Researching, Reading, and Ranting

Over the past week, I've been knee deep in article gathering--not reading discerningly, per se, but definitely collecting. I must say, I've been able to weed through several that came up through the library search engine and am filling up my dedicated Drop Box folder quite nicely. Now that it's brimming full--about 25 or so--it's time to start buckling down and actually reading the content after the abstracts.

I have had a chance to pour over two of my finds. The first is an article by Katherine Casey titled "Modeling Lessons." I found it in the October 2011 issue of Educational Leadership. Here, Casey makes the argument that "Teachers need to see effective instructional strategies in action before they can make them their own." Part of her suggestion with videotaped lessons is that they be shared among teachers--not just use them merely for reflective practice. This struck me as a good idea; heretofore, I was only looking at videotaping in the classroom as a way for teachers to improve their practice by looking solely at their own recorded lessons. Casey's idea would be yet another way to improve practice within a given school environment because teachers would see effective teaching being done to the same students that they see in their own classes. Thus, if a strategy works in Mrs. Jones' class with John and Jane, then why shouldn't it work in my class with John and Jane?

The next work that caught my eye discusses the hurdles inherent in recording in the classroom ("Taking Video Cameras into the Classroom"  |  Otrel-Cass, Cowie, and Maguire  | Waikato Journal of Education 15(2), 2010. Although this article does not deal directly with teachers using the camera as a tool for reflective practice (it speaks to researchers in general), it does highlight the challenges that school districts would face trying to implement their use:

• Can participants freely decide whether they want to participate in the recording or not?
• Do the participants understand how the videotapes will be used?
• Do the participants have the right to request that the tapes be destroyed after the research is complete?

As I read these, I reflected upon what I know about Shelby County's use of the Teachscape Reflect system. For the first point, parents and students can opt out of being recorded. This can be done for every type of photo or video recording at the beginning of the year or can be done on a case by case basis. For the second, I doubt seriously that students fully understand the use of the video recordings. From my own experience, most students believe that the camera is in the room to catch the bad students in action. For the third point, there is no rule in place regarding this in SCS. Right now, only the teacher has access to the video once it is uploaded to Teachscape. Only he/she can view it or share it out to other Teachscape users. Parents or students could request that videos be destroyed or deleted, but in the end, this would be up to the teacher's discretion.

Again, while this article did not address teacher reflective practice, it was great for highlighting obstacles that I might face when I attempt to do my own action research.

And speaking of obstacles, last week we found out that my school will be turned over to a charter school for failing to make academic gains for the last five years. Thus, with all that this entails for my livelihood, it also means that I may want to start collecting data this year for fear that I will not have access to the Reflect camera system next year.

And I thought having kids had stopped me from getting my Ed.D...