IRIS Connect enables educational researchers to observe classrooms like never before. IRIS is different than traditional means of observing and recording of classrooms because it is less obtrusive, it eliminates the need to travel, and it provides a suite of customizable data collection tools.

Observation is obtrusive

Observation in a classroom is obtrusive, and it causes understandable problems; an observer changes many things about a classroom simply by their presence:

• Students behave differently when an observer is present. Depending on who the observer is, they may behave better or worse than they might have otherwise. Either way, the observer distracts some part of their attention from the teacher.
• Teachers teach differently in front of an observer. Their reactions to observation may be conscious or unconscious or both, but the net result is that their observed performance will differ from their ordinary performance. In the psychology literature, this phenomenon is referred to as the Hawthorne Effect.
• When observations must be scheduled, teachers often have to rearrange their schedules to fit the observer's. A given observer may want to watch the teacher presenting instruction on a specific topic or using a certain teaching approach. While rearranging the instructional schedule may not have negative impacts on students' learning, it is certainly an imposition on teachers.

But do observers who watch a classroom through a camera lens see the same things as in-person observers? In their Technical Report #1: Evaluating State Educational Technology Program (2005), the Iowa Department of Education found 86% inter-rater reliability between on-site classroom observations and remote camera classroom observations. Observers in another study described the experience of web-based observation positively (Dyke, Harding, & Lajeunesse, 2000):

"The main advantage of the remote observation method mentioned by the observers was that travel time and the cost of traveling would be reduced. In addition, one could increase the number of observations per day using the remote method. This would result in opportunities for more teachers to be observed… The use of online observation can provid a less obtrusive mechanism for the observation of teaching. It can help provide for observation of teaching practice without the need for a number of observers being physically present in the classroom… Potentially it has significant implications as an efficient and effective tool to support the improvement of teaching and conduct of practitioner research."

Distance is an obstacle that affects the validity of observation data

The problem of distance is really one of time and money. Because of the practicalities of physically traveling to a school to make an observation, each observation must be scheduled well in advance. As a consequence, researchers often see teachers teach exceptional lessons they have carefully prepared knowing they will be observed. Researchers thus do not get a true sense of teachers' day-to-day teaching practices. Instead, they see each teacher's "best shot."

Teachers participating in a research study are usually scattered across geographic areas, meaning that observing each teacher can involve significant travel time between schools (and related travel expenses). Again, this means that observations must be few in number and carefully scheduled.

IRIS Connect is currently being used by educational researchers across the country to solve these problems. Contact thereNow today for a demonstration.

Let our professional grant writing staff help you incorporate IRIS Connect into your research grant proposal

thereNow has a close partnership with the Grant Lab at Spectrum Consulting. The Grant Lab. Spectrum Grant Lab (SGL) partners with clients to design, prepare, and submit applications for Federal, state, and private grant funding. SGL offers the following services:

• Designing and conducting needs assessments
• Facilitating project design / planning activities
• Facilitating development of key partnerships between clients and community, state, and national organizations
• Writing grant proposals (in part or in full; more or less independently or in partnership with clients' in-house grant-writing staff)
• Submitting grant proposals
• Managing post-submission communication with funding agency staff

SGL writers hold degrees in technical writing, journalism, communication, and instructional technology. Over the past ten years, SGL writers have developed proposals that have secured over $150 million in Federal funding.

Contact thereNow to find out how the Grant Lab can help you to incorporate IRIS Connect technology into your next grant application.