We identified videos of practice as being suitable for our school because of the need
to accelerate the improvement and development of teachers. We were looking for tools that
weren’t human resource-intensive, and video was a really good way for us to achieve that
once teachers had an understanding of what it was that they were building their capacity
towards. We first sat down as a leadership team and looked at how other schools had used videos.
Most of it was used around self-reflection. There are challenges in implementing videos
of practice. Any change has challenges to it. Teachers are resistant and reluctant to
take on new approaches, and so we had to do this gently. We had to make sure that we selected
carefully the people that were initially approached to come on board with video in their practice.
We went to, obviously, the more confident ones, and worked with them and asked them
permission for “Can we now share this work that we’ve done using video with other members
of staff?” And once we started to go down that line and teachers could see that this
was a non-threatening, quite ‘non-invasive’ approach that was beneficial both to them
and to their peers, they jumped on board. After six, eight, 10 months of videoing themselves
and us using those videos at staff meetings or inductions processes, people started to
see that it became a really valuable tool within their classroom, to a point where 90%
of our staff were happy to use the video and self-reflect on them. Staff members will sit
down with an administrator and we discuss their goals—what they want to achieve.
And once we’ve decided together what we want to achieve, we’ll then go in, we’ll video
their lesson, we’ll provide some feedback. They’ll do a self-reflection on their video,
and then we’ll come together and talk about how their lesson went and where they can improve.
From those meetings, we’ll decide “what would you like to work on next” or “what
could you do to make your lessons better”. And then, once we’ve decided on our following
goal or action, then we’ll go in and we’ll use the video, or we’ll do the observations
again. And it’s a cyclical process. We’ll meet with them every few weeks depending on
their expertise in teaching and also how new they are in the school. Today we are learning
to write a sentence that has a when, a who, and a what. When you're at the front of the
classroom, you tend to miss a lot of things and you don't realise specific patterns or
strategies that we use. So, being able to go back and watch myself, I can see I’m
asking a certain amount of students a lot more than others, or I can see that I don't
use the classroom space well. You just tend to pick up on a lot more things than you would
do if you were just at the front of the classroom and not going back and watching yourselves
and getting feedback from other staff members too. The protocol for viewing a recorded lesson
is I will go sit and watch it independently and perform my own feedback from the observations
that I see. And then I make a time with my assistant principal, and she’s also obviously
watched the lesson and she has her own notes and observations. She then asks me how I felt
about the lesson, what went well, what I think I could’ve done better on, and what my next
focus may be, and then she will chime in whether she agreed or maybe she thought different.
And then we discuss about, again, what I did well and what I could possibly work on for
next time. So how do you feel about the lesson that you did today after watching your video?
Well, after watching the video last week and having our conversation, I was more conscious
that I needed to make sure that I was addressing those learning intentions, and why it was
important. So, throughout my lesson, especially in that first section, I was really making
sure that I was getting that message through to the students. And I think I did that well
this particular time. When we get together after the videos of practice and we sit down
with our teachers to look at what they found in their video, it's important to give them
some ownership. So we often ask them, “So, how did you feel that lesson went today?”
You get all the positives from them out of it, but they're very critical about their
abilities as well. So you can see here, Kelly, we talked about before, how it's fantastic
supporting those children who need it the most, but when we go here … so this is the
14-minute mark. But then even when we go a bit further into the lesson, you find that
you're actually still sitting with that small group. So if you can find a way to move around
the class more … so you find yourself you're gravitating back to that group. And that’s
great, because they need as much support as possible. But if you can find a way to get
around to the rest of the students here, so as they're finishing, their hands will go
up on their hand, and give them some feedback and monitoring of how they're going, I think
that will help you to understand who’s got the knowledge, who hasn't got the knowledge,
and whether you need to stop or reteach. Video practices have helped me as a teacher for
two main reasons. One reason is so you can see your strengths, which is important, to
be able to see, so you can continue to build on those strengths and continue to use them
in the classroom, but also so I can reflect upon my weaknesses in the classroom. Teachers
are wonderful at thinking back at what they did well in the lesson and how they can improve,
but when they actually see the lesson—and we always do it with a wide-angle lens so
they can see how the children react to what they're doing as well—they're able to pick
up things that they normally wouldn't have picked up in a self-reflection. The videos
of practice have helped us a school in a number of different ways. So yes, obviously in terms
of helping that teacher in that class improve his or her practice. But in a wider sense,
what it’s allowed us to do is diffuse practice across the school rapidly. So by taking videos
of teachers and observing good practice, we can then share those videos amongst other
teachers, so they get to see it without intruding in the classroom or without separation from
their own class.