Using Videos for Teacher Evaluations and Reflection
COVID-19 has certainly taken its toll on education. Schools this year quickly transitioned their entire curriculum, instruction, and support systems to online learning, and they did so in literally a few days. It’s been amazing to witness the innovation, dedication, and resilience of educators across the world as evidenced by our Performing Under Pressure blog series! Simply put, this rapid transition to online learning has shown the love our teachers have for our students.
As we think ahead to next school year, there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty with regard to where ‘school’ will take place. Will students be able to go back to their school building? Or will the school year start with eLearning again? Will schools adopt some sort of a hybrid model? For now, we simply don’t know.
Two things that research have proven time and time again are that traditional teacher evaluation don’t work, and tens of thousands of teachers leave their job each year because of a lack of meaningful development experiences.
What does this have to do with eLearning? A lot actually. Knowing that teachers were already leaving the classroom at an alarming rate, oftentimes because of reasons that are under our control such as providing meaningful opportunities to grow, we must be very intentional about supporting both the wellbeing and the growth of our teachers.
We’ve heard from educational leaders across the world who are seeking supports for eLearning. These leaders want to know which tools they can/should be using, what research shows as best practice, how to support their teachers’ development, and how they can provide the very best environment for student learning. There are a lot of resources available, but the difficulty is identifying which resources best apply to this unique situation.
One struggle in particular is how to provide teachers meaningful and relevant feedback to teachers about their instruction. Previously the logistics were easy - walk into a classroom, capture what was happening in the classroom, and provide feedback. That’s simply not possible right now.
Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research has researched the impact of using video technology on student learning. The guiding question of their Best Foot Forward Project was “Did video technology improve the classroom observation process?” There is fascinating information in this project, including the following quote from the First Year Implementation Report:
“In sum, giving teachers control of the video collection and submission process improved several dimensions of the classroom observation process. It boosted teachers’ perception of fairness, reduced teacher defensiveness during post-observation conferences, led to greater self criticism by teachers and allowed administrators to shift observation duties to quieter times of the day or week...”
Video observations might sound powerful in a traditional classroom environment, but what about during the current eLearning environment or a hybrid model like we might experience in the fall? How can we take the learnings from The Best Foot Forward Project and apply them to the current and possible future reality?
The Center for Education Policy at Harvard University identified 5 approaches to use videos for teacher reflection, collaboration, coaching, and evaluation, and each can be thought of in slightly new ways in today’s remote learning:
Video for Self-Reflection
Video for Peer Collaboration
Video for Virtual Coaching
Video for Evaluation
Build a Video Library
Using Video for Self-Reflection:
Teachers are currently spending a lot of time and energy creating instructional videos for students using tools like Screencastify and engaging their students in video meetings like Zoom or Google Meet. This is a profound shift from traditional delivery and collaboration methods, and there is a learning curve for most educators. It’s even more important for teachers to watch the recordings of themselves instructing or leading an online video conference with their students to identify areas in which they can improve.
The Flipped Learning Global Initiative has a free Rapid Transition to Online Learning 12-step emergency road map course you can take. In it are some great resources and strategies for effective eLearning and flipped instruction.
A few things to pay particular attention to when using instructional videos for reflection or evaluation are:
Perfection is NOT needed. Don’t waste valuable time re-re-recording waiting until you get it perfect.
Clear audio is very important. Be sure your students can clearly hear what you are saying.
Powerpoint-type presentations are okay, but writing on a board of some type is more engaging.
Show your personality. Don’t be afraid to be silly, be entertaining, and show your excitement.
Keep instructional videos short and succinct.
When thinking about times when students and teachers are video conferencing, reflect on the following:
Think through the best use of face-to-face time. Is it for teaching new concepts? Collaborating on a project? Supporting students’ social-emotional well being? Don’t meet for the sake of meeting; rather, meet for a specific purpose that will cause your students to want to attend!
How are you engaging students throughout the video conference? Strategies like turn and talk are nearly impossible in a video conference, so how will you give time for your students to process their thinking, ask questions, and generally interact with the concepts you are exploring as a class?
How are you building and maintaining relationships with your students? Words matter. Be careful about what you are saying, how you are saying it, and how you are supporting the well-being of all your students. How do you support the students who try to take over the video conference while also getting those reluctant to participate to engage?
What kind of thinking are you asking of your students? According to the Rapid Transition to Online Learning course, effective eLearning teaching experiences are mostly focused on Bloom’s Taxonomy levels of Analyzing and Applying - see below:
Supporting teacher self reflection is a critical component of supporting teacher growth. Even if your teacher evaluation system doesn’t have a defined self-reflection step or process, consider how you can informally help your teachers reflect on their own practice.
When teachers record themselves teaching and/or interacting with their students, these videos could have the ability to be used for teacher evaluation requirements for your organization. Simply have the teacher use his/her phone, tablet, or other recording device and share with his/her observer via a mode such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or other sharing service.