The Value of Reflection for Experienced Teachers

As a professional teacher, Cinnamon has independently used video to critically reflect on her own instruction and improve the quality of feedback she is able apply to her classroom practice. Cinnamon has identified video coaching a way of collaborating across classrooms and gather feedback from colleagues who are able to provide valuable content-specific feedback.

Did you see a difference in your instruction after reviewing the classroom video?

Cinnamon: It's really hard as a classroom teacher to make all those decisions that you're making in the moment and still attend to everything that's going on in your room. And so there are things even as an experienced teacher that you miss. So it was nice to have the videotape to kind of see those moments. It's also nice to be able to say, “Oh hey I'm really interested, I just learned X at a PD or something I'm really interested in looking at that.” Then you can go back and watch your video and say, “Huh, am I doing that? To what level am I doing that?”, and kind of evaluate your own work which I think is more valuable than getting external feedback when the teacher is really able to reflect on their own work and say this is where I'm at and this is where I'd like to be and then I think that's even more valuable than the external evaluation piece.