Things for Future Reference

• Great tips:

• Surviving the Dissertation: Tips from Someone Who Mostly Has

• 20 Best Sites for Helpful Dissertation Tips

• Book for Qualitative Research:   The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (2nd ed.) by Johnny Saldana

• Articles posted on Teachscape's website:  Teacher Effectiveness Research

• Video:  Using Video To Improve Practice

• Graduate Handbook

An Obvious Flaw...

I convinced a teacher friend of mine to set up the Teachscape camera in her classroom and record one of her class sessions. After recording, she came back to me and acknowledged that the system was very easy to use and that she wanted to use it more often. However, she also pointed out something that seems rather odd.

The new Teachscape Reflect system utilizes iPads to record and upload lessons. But, because playback and editing occurs via the web, the iPad cannot display the video as it is Flash-based. It seems rather silly to me that playback and editing cannot occur on the same device on which it was recorded. So, teachers would not be able to record a session and then see it immediately. Rather, since it takes about 15 minutes to upload about 50 minutes of video, teachers would have to wait to begin their self-reflection. Further, they would have to go and find another piece of equipment on which to watch it.

I told the teacher to make sure that this is one of the things that she mentions on the feedback form at the end of the year. I know I will be.

Gaps and Questions

The more I read for the Lit Review, the more I find that I’m reading the same thing: video recording in the classroom has been studied to death…for new teachers. I have yet to find any literature that sought to implement video self-reflection in classrooms with experienced educators. While this is a gap that I wish to fill with my own research, I wonder why no one else has followed up on this rather obvious and easy question.

Another void in the research literature that seems rather apparent is why such technology has to be “pushed” onto some educators. Even though I have over fourteen years teaching experience, I know that I still have a lot to learn about myself and my own practice in front of a classroom. And while I don’t know of any teachers who would argue against that point for themselves, I know of some who would balk at recording themselves in front of students. What I don’t know is why.

Lastly, in all of the articles I have read, the successes reported seem to revolve only around teacher opinion of how they have improved their practice. There does not seem to be any evidence of how video self-reflection has a direct tie to student achievement. Of course, if teachers are improving their practice, one would think that there is an obvious correlate in student success. Perhaps. But without a direct, one-to-one connection, we are relying merely on teacher opinion on which to measure the usefulness of the equipment.

Finally got my hands on a Reflect Camera!

Last Monday, I was tasked with teaching my teachers an in-service lesson during faculty meeting. The principal had asked me to share a PowerPoint he had received on classroom management. Because the slideshow contained the same boilerplate material that I knew my teachers would already have known, I decided to kill two birds with one stone: I would teach the lesson as he wanted, but I would also take the opportunity to record it with the Teachscape Reflect iPad system. This would also afford me the opportunity to discuss the system with my teachers (aka, my future test subjects!).

The initial setup was a breeze; however, I am certainly glad that I got the system out and tested it well before faculty meeting. This is because I found out that the account that the district had initially set up for us was changed. While it was not big deal to create a new one, it was better to do it while I had time on my hands rather than in a rush. Once I was in, I noticed that Teachscape had really simplified the setup for the iPad. There is a large, red record button. Press it once to record and press it again to stop. This could not have been made any easier for technophobic teachers. After recording, one other obvious button was marked upload. And that’s it.

The lesson went well and many of the teachers seemed somewhat interested in using the camera. Unfortunately, no one rushed up to me to borrow it for the next day. One of the challenges of technologies such as this is that teachers sometimes nod in agreement that it’s a good idea, but their action stops with the nod—they never see its benefit for their own practice.

Uh oh…something else to worry about

So I’m reading A one-eyed look at classroom life: Using new technologies to enrich classroom-based research by Johnson, Sullivan and Williams when one of their research questions hit me like a ton of bricks. In short, they question whether or not what is being recorded via video in a classroom setting has any value because it is not genuine. Because students change from their normal behavior as a reaction to the presence of the camera, how can a teacher accurately gauge how well their instruction was during that session? Although the authors merely suggested the question, I take it a step further. I can imagine little Johnny, normally a demon, putting on his halo because the camera could serve as evidence of his daily behavior. Then there’s little Suzy who usually seeks positive attention but who, today, is waving her hands wildly to answer every question so that she can prove how much of a teacher’s pet she really is. And we can’t forget little Sara who is just starting to break out of her shell and participate in class. Would the camera make her slink back into the shadows and hide?

Thank goodness, then, for The Handbook of Classroom Management. In it, there is a section written by Hickey and Schaffer that suggests that teachers need not worry so much about how student’s react when being filmed—at least after the third or fourth time.  According to these authors, students acclimate quickly to being filmed; thus, while a teacher may not trust the results recorded the first few times, he/she would soon find the children acting true to form.

Phew—dissertation saved.

Possible Framework

If video self-reflection ever becomes mandatory, I believe I have found the way in which it will be implemented. In my current study, teachers have access to Teachscape’s Reflect camera system composed of iPads that are mobile and that have to be set up and taken down. In Kong, Shroff, and Hung’s (2009) scenario, a dual camera system is embedded into the classroom ceiling. One camera will be mounted at the front of the classroom to capture students while another will be mounted at the rear of the classroom to record teacher practice. Sound would be recorded by both a wearable wireless mic as well as a wall-mounted microphone.

Beyond the implications for districts to “peek” into classrooms with such a system, this setup would be just as useful for teachers to self-reflect upon their practice as with the single-camera scheme that Teachscape currently employs. Further, the authors provide three criteria that any such system would need to be useful to teachers:

• The system should be easily accessible and easy to use without help from others.
• The system should have a guiding framework to help teachers while they are browsing the video.
• The system should provide a method through which teachers can build a video library of recorded sessions and teaching experiences to build their knowledge.

Comparing the authors’ ideas with that of the Reflect setup, I am glad to see that these three criteria are built into the system that I will use with teachers. The iPad camera can be set up and ready to record in less than five minutes. The playback and browse functions are easily manipulated. Teachers can quickly and easily create clips and share them publicly or with single users—not to mention there is unlimited capacity for creating and storing video.

One thing lacking, however, is the framework teachers can use to judge their own teaching. Fortunately the authors provide a workable framework that I may consider using to allow teachers to evaluate their teaching quickly via a web-based rubric.
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Reference

Kong, S. C., Shroff, R. H., & Hung, H. K. (2009). A web enabled video system for self reflection      by student teachers using a guiding framework.  Australasian Journal of Educational
    Technology, 25(4). pp. 554-558.

Case Study: Qualitative Research

As defined by Lunenberg and Irby (2008), qualitative research "emphasizes understanding by closely examining people's words, actions, and records, as opposed to a quantitative research approach that investigates such words, actions, and records at a mathematically significant level" (p. 89).

As I read these chapters on the banks of a lake in Pocahontas, Arkansas, I was reminded again of my distaste for qualitative research.  Over the past few weeks, I have hyped myself up, telling myself that doing a "few" case studies wouldn't be so bad.  And then...BAM...page 151! Leedy reminds me that qualitative data collection "takes a great deal of time."  So I got a little nervous just thinking about the interviews, transcriptions, field notes, and then the analysis of all that data.  The information presented in the chapter served as a great refresher and good reality check.

The case study information from Table 6.1 (Leedy, 2013):

Case Study:

• Purpose:
• To understand one person or situation (or perhaps a very small number) in great depth
• Focus:
• One case or a few cases within its/their natural setting
• Methods of Data Collection:
• Observations
• Interviews
• Appropriate written documents and/or audiovisual material
• Methods of Data Analyses:
• Categorization and interpretation of data in terms of common themes
• Synthesis into an overall portrait of the cases(s)

A link to more in-depth information about case studies:  http://www.edu.plymouth.ac.uk/resined/Case_study/casest.htm