It is not easy when we watch ourselves teach on video and it can sometimes be an uncomfortable experience. This is because we tend to focus on ourselves and become distracted by details that are not related to learning. This produces responses that are reactive or emotional. Consider some of these observations:

Is my bald patch really that big (irrelevant detail)

That top looks old and baggy (irrelevant detail)

I had no LSA in the lesson (reactive)

I sound so feeble (emotional)

I made good use of building on prior knowledge (focus on self, not the children)

I kept asking lots of questions (focus on self, not the children)

So, to effectively notice when watching videos of ourself we need to:

• establish the focus of the viewing;
• filter out the reactive and irrelevant detail;
• focus on the evidence.

Establish the focus of the viewing

Having a focus is like placing the viewer in the director’s seat and looking for the footage that displays content about the focus. This content is the teaching moment on which a reflection will be based. It is similar to looking for evidence in the video that shows how the focus of the viewing is, or is not, part of our practice.

Each week, trainees begin each Weekly Review page in their ePortfolio with a reflection on their targets that they have been working on during that week. One of these targets, particularly the Focus Improvement Area (FIA), should be used as the focus of the viewing.

Trainees will then need to view the video a second time so they can then focus on finding evidence for a strength in their practice (Teaching Moment 1), and evidence of an area for development (Teaching Moment 2).

The important thing to remember is that the focus should always be connected to pupil learning.

Filter out the reactive and irrelevant detail

The shortest of video clips can contain a great deal of information in its footage, information that both visual and auditory.

Filtering out the reactive and irrelevant detail involves focusing on the action of the footage, in other words the Teaching Moments, and the teaching moments that can be used to draw conclusions about our teaching practice. Not moments that are loosely related or unrelated to the focus, but moments that provide evidence of impact the focus has in our practice as observed in the footage. Consider these examples:

I kept saying “yeah?” a lot in seeking reassurances.

This is irrelevant detail as it does not provide any strong evidence connected to student learning.

I didn’t handle that situation well.

The teaching moment and its evidence should focus on what happened and why it happened, not that is was unsuccessful.

The same few children kept engaging with the lesson input.

This is better teaching moment as the evidence links to pupil learning and conclusions about teaching practice can be drawn from it.

Focus on the evidence

There are two kinds of evidence within a teaching moment:

1. What teachers do in facilitating pupil learning
2. What pupils do to demonstrate they are learning or are not learning

Having identified a teaching moment and its evidence, it is important to establish why it is important. This will then help trainees in completing the ‘Why?’ Challenge which feeds into the Explain section of the EAM framework that asks trainees to reflect on what it was they were aiming to do at this point in the lesson and why it is important.

Acknowledgement

Material from the Best Foot Forward: Video Observation Toolkit produced by Harvard University’s Centre for Education Policy Research has been adapted in creating this article to align it with the university’s approaches to using video to support reflection.