Using Video to Improve Teacher Coaching

Read on to learn how using video in instructional coaching can improve your teacher coaching process!

In the past, for both school leaders and teachers, people developed their educational skills primarily through individual trial and error rather than through observation and collaboration.

School leaders are now attempting to break through that educational barrier by observing teachers so that they can receive valuable feedback and improve their teaching skills. SchoolMint Grow’s observation platform has helped bridge this gap by making observation software an easy and valuable part of teacher growth.

Incorporating video into your teacher coaching process can take this growth even further, helping you improve teacher coaching, evaluation, and learning processes.

Adding video into coaching and feedback gives school leaders a powerful new coaching tool and even allows them to implement virtual coaching if needed.

How Video Coaching Can Be Used to Reflect and Set Goals

Self-reflection rests at the heart of any learning process.

Though the teacher coaches are the ones providing feedback, video enables teachers themselves to reflect on their own habits and teaching styles.

Teachers may enter the profession with a preconceived idea about what good instruction is supposed to look like. According to a study by Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research, this leads to “imitative, rather than intentional, practice.”

The study goes on to explain that “Systematic self-reflection, on the other hand, sharpens the intentionality of the practitioner and allows him or her to address the unique challenges of the classroom.”

When school leaders use video coaching, they can pinpoint specific weaknesses and help teachers reflect on how their practices can improve.

By integrating video into coaching and evaluation, school leaders will have the ability to focus on not just how the teacher is handling instruction but also on how the classroom is reacting as well.

With traditional forms of classroom observation (i.e., sitting at the back of the room with a pen and paper), it can be difficult to focus on more than just the teacher.

But with video, school leaders can get a broader picture of everything going on inside each class. This added level of observation is crucial to teacher growth.

“Sometimes the challenges that require action are not the ones teachers see or hear (in the moment)...while working with a small group, teachers may miss off-task students in other corners of the classroom,” the Harvard study states.

For school leaders and teachers, reflecting on practices relies on accurately remembering what happened during the lesson. Reflection is best when it’s specific, but memory can provide only a vague overview.

With SchoolMint Grow’s video coaching app, school leaders can easily capture, upload, and share videos. All of the videos then live in one centralized hub on Grow’s platform, allowing leaders to coach teachers more effectively by referencing specific lessons.

Video Coaching Makes Virtual Teacher Coaching Possible

One of the most unique aspects of video coaching in comparison to traditional coaching is that now school leaders and teachers do not have to share the same physical space to gain valuable feedback.

With the day-to-day managerial work school leaders have to do, it’s no wonder teacher coaching can get overlooked.

But with video coaching, school leaders can perform virtual coaching for several teachers on their own time — without having to rush around to different classrooms.

According to GettingSmart, “A coach doesn’t have to be present for the video recording, and the teacher can identify when and where they want to make a recording, which is usually 10–20 minutes.” 

Video coaching allows for a more targeted approach to feedback and actually takes less time than observing in a classroom setting.

This way of coaching is not only efficient but also helps both the coach and teacher look back on the lesson and take notes. With video coaching, a school leader can watch directly what a teacher is doing, or the teacher can record a lesson and send the segments they want feedback on.

If your chosen platform offers a video app, this makes the process all the easier!

Video Coaching App

With SchoolMint Grow’s video coaching app, school leaders have even more options when it comes to coaching and providing feedback for their teachers.

Coaches can even ask teachers to leave notes so they know what the lesson plan for the day is about, rather than going in blind to each classroom setting.

Teachers are then empowered to implement tips and feedback from their coaches into future lessons and to reupload those updated lessons to the video hub.

Video Coaching Opens the Door to Increased Collaboration

School leaders can find themselves getting stuck in their ways when it comes to classroom observation and feedback.

However, as video is introduced into the coaching environment, there is more room for collaboration among teacher coaches.

Now multiple coaches can watch and rewatch the same teacher’s lesson, providing their own insights and collaborating with each other to offer the best feedback possible to improve that teacher’s performance.

Using SchoolMint Grow for Video Teacher Coaching

For school leaders, video coaching can be an easier and more efficient way to provide teachers with feedback.

Video can not only make the coach’s life a little easier but also help teachers feel greater satisfaction with the feedback process.

By harnessing the power of self-reflection and not relying on memory alone, both teachers and coaches can make huge improvements in performance by integrating video into their feedback process.