Education Week - September 30, 2015 - S14

EDUCATION WEEK SEPTEMBER 30, 2015
Professional Development > www.edweek.org/go/pd-report
n

S14

Video Gaining as Key Tool
In Teacher-Learning Plans

As platforms
evolve, more
districts are using
video to boost
collaboration and
refine classroom
practice

ideo is increasingly seen as a powerful tool for teachers
to improve instructional methods, to allow a peek into
the classrooms of others, and to learn new techniques
at an individual pace, but many experts now believe
that pairing video with additional supports is the best
way to boost teachers' skills.
Companies and schools are tagging and categorizing
professional-development video libraries for easy searching; embedding assessments, questions, and opportunities for feedback into clips; and using technology to support small professional learning communities for coaching and mentoring
opportunities with video.
Technology is taking "video from a passive experience to an active one,"
said Candice Meyers, a consultant and a co-founder of Teaching Channel, a San Francisco-based nonprofit specializing in instructional videos.
And the number of organizations working to make video more useful
to teachers and PD coordinators is growing. Teaching Channel, BetterLesson, and the Center for the Collaborative Classroom are all collecting
thousands of teacher videos that show everything from best practices
and lessons gone wrong to how-to clips on shifting to the Common Core
State Standards.
Companies like Edthena and EdConnective provide opportunities for
online observation and coaching through video, while eduCanon, Zaption,
and HapYak offer tools to make professional-development videos more
interactive. (Edthena, eduCanon, and EdConnective have written opinion
blogs for Education Week.)
"Our videos make the teachers stop and answer questions," said media
and educational technology specialist Misty Mitchell, as she took a break
from her first in-service training day at Texas' Hudson Middle School in
August. She used self-created videos made with eduCanon, an educational video platform, to train 73 middle school teachers to employ a variety of digital tools and techniques, including the Hudson district's parentnotification app and how to enter lesson plans into Google Calendar.
Each video contained assessments, provided opportunities for teacher
feedback, and let Mitchell look at data on the back end to make sure
teachers understood the material as they watched. The videos were
then incorporated into an online library, so teachers could review them
throughout the year.
Before she began using video, Mitchell said, professional development
"was way harder with a lot more confusion."

A MATTER OF TRUST

By Michelle R. Davis

Teachers are becoming more comfortable using video in a variety of
ways, particularly when it comes to recording their own practice and
casting an objective eye over their performance.
Using video to record examples of teaching is not new. The National
Board for Professional Teaching Standards' certification program has
long included a requirement that teachers videotape their practice and
analyze it. But younger teachers seem to have fewer fears of being on
camera. A recent study by Insight Education Group on video profes-

sional development found that 80 percent of teachers surveyed said
they'd be willing to be videotaped in class and use that video for formal
observation.
But in practice, that ease only comes with a high level of trust, and
many teachers are still reluctant to be recorded, said Jim Knight, the
author of Focus on Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction.
One of the biggest hurdles is that people often don't like how they look
on camera, he said. Another is that teachers worry about how the video
will be used. The details of who owns the video, who will view it, and
whether it will be used for formal evaluations is critical to make clear
ahead of time, Knight said. "If they have the opportunity to use video in
a way that is psychologically safe, they'll use it because it's helpful and
it doesn't waste time," he said.
To foster that openness, some programs, like the Academy for
Urban School Leadership, have chosen to embed video into their
professional-development culture. The academy manages 32 Chicago public schools and trains new teachers in 16 of them. As
part of the program at these "training academies," new teachers are videoed at least once a week, and their mentors use the
10- to 15-minute clips to provide feedback on various strategies,
said Chris Bruggeman, the academy's technology coordinator.
"The expectation from the start of the program is that they're going to
use video," he said.

FOSTERING COLLABORATION
Once such videos are viewed by teachers, they can be transformative,
said Michelle Harris, an assistant principal at Five Oaks Middle School,
in Beaverton, Ore., who participated in a three-year study, with Knight,
of effective teacher-coaching techniques through the University of Kansas. Practice videos allowed teachers to see that they were talking too
much or asking yes or no questions instead of open-ended ones, and to
observe that some students were not engaged. "The video is that third
eye that is completely unconditional," Harris said. "You cannot argue
with what you see there."
Pairing those videos with feedback from a coach or mentor can enhance the impact. The objective nature of video can change the teachermentor dynamic, said Adam Geller, a former teacher and the co-founder
of Edthena, an online platform that allows teachers to upload videos of
themselves teaching and have a coach or colleague provide feedback.
"With video, the evidence shifts those coaching conversations from, 'My
coach doesn't like me or my coach is picking on me,' ... to, 'Let's look
at the evidence together,' " Geller said. "That's a powerful way to shift
thinking about teacher practice."
Traditionally, teaching has been an isolating experience: The teacher
shuts his or her door to do the job. But video has helped to change
that, allowing teachers to see what others are doing in their classrooms-what lessons they're using, how they make transitions, what
techniques work and don't work. And with online access, anyone can
participate-not just teachers whose districts have stellar PD programs or can afford to send them to conferences, Meyers said. "It's

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Education Week - September 30, 2015

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