course, are higher order questions by students related to the content, such as "How does Roosevelt's involvement with Europe compare with Clinton's?" or "How is the US human rights policies better than those of China?". 

Upper level questions (Bloom's) or divergent, opened ended questions by students indicate a richer mental engagement by the students. Management ("Why can't we line up at the door before the bell rings?") and questions unrelated to the class ("Mrs. Jones, do you have a pet?") also reveal the focus of the student's interests and mental engagement.

You'll find this tool in the current Basic Edition of eCOVE under the Generic Counter. Look for the 'label list' and pull down to choose Student Question Type. This will insert the button labels in the fields and you can immediately gather data.

In the Advanced Edition of eCOVE, this tool is one of the included 40 tools.