Center for Instructional Support

"What to Look For" Observation Guides — Updated January 2019

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), in partnership with educators in the field, has developed a suite of straightforward observation guides to provide insight into what should be happening in particular content-area classrooms. Guides describe what observers should expect to see in a classroom at a particular grade level in a specific subject area. This includes the knowledge and skills students should be learning and using (as reflected in state learning standards) on the front page and examples of student and teacher behaviors aligned to the Standards of Effective Practice used in the state evaluation framework on the back page. The guides are particularly useful to observers who may not have the subject matter experience to know what to look for in classrooms outside of their personal background. The guides are resources to help educators efficiently identify what teachers and students should be experiencing in specific subjects and grade levels. Your feedback regarding these guides is welcomed and appreciated. Please send your comments to instructionalsupport@doe.mass.edu.

As part of the Massachusetts Educator Effectiveness Guidebook for Inclusive Practice, DESE has also developed two What to Look For Guidebook Tools; one for observation and one for observation feedback as supplements to identify, reinforce, and support observation of educator practice in inclusive classrooms.

Note: When printing the guides, please be sure that Fit to Page or Scale to Fit is selected from the print options.

	English Language Arts & Literacy	Mathematics	Science & Technology/Engineering
Kindergarten
Grade 1
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
Grade 5
Grade 6
Grade 7
Grade 8
High School	Grades 9–10 Grades 11–12	Algebra 1 Algebra 2 Geometry	Biology Chemistry Earth Science Physics Technology/Engineering