Using Multiple Perspectives in Observations of Diverse Classrooms: The Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIPO)

Abstract

This paper introduces a research-based model of sheltered instruction that promotes teaching practices that make teachers more effective in promoting the learning of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students. The model is instantiated in an observation instrument, the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP). The SIOP may be used as part of a program for preservice and inservice professional development, as a lesson planner for sheltered content lessons, as a training resource for faculty, and as an observation and evaluation instrument for site-based administrators and researchers who evaluate teachers. This paper presents ways that the SIOP was used to observe and document teachers' implementation of the model in diverse classrooms. Sheltered instruction is an approach for teaching content to English language learners in strategic ways that makes the subject matter comprehensible while promoting students' English language development. The model presented here is intended to provide guidance on the best practices in sheltered instruction, grounded in two decades of classroom based research, the experiences of competent teachers, and findings from the professional literature. (Contains 19 references.) (KFT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.