SPOT Overview & Development

The Student Participation Observation Tool (SPOT) is an objective, research-based application that provides quantitative, illustrative data about how instructors spend class time, including student and teacher activity frequency, duration and diversity information, and patterns of student participation.

• SPOT allows an observer using a laptop or tablet to capture and categorize classroom actions in real time (during an observation), resulting in detailed time-stamped information about the progression of the class, available in user-friendly visualizations immediately following the observation.
• SPOT was designed primarily as a tool for motivating reflection on teaching (as part of peer observation, in a learning community, or with a teaching consultant) but can also be used for research and evaluation.
• Data from a learning community using SPOT suggests that faculty found SPOT data more helpful for teaching reflection and improvement than traditional observation approaches. One participant stated, “I gained data regarding the amount of time spent in different activities…. This allows me to really assess how I would ideally like my class time to be spent and set goals on reaching that ideal class time distribution."