Let’s Go To The Videotape
December 9, 2010 by Tom Whitby @tomwhitby
I recently read how Bill Gates is pushing for video-taping teachers as part of an assessment process during the observation of lessons. His goal is to include videotaping of all teachers in the process of their evaluations. On the surface this sounds workable and even helpful; after all it does work for athletes. For many years now, coaches and recruiters alike all said, ”Let’s go to the Video Tape” it will show us the way. Of course the media has changed and gone digital, so actual video tape is being replaced by other technologies, nevertheless we call it videotaping.
I have had myself videotaped at times during my career to objectively view what I looked like, and how I delivered a specific lesson to my students. It was my choice of class, my choice of lesson, and my choice to view and use. I knew what I was looking for in my lesson. I did find it to be helpful, but it was my choice to use it as a tool, and I chose how to do it. I have used videotaping with students doing oral presentations. It enabled them to see what the audience saw as the presentation unfolded. I think under the right conditions videotaping can be a useful tool to improve presentation skills.
I have also seen videotaping used to record the lessons of perspective teachers as they applied for positions. The video tape was then played back before the hiring committee. This was far better than the alternative of having the entire hiring committee sitting in the back of the class during the lesson. All in all I am not averse to using videotaping as a tool for assessment.
One problem with videotaping all teachers for assessment is that all lessons do not lend themselves to the videotaping process. Direct instruction or a lecture may be the best forms of lessons to be videotaped. We all love TED Talks. However, there are other types of lessons that may be considered “controlled chaos” that would not play well on the big screen, but they do promote learning. The teacher is not always the focal point of the lesson. Talking is not necessarily teaching. Some lessons like simulations, group work, or projects extend several days before yielding results. A single period videotape would not capture the results of the efforts of the teacher.
Another consideration is the introduction of the camera to the class. Once the discovery of the camera runs through the classroom, some students may exhibit different behavior. It also must be said, that not all teachers will be themselves when the camera starts rolling for the big production. With a room of thirty individuals in a classroom the introduction of a video camera must have an impact on behavior and performance of some. It has the potential of changing the dynamic of a class.
The idea to use this method for assessing all teachers may be well-intentioned, but that intention only works if it is to benefit the teacher. It is a great tool under the right conditions for specific lessons to assist the teacher in honing communication skills. However, here is the rub: some may see this video-taped observation not as an assessment tool to help the teacher, but a tool to remove the teacher from the class. Even if that is not the case, it will be the view of many teachers. With that view, teachers will begin to give to the camera what the camera views best. Lessons will be tailored for the camera, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”. Administrators will fill their video libraries with direct instruction lessons.
Teachers are not athletes who can adjust their physical skills to enhance performance. This is not to say that some things may not be improved by a videotaped intervention, as long as the teacher is open to it and the conditions are right. Their relationship with their classes is difficult to capture on a 40 minute video. How does the camera capture learning as it happens? It will certainly not be viewed on the face of the teacher. The focus of the camera might be more telling, if it was trained on the faces of the students. Video-taping as a tool for improvement with everyone’s cooperation and willingness to use it for that goal can work. Using it as a tool to bludgeon a teacher in a year-end review should not be the intent.
My real problem in this is that it would seem that education is being guided by the vision of the likes of Bill Gates. His view of education is to have all teachers lecturing like TED-Talk lecturers in five years. I do not agree with his vision, but what do I know? I am but a lowly educator.
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Posted in Administrator, Assessment, Education, Leadership, Mentoring, Observation, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Student teaching, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Teched, Technology, Tenure, Thought Provoking, Video taping | 20 Comments
My Island View 
I think what you are doing is a step we all should take. We need to speak up for our selves. I am getting really offended by all of these “outside” people telling educators how,what when and why to teach. Perhaps we should start video taping Mr. Gates. Of course, if I could pay for a personal consultant that would make me look good, I would not mind that camera on me.
Thanks for making me think about this issue.
“Let’s go to the videotape” sure brought back memories for me. (Warner Wolf) In 1976 I had to teach a lesson at a TV studio. Got a wonderful letter from a former student who saw me.
I totally agree with how you feel about videotaping. It is a good tool to use for teachers to iron out their delivery and techniques but as you so eloquently wrote “not as a tool to bludgeon a teacher in a year-end review.”
“Good night, and good luck.” (Edward R. Murrow)
I agree, this is a poor use of video taping. It seems that the outcome of making this a mandatory part of evaluations will be to communicate to teachers that they must hone their “sage on a stage” skills. I thought most educators agreed that this is an ineffective model? Will this really improve instruction, let alone evaluations?
I use TED talks of examples of good lectures for the classes I teach for teachers who are working on their administrative certification. If teachers are going to talk, they should see TED talks as a goal. That includes the 18 minute limit. After that they should be facilitating student work be it as individuals or in groups. If you video a teacher, you can video the short talking parts and the longer parts where they facilitate learning. This will put the camera on students where you can see if they are interested and engaged.
I actually aim for less than 18 minutes (although I frequently fail) when I have to lecture. TED talks are amazing, and I’m generally engaged the entire time I watch them, but then sometimes I’m not completely engaged and I watch them in pieces.
10 minutes is my goal. That gives me 70 other minutes in a typical period for student practice, inquiry, and questions.
Often I don’t speak at the front at all, at least not more than a “okay you know what we are working on already.”
That being said, we agree. Keep it short, no one can focus for a long time.
I will allow myself to be videotaped if I get my own trailer, hair stylist, catered lunch and red carpet premiere.
I agree!
I also feel that most principal observations of teachers are about the questions and the responses of students. Placing to much emphasis on the sage on stage instead of the students response is likely to produce smart looking teachers, but not so smart students.
My goal is for my students to exceed me.
Pat Parris
Thanks for bringing up points I would not have thought of! I had to be videotaped for my national board certification and I often videotape myself and my students. I also enjoyed lesson study so much that my school’s math/science PLC uses videotaping when we look at our student work. So I probably would’ve supported a move toward videotaping teachers without asking the questions you’ve brought up here! I remember the teachers that I was working on my national boards with wishing they could be videotaped especially one who struggled with the writing. He hoped they could just watch him teach and see what his students were doing.
You know, just like lesson study when we videotape our work the camera really should be on the students. We improve our lessons by watching how the students are working and what they are learning.
[…] Let’s go to the Videotape […]
We have webcams in the ceilings of a number of classrooms in our new build. The aim is for the tutor to capture excerpts of the lesson as well as a short synopsis podcast for the VLE.
Tutors have full autonomy with the use of the webcam which is attached to an excellent media system which tags all the clips and encodes ready for the VLE.
One of the great functions of thevsystem, is the ability to tag the last 5/10 or 20 minutes, enabling tutors to tag once they’ve delivered their learning, hopefully taking away the pressure of preparing for a take. Equally it enables learners to request a section of the session which highlights to the tutor that the learner may not have understood that particular topic.
Tutor themselves have offered to provide Grade 1 sessions, with the retrospective ability to ‘film’ making them more relaxed with the process. Other tutors have also discussed sharing within their department particularly with new & agency staff in relation to how tutors integrate the use of technology in sessions.
In summary the fact tutors have a choice whether to and how to use the webcams their adoption has been very favourable.
Paul
I say videotape away. I have nothing to hide, and I feel that I should be able to be called on the carpet about anything that happens in my classroom. If I can’t justify it, I shouldn’t be doing it. I think the biggest reason we are left out of the education debate is because we seem to think that we are the only profession who is not accountable to our employer. When I see articles like this and the comments that have followed, I realize that in a lot of ways, we are what our critics say we are.
At my school, some of my fellow teachers were upset (and got the policy changed) when the administrators started logging classroom activities (lecture, project, groupwork, etc.) during their walkthroughs of the building. Please, someone tell me of another profession where you are allowed to tell the boss he can’t check up on what you are doing.
In the end, as long as we fight and whine about any attempt to make sure we are doing our job, everyone is going to assume that we aren’t by default.
Teaching for the camera is a different beast. We’re pretty conditioned when it comes to what we expect from video performances so things like video and audio quality, pacing, editing, eye movement, voice projection, body language, nuances in speech, photogenic-ness and appearance are a bigger factor on video. Having said that, I believe video is incredibly valuable, it just a tricky one.
If someone felt the need to video tape my teaching I say do what you feel you need to do. However, you better be a heck of a videographer because I am never standing in the same place for long. In fact, you’re going to find me at a table working with four identified students or at the desk of another, or at a computer with another, or showing someone something on the smartboard, or working with a lit group…never standing in one place. My room is no longer teacher directed but is a place of discovery learning. If you’d like to come in and interview the students as to what they’ve chosen to work on, go ahead; that’s going to give you a much better picture as to what type of teacher I really am.
There are so many intangibles in good teaching. I speak from the perspective of a parent who would be hard pressed to define the attributes of the teachers who most inspired, challenged and deepened the minds of my children. Some had big personalities that would play well on a videotape, but just as many were more subtle, more one-on-one in their strengths. That je ne sais quoi. Our society has become so enamored with big personalities with “good stage presence,” a la TED, self-help gurus, YouTube sensations….Bill Gates is one of those personalities and he’s drawn to others like him. Nothing wrong with that. We’ve all learned things from some of them. And videotaping can be a valuable tool in teacher training and for improving communication skills. But to translate it into public policy for measuring performance is simplistic and risky. Frankly, that’s the last thing we need for our children to now say that “good stage presence” is necessary for good teaching. And how many good teachers would we lose (or not even attract to the profession) because their personality isn’t “big” enough?
Interesting post. I agree with you that taping can be helpful, and that it can help teachers refine their practice–hasn’t taping been an essential part of National Board Certification for years?
My concern with taping is that it cannot be a one-and-done event for it to be a viable PD experience. When I taught, I hated being observed–not because I felt like I was incompetent, but because the observer only saw that one lesson devoid of context. He/she had no real sense of what larger issues I was trying to uncover, which battles I was fighting, or even what strengths and weaknesses I brought to my teaching. For videotaping (or really any type of observation) to be helpful it needs to be continual, honest, and supportive…and the teacher needs to see it as a way to help him/her refine practice, as opposed to a tool used to catalog his/her flaws as a teacher.
And that’s where I get skeptical of Gates’ push for more taping. What’s the purpose of it? Is it to help teachers reflect on their practice, or to turn teachers into a bunch of TED speakers? I think it’s well-intentioned, but surely the dynamic, exciting, performance-oriented teachers will look better on video than their more-mild-mannered colleagues, no?
However, if videotaping is to happen, then here’s my idea: have an admin videotape a teacher leading a class. Then, the next day, the admin and teacher watch the video together, and the teacher narrates his/her train of thought through the entire lesson, talking content, classroom management, time management, etc etc etc. There is so much going on during a lesson that is invisible to the camera…but NOT invisible to the teacher, and certainly NOT invisible to the students. Then use both pieces, the video and the annotation, as part of ongoing PD.
Probably too much work to do all that on an ongoing basis though. Sigh.
Everyone outside of education seems to have “silo” solutions. Video taping teacher lessons has been around for a long time. The art of teaching is rich and complex. I agree, the focus should be on student engagement – Watch/observe students create, problem-solve, communicate and collaborate.
I wish business leaders would take the time to understand systems that make a difference because they impact school culture and meaningful student learning. Professional Learming Communities are powerful when understood and embedded into the classrooms, schools and district.
[…] when I meet educators so passionate about their vision they don’t see the obstacles involved.Let’s Go To The Videotape–I recently read how Bill Gates is pushing for video-taping teachers as part of an assessment […]
I was an portfolio scorer in CT’s BEST program for many years. Most of those years the teachers had to include a video showing an introduction, student investigation, final products, and discussion (tried to summarize). I believe the videos were vital to the process. They simply did not lie. While they did not erase all the teacher wrote, they did verify what was hidden in the writing. If a teacher wrote about an incredible student lead discussion and as an assessor all I had were those words, I would have to assume they were the truth. Too often the video showed a teacher centered Q and A session.
I think it’s important to remember that lecture is just one weapon in a teacher’s instructional arsenal. To imply that if we all are good lecturers we will be good teachers is false. Look at the relationship of Bloom’s taxonomy to lecture. It is very difficult to get students to apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate with a sit and get lesson. Gates needs to stay out of the realm of learning psychology and seek to do something that might help teachers like ending poverty.
I truly have no problem with them tossing a camera in my room to evaluate my lessons. I have nothing to hide and I would be skeptical of anyone who rejected being taped. If you have nothing to hide you should have no problem with being taped.
With that being said, I can not believe that video taping a teacher’s class can come even close to capturing the essence of what makes a good teacher. Can a video tape capture all the small conversations we have within a single class period? Can it pick up on the nonverbal cues that we use and pick up to direct our lessons? Can a tape capture the small group conversations that happen all over my room?
Again, go ahead and put a camera in my room, but don’t depend on it to define how good/bad/ugly a teacher is. Ok, it might be able to show “ugly”… 🙂