Toward an Automatic Speech Classifier for the Teacher

Our system classifies audio from microphones worn by the teacher in order to determine (1) whether the teacher is addressing the whole class or talking to individuals or groups of students. In the latter case, it determines (2) whether the teacher is giving formative feedback, giving corrective feedback, chatting socially, or addressing administrative or workflow concerns. This paper reports the initial accuracy of this system against human coding of middle school math classroom behavior. We also compared audio collected through professional hardware versus more accessible alternatives.