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Using Classroom Videos to Enhance Teachers' Professional Learning

Kennedy K. H. CHAN, Monaliza M. CHIAN, Jeremy NG

 

Teacher quality is regarded as one of the most critical factors contributing to student learning (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Hattie, 2012). Accordingly, developing teacher quality is a high-leverage strategy for enhancing student educational achievement. Classroom videos are increasingly used to facilitate teacher professional learning. The use of video is grounded in contemporary approaches for augmenting teacher learning, which highlights the importance of situating teachers’ learning opportunities in their day-to-day classroom activities in addition to providing opportunities for teachers to work collaboratively to reflect on their teaching practices. Video is a rich medium that can capture the complexity, immediacy, and simultaneity of classroom interactions without losing authenticity (Sherin, 2004). Video not only allows teachers to freeze or slow down a particular classroom interaction for fine-grained analysis and reflection (Brophy, 2004) but also provides a springboard for teachers’ collective discussion and reflection (Borko et al., 2008).


While video-based teacher learning is promising, it also presents some challenges. Teachers can easily become distracted by irrelevant information during video viewing (Erickson, 2007). They also exhibit some tendency to use evaluative discourse rather than forming evidence-based interpretations when discussing videotaped teaching episodes (Nemirovsky et al., 2005; Sherin & van Es, 2009). Hence, video-embedded teacher professional learning activities need to be carefully designed. At a macro level, design decisions include: (1) identifying worthy teacher learning goals; (2) choosing an instructional approach; (3) designing video-embedded activities; (4) addressing the limitations of videos; (5) aligning assessments with instructional goals (Blomberg et al., 2013; Kang & van Es, 2019). At a more micro level, designers can consider various aspects of their video-embedded learning activities, as indicated in Table 1.


Table 1. Aspects to consider when designing video-embedded activities

Table 1. Aspects to consider when designing video-embedded activities
Table 1

Below are some relevant and timely school examples, internet resources, tools and scholarly contributions that raise issues, considerations and challenges for using videos to enhance teachers’ professional learning.


References












Lifelong Learning
 

Highly-Cited Academic Articles





 

Articles Published in/about the Region









 

Practitioners-centered Resources


Published Articles

Types of video material: selection and capturing of video footages

Linsenmeier, K., & Sherin, M. G. (2007). What?, Wow!, and Hmm…: Video clips that promote discussion of student math thinking. Journal of Mathematics Education Leadership, 10, 32-41.


Nature of the learning task: Individual video analysis/reflection

Knight, J. (2014). What you learn when you see yourself teach. Educational Leadership, 71(8), 18-23.


Knight, J., Bradley, B. A., Hock, M., Skrtic, T. M., Knight, D., Brasseur-Hock, I., ... & Hatton, C. (2012). Record, replay, reflect. The Learning Professional, 33(2), 18-23.



Nature of the learning task: collective video analysis, video coaching

Forsythe, M., & Johnson, H. (2017). What to see, what to say: Tips for participating in teacher video clubs. Tools for Learning Schools, 20(2), 1-7.


Knight, J., Elford, M., Hock, M., Dunekack, D., Bradley, B., Deshler, D. D., & Knight, D. (2015). 3 steps to great coaching. The Learning Professional, 36(1), 10.


Sherin, M. G., & Linsenmeier, K. A. (2011). Pause, rewind, reflect: Video clubs throw open the classroom doors. The Learning Professional, 32(5), 38-41.


Tools and scaffolds for analysis and/or discussion of video



Books

Baecher, L. (2019). Video in teacher learning: Through their own eyes. Corwin Press.


Knight, J. (2014). Focus on teaching: Using videos for high-impact instruction. Corwin Press.

 

HKU Hub



 

Internet Resources


Websites





Videos



 

Tools and Devices


Video capturing


Swivl


Wearable cameras




Cameras for shooting 360 panoramic videos





Video annotation and analysis






Classroom discourse analyser


(Contact Dr. Gaowei Chen, gwchen@hku.hk)


Extended Readings


Tools for capturing video footages





Types of video material: selection and capturing of video footages




Nature of the learning task: Individual video analysis/reflection



Nature of the learning task: Collective video analysis/discussion/reflection/video coaching





Tools and scaffolds for analysis and discussion of video



Involvement and role of facilitator



General references





Disclaimer:

References in this site to any specific resources and tools are for the information and convenience of the public only. They do not constitute ownership or endorsement by ALiTE of any opinions offered by any corporation, organisation, or individual.

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