Video recordings are a powerful tool for teachers to enhance their teaching skills, reflect on their practice, and receive feedback from peers or mentors. In this article, you will learn how to use video recordings effectively for your professional development, and what benefits and challenges you may encounter along the way.
Before you start recording your lessons, you need to have a clear idea of why you are doing it and what you want to achieve. Depending on your purpose, you may focus on different aspects of your teaching, such as your content delivery, your classroom management, your student engagement, or your assessment strategies. You may also have different goals, such as improving a specific skill, preparing for an observation, or sharing your best practices with others.
?? Depending on the type of class and the day, I differentiate the delivery of the video. With a backlog of at least 100 videos I've made varying in quality. ?? If the video is particularly good and is a video I've personally made, we might watch it straight from start to end with chances to ask questions as it's playing. If the video is too succinct, I may stop it at points and adlib to add detail. ?? ?? Similarly, if the video is too detailed, I may mute the video and play it at double speed, so it acts a bit like a PowerPoint. We stop at certain points to encourage further discussion or note-taking. I will use a wireless keyboard to stop and start, and also fast forward (5 seconds at a time) if I need to skip irrelevant bits. ??
Your purpose in doing a video may be as simple as "Why would I teach with a lecture what I can show as a video?" If you include text in your video or have closed captioning, you make your subject matter more inclusive. If you make your video in a way that has interaction with a live audience, you may reach more people. For instance, if you record a Zoom or Teams lesson, the students can ask and answer questions. You can edit the raw footage later. Sometimes all that's needed is to show someone enthusiastically and genuinely loving the subject matter and showing respect and care for his audience. This is difficult to address without video. How do you write with a smile and a laugh?
Once you have your purpose in mind, you need to plan how to record your lesson in a way that captures the relevant information and minimizes the disruption to your teaching and learning environment. You may need to consider some practical issues, such as the equipment, the location, the angle, the sound, the duration, and the consent of the students and parents. You may also need to prepare some prompts or questions to guide your self-reflection or feedback process.
During covid, being a science educator, I learnt shooting and video editing. ?? While editing the videos, I had to focus on inclusiveness in terms of providing subtitles for non-native English speaker students. ?? So planning is essential.
The most important step in using video recordings is to review them critically and constructively. You may want to watch your recording more than once, from different perspectives, and with different focuses. You may want to use a rubric, a checklist, or a protocol to help you analyze your strengths and areas for improvement. You may also want to take notes, highlight key moments, or annotate your recording with comments or questions.
While our own mistakes might not be realized easily, checklist may help a lot. Peer feedback before uploading to students can help a lot. They may be colleagues or may be your mentor. Getting a varied opinion on the video might help making the future videos which are more engaging for students.
Another way to benefit from video recordings is to seek feedback from others who can offer you valuable insights and suggestions. You may want to share your recording with a colleague, a mentor, a coach, or a professional learning community. You may want to ask for specific feedback on certain aspects of your teaching, or invite them to ask you questions that prompt your reflection. You may also want to compare your recording with other teachers' recordings and learn from their examples.
Believe it or not, you can get great feedback in a Toastmasters meeting. They will take a look at your body language, your vocal variety, your facial expressions, your use of space, and your visual presentations, and give you suggestions for improvement. They will also listen to your word choice, your organizational elements, your emotional output, and the reaction you get from your audience.
The final step in using video recordings is to apply what you have learned from your review and feedback to your future teaching. You may want to set some SMART goals, design some action plans, or try some new strategies based on your findings. You may also want to monitor your progress, record your lessons again, and evaluate your changes. You may also want to celebrate your achievements, share your learning, and inspire others.
??In my experience, adding relevant music and examples that cater to the audience is way more impactful as compared to simply showing raw videos. For an instance, in one my classes, I used the music from a very relevant and famous series of India. Students remained hooked as they felt the examples are real life examples, and not some boring theory.
Using video recordings can also pose some challenges that you need to overcome. You may feel nervous, self-conscious, or uncomfortable watching yourself on video. You may also face some technical difficulties, ethical issues, or time constraints. To overcome these challenges, you need to adopt a growth mindset, embrace your mistakes, and focus on your learning. You also need to seek support, follow guidelines, and manage your time effectively.
Firstly, adding subtitles to foster inclusiveness in a diverse classroom is a must. Secondly, No one likes their own voice unless they are singers. Hence, I suggest to get used to and also use sound tuner to smoothen it a bit. Lastly, if lighting in the video isn't great, it needs to be fixed.
I like the addition of the subtitles Parth! Excellent idea. Singers hate how they sound on recordings. It's because the resonance within your head affects the sound you hear, but may not be audible to those in the audience. They will not hear the undertones of your voice and it will sound high and strained. Get a voice coach to help you deal with that. Sound tuners do not fix the basic problem, they just mask it.
The question infers a need to improve. I think the better question is - how can video be used for impact? or to engage with students? From that lens I can share that I have used video to: - Start a class off and introduce myself - Introduced new concepts in an overview format - Provide clarity on a topic that may seem muddy - Give feedback on an assignment. I was not on video, the assignment was and then I walked through it for the student. WAY WAY FASTER than typing it all up. Furthermore think of the following: What's important to your students? Is the subject matter complex? Are the students global? Will their internet bandwidth permit long videos or downloads of high quality videos? Did you consider closed captioning and transcripts?