New observation

The observation form is where everything starts: lesson details on the left, your notes on the right. Your notes are the main source for the report, so the more specific they are, the better the report.

Classroom Observation form — Details and evidence on the left, observation notes on the right.

Choose the observation type

Formal and Informal: Full classroom observations. They work the same way; the type is recorded with the observation and shown in lists and schedules.
Walkthrough: A quick classroom visit with a look-for checklist. It produces a much shorter report. See Walkthroughs.

Lesson details

Date and Teacher are required.
On a team, choose the teacher from the list. Their subject, class and grade are filled in automatically, and you can change them for this lesson. On a free trial, type the teacher’s name.
Co-teacher is for lessons taught by two teachers.
Period, Grade, Class and Subject are optional but make the report more specific.

Take notes

Choose how you want to write:

Live: Type a short note in the box above your notes and press Enter. ClariLens adds it to the end of your notes with the current time, like [10:12]. Ideal during the lesson.
Write / Paste: Hides the entry box and leaves just the notes area. Use it to write freely or to paste notes you took in another document.

In both modes, the notes area is fully editable: fix typos, add details after the lesson or paste in more text.

Notes that lead to good reports

Write what you see and hear. “Six of 24 students answered” gives the report more to work with than “low participation”.
Quote the teacher and students. Exact questions and answers are strong evidence, especially with the Direct quotes option.
Let Live mode add the times. Timestamps show pacing and can be cited in the report.
Cover the rubrics you’ll rate. A rubric with no evidence in your notes is marked N/E.

Add evidence

Evidence is anything outside your notes that should inform the report: a photo of the board, a lesson plan, student work or a recording. Choose + Add next to Evidence, then drag a file in or choose Select File.

Upload Document dialog — Upload a file as evidence.

Supported files: Images, PDF files, text files, Word documents and audio recordings.
Word documents: Converted to text when uploaded.
Audio: Transcribed to text. You can also have the transcript cleaned up, which pulls out the classroom moments that matter and drops the rest.

Large files and long recordings take longer to process.

Walkthroughs

Choose Walkthrough as the type for a short visit, or switch an existing observation to a walkthrough. A Checklist section appears under the details. Select the pencil to open the Walkthrough Checklist:

Tick the look-fors you saw, such as Lesson Plan, Learning Target, Success Criteria, Group Work and Reflection of Student Work.
Rate the Room Environment with one of the faces.

Walkthrough Checklist dialog — The walkthrough checklist.

A walkthrough produces a much shorter report than a full observation. On the walkthrough form, the button that opens the report page is called Walkthrough instead of Report.

Save your observation

Save: Saves the observation so you can come back to it.
Report: Saves the observation and opens the report page. See Generating reports.
Clear: Empties the form so you can start again.

Editing an observation later

You can change an observation at any time, even after its report was generated. The report doesn’t update by itself: if your changes matter, generate the report again.

On a team, only the person who created an observation can change it. Everyone else on the team can view it.