SATs, Lies And Videotape – Film Yourself In Class To Improve Your Teaching
Record your lessons and you’ll get a true reflection of where you can grow and excel, says John Tomsett…
- by John Tomsett
Instinctively, I will place my hands on my bum cheeks when I walk. That odd observation is the only thing I remember of when I first filmed myself teaching, some 12 years ago, on a clunky VHS video camera. Indeed, the first time you see and hear yourself teaching all you obsess about is what you look and sound like. The nuances of your questioning techniques are ignored, whilst you ponder why that shirt is still in your wardrobe…
Reciprocal vulnerability
The technology has since moved on. At Huntington School in York we use the online IRIS video system to help improve our teaching. As of September last year, all members of staff have had their own online areas to store videos of themselves teaching. Each teacher has sole access to his or her videos, and are able to share films of themselves teaching with colleagues or teaching coaches only when they are ready. You can only make the most of video in the classroom if it is understood from the school leadership that it is being used to help improve teaching – and the teacher has to own the process. At Huntington we have accepted that we all have a professional obligation to improve our teaching. As headteacher, I regularly record myself teaching and publicly critique my methods on my blog and try to set a tone of reciprocal vulnerability.
I would never ask anyone to do something I am not prepared to do. And I have really enjoyed, at this late stage of my career, working hard to improve my teaching.
No more lesson judgements
The thing is, teaching is a complex process – and coaching someone to improve her teaching is really very hard if you have no definitive record of the lesson. What an observer sees and what a teacher sees of what happens in a lesson can produce two very different accounts of the same hour.
It’s easier for a coach to ask good questions of the teacher about his or her decision making in a lesson if the pair of them are sitting down with a high quality digital video of a lesson with good audio. This allows both teacher and coach to discuss precisely what happens in the lesson. Key to our success with using video at Huntington has been our decision to stop making lesson judgements. As a result we are seeing teaching as it really happens, rather than one-off ‘show lessons’ that don’t reflect the reality of teaching 23 lessons a week. I ask each of the 30 teachers I directly line manage one simple question: how can I observe you teach in a way that will best help you improve your teaching? It changes the whole dynamic of the observation process and allows me to get thoroughly involved in co-planning, observing and coaching to help improve the quality of teaching. It’s joyous work.
A vital tool
One of my most illuminating moments using video was with a young drama teacher. She was coaching me. We were watching a student dry up in front of me as I asked him a question. The drama teacher asked me a set of questions that illuminated for me the marginally aggressive body language and tone of voice I was using, which led to the students’ reticence to reply to my interrogation. I was able, after the coaching session, to change the way I stood and to my modify my voice. The classroom climate improved and the level of discussion rose significantly. Using video in a school to support teachers to improve their teaching is something which cannot be forced or rushed. It takes time and care to create a trustful climate which encourages teachers to video themselves in order to improve. For me, there are three things that need to happen before video can be introduced:
Trending
• You have to convince your colleagues of the simple truth that everyone can always improve as a teacher, and how we all have a professional obligation to get better • You have to make the lesson observation process developmental, not judgemental • You have to lead the move towards using video to help improve teaching yourself as a headteacher
We are utterly convinced of the benefits of using video technology to improve teaching. It is a vital tool in our school, where we all feel we can improve.
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John Tomsett is headteacher at Huntington School in York and co-founder of The Headteachers’ Roundtable; he blogs at johntomsett.com and tweets as @johntomsett
John’s book, This Much I Know About Love Over Fear, is published by Crown House Publishing
