By Mark
Like you probably have, I've read the books, sat through the professional development, and learned the theories. Each time I learn a little, but nothing like what I learn when I get to watch another teacher in action.
Whether it is through video or through actually getting to walk into a fellow teacher's room and just watch, those minutes invested to simply observe pay far greater dividends than the time or money I invest in reading about best practice or watching a fancy powerpoint click away.
OSPI and CSTP, through support from the Gates Foundation, and working on ways to use teacher video as a springboard for meaningful professional conversation in a variety of contexts. The tools being created are literally like being fly on the wall–or like looking through a two-way mirror–into the unmediated workings of a colleague's classroom, a real classroom with its real kids who sometimes aren't on task, sometimes say silly things, or sometimes take a brilliant question to an even more brilliant answer. Hopefully, these resources will be available later this year, but I've had the privilege to be part of designing and piloting some of the protocols that teachers can use to take advantage of the two-way mirror of peer observation.
The key is in that mirror metaphor–it's not just about looking in on someone else, it's about meaningfully reflecting on your own practice as well.
I'm excited to see this work develop. I've tested several videos with groups in my own district, and I've received positive feedback and watched as the gears turned in teachers' heads while their examination of their own practice was enriched by their examination of others'. This even helped us frame up our thinking as we ventured into peer observation "learning walks" into one anothers' classrooms.
While work continues with the more unmediated, raw look at real classrooms that the CSTP/OSPI project is developing, other sources of good teacher video have crossed my radar. Most useful have been Success at the Core's video archive of documentary-style shorts that include teacher commentary interspliced with video of their practice. There are also a few good videos of effective teaching on the Teaching Channel, where most videos are likewise mediated by teacher commentary.
While I like these–they are more thought provoking than most slick presenters or glossy paperbacks–the best moments are when I get to see my colleagues and others in those unedited, unmediated moments of real teaching. In my colleagues' classrooms I've had the chance to see kids break the rules and receive discipline. I've seen lessons implode and a teacher masterfully recover. I've seen the look on a teacher's face when they decide, mid-sentence to try it a different way, scrap the plans and walk out on a limb.
These are the moments where I am inspired, when I learn, and when I think about how I can improve as a teacher.
I totally agree. When I turn to a book to find solutions to problems I’m facing in the classroom, I’m always a little frustrated. Anyone who is in the research or ivory tower side of classroom instruction is really a little out of it. They have the benefit of seeing a number of classrooms, but it’s an even greater disadvantage to be describing best practice without having to plan, build relationships with kids, deal with management, or stay abreast of constantly changing district, state, and national standards and policies.
I learn so much more when I get to see another teacher teach. It’s so humbling. I get ideas from the room, the interactions, the pacing, the organizational structure and transitions. I take all that back to my room and life is easier.