Video: A Tool For Growth & Development

Jennifer and James are co-leaders of the DIY Coaching program in Boston, an organization which creates a working community of teachers who are committed to improving their own practice through video and reflection. DIY Coaching empowers teachers by providing the resources, technology, and knowledge needed to deepen an awareness around high quality instruction.

How can educators use video to improve instruction?

Jennifer: I think when we think about video, it certainly can be used as an evaluation tool. But in our perspective, it's more seen as a teacher growth and development tool. And because it is, it does have that distinction as being something where teachers are identifying their own strengths their own areas of improvement. There's this incredibly high level of buy-in where teachers feel committed and compelled to participate in it.

James: When you have that happening, people are going to do better in an evaluative sense, but really we're using video as a tool, and the teachers are using video as a tool, to move their instruction forward so that they can make a greater impact on students.

I think the beauty of video captures reality. So as you're trying to move your practice, reality is changing because your actual practice is changing. So it's a tool that no matter what point you're at in your professional development, there's always an area of growth to come up. But it's actually positioning it in a way as a tool, providing you the opportunity to actually see that.

Teachers in classrooms are making literally hundreds and thousands of decisions every single class period. So when you're sitting there thinking about "how do I move my instruction forward," A) Nobody remembers things exactly as they happen, B) You're really not going to remember everything that happened if you were making a thousand decisions in 60 minutes. So it's providing you that opportunity to actually step back, not have to worry about decisions, not have to worry about classroom management, not have to worry about the question you're going to ask a student, and just really dig into what your practice is.