Build an Expansive Digital Library of Exemplars While You Supervise
Posted by Art Recesso on Fri, Sep 30, 2011 @ 06:34 AM
A digital library of exemplary practices, available to show what it means to demonstrate a standard of practice in the field, has been long sought after as resource for teaching others. It's easy to understand why. When you are in the field observing you see amazing work being done. We often resolve to telling the anecdotal story of what happened, explaining in words as best we can, how someone is putting into practice what others are struggling to understand. Often this is done in our next cohort or individual meeting. You can just imagine the level of descrepancy between what really happened, how we describe it, and what the person listening to us is interpreting through thier own mental model. Digital video technology such as the digital video camera, video streaming, and online mass storage (now cloud computing) made digital libraries within reach. As the technology became ubiquitous, the idea of amassing cases of 'what works' and 'best practices' to share with teachers everywhere seemed obtainable. In fact, the US Department of Education funded several Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to use Technology (PT3) initiatives from 1999 to 2003 to gain an understanding about how to harness this technology to build clearinghouses of effective practice. After more than decade of work we can attest to the following:
* People learning to teach want to see video of other teachers actually demonstrating the standards in practice. It's easy to dismiss the over-produced or commercial quality videos as not being authentic. Sharing video of actual teaching and learning events increases the credibliity of the content.
* Capturing video of exemplary practices during supervision and observation is a natural outcome, you repurpose video evidence from the observation as a learning tool. It is efficient, it is inexpensive, and you can establish a cycle of supervision data (video of practices) informing future learning about the standards you are measuring. Going into the field thinking you can capture 'effective practice' on any given day is expensive, inefficient, time consuming, disconnected from context, and often an extra burden on the teachers and learners.
* Technology affords us the opportunity to build systems for the supervisor to supervise/observe, assess practices, and then repurpose smaller, more manageable segments (video clips) that can be understood even by the most novice learners.
* Cloud computing and Web 2.0 interface design permits the secure sharing of these videos with multiple experts who may review and rate the practices -- increasing the credibility and accuracy of the collection. Furthermore, frameworks of teaching standards can be used to organize the videos. Through the web interface supervisors can populate with exemplars as those learning to teach access select a standard and see through streaming video a peer demonstrating classroom practices.
Video analysis tools converge several technologies to help us deliver the story of expected outcomes, meeting standards, and high quality practices through a digital library. We use these technologies so we don't rely on our own recollection or someone else's personal interpretation. We can simply show the event as it actually happened. The standards frameworks help us point to and explain the nuances and intracacies of some of the most complex events we could expected people to know and understand -- teaching and learning. After more than a decade of work (one could argue the work actually began in the sixties), video analysis technology is delivering a much sought after resource.
