Enhance Peer Collaboration

Kathryn Procope has been a school administrator for 13 years. In 2016, she was named named a State Principal of the Year by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and is currently the Head of School at Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science.

How can school leaders use video to support teaching?

Kathryn: When I started as a school leader one of the things I found annoying and phony, for lack of a better description, was a teacher observation process. You meet with a teacher you do a pre-observation meeting. You go into the classroom the teacher puts on a show. You observe the show, you discuss the show, and then you evaluate the show. And I participated in it as a teacher. And then I participated in it as a principal and I realized how effective it was, and the fact that all I was doing was checking some boxes and making a teacher nervous. And at the end of the day it wasn't having a positive effect on the teacher or on on student achievement. I needed a different avenue.

The peer collaboration has been terrific because the tool that we're using allows the teachers to actually see their peers' videos as well. When my coaches and I look at videos and we see a particular teacher doing something that's really phenomenal. We're able to take that snippet and put it in a library and make it available to other teachers to see. So it has enriched our professional development because it's something that we don't have to like "OK everybody come sit in a room and look at" it was "at your leisure please take a look. Teacher X is doing some great Socratic seminars and has a great way to do a fishbowl. So you may want to look at at it." And teachers are really excited because they're able to see that and I don't have to take time out of the day to create a space for them to do peer observations they can do it right there

Effective instruction is important to children's learning and achievement. We seem to forget what the educators need. We create professional development that we think is necessary or that the latest buzz on the street we create professional development around that and not really looking at what do we need to do to help this teacher grow. Which is the same question we say when we look at a student who's struggling: "What do I need to do to help the student grow?" We need to take the same mindset that we have for our children's achievement and use that for teachers. And think about teacher achievement. And so teacher achievement as they're getting better at their instructional practice So, because when we think about what teachers need, what they need to be really great at what they do, what they need to be able to help students be their best selves. That's what professional development has to be and that's how important it is.