Video is hot in educational improvement. It seems to promise an easy technological fix for a long-standing problem in teacher professional development, namely that teachers work largely alone, behind closed doors, and rarely have opportunities to learn from one another. With the advent of relatively inexpensive digital video technology, classroom practice can be easily captured, edited and made public. And, indeed, a number of teachers and researchers have begun to experiment with various models of video-based teacher professional development, in which participants view and discuss recordings of their own or othersâ practice. When done well, such activities are indeed promising. However, they are surprisingly difficult to do well, especially in settings in which classroom observation is associated with inspection and performance management, and a pervasive âbest practiceâ mentality shuts down possibilities for critical discussion of the complexities of teaching.
This book offers a vision of teaching as the sensitive and flexible exercise of professional judgment and repertoire, and a set of video-based practices for teacher professional development. It is based upon our experiences researching dialogic pedagogy in a London primary school, and facilitating a series of workshops in which the teachers at that school reflected on recordings of their literacy lessons and discussed how to improve their teaching. The bookâs primary goals are:
In this first chapter we briefly outline our view of teaching practice and the implications of that view for teacher learning from video.
Problematizing âbest practice'
The idea of âbest practiceâ has become part of international educational common sense. In England, for example, it sits at the heart of ambitious and wide-reaching governmental reforms of teaching. The 1998 National Literacy Strategy (NLS) sought to radically transform curriculum content, lesson structure and teaching method in all primary classrooms across England, all at once. Michael Barber, then Chief Adviser to the Secretary of State for Education on School Standards and the architect of the NLS, explained the policyâs rationale:
For years and years primary teachers have been criticised for the way they teach reading. But then nobody ever said to them: âHereâs the best practice, based on solid international research and experience. If you use it your children will make progress.1
Barberâs confident prognosis nicely captures both the tone and the content of the prevalent âbest practiceâ approach to educational improvement, which involves identifying, capturing and disseminating proven teaching methods.2 In such a way, it is assumed, the vast majority of teachers are able to learn from and emulate the innovations and secrets of the gifted few. While such an approach has its merits, which we discuss below, we argue that it can only advance teacher professional practice so far. We offer here a complementary way of thinking about and conducting teacher professional development and educational improvement. This approach involves teachers sharing their practice with colleagues in order to learn from one anotherâs challenges, problems, dilemmas and breakthroughs. Gifted teachers, in this model, appreciate the complexity of teaching, have the courage to expose their practice â âwarts and allâ â to their peers and are adept at making sense of and learning from their own and othersâ experience. This approach is better than best practice, because it helps to develop and support thoughtful, flexible and insightful practitioners, who exercise a large degree of leadership in directing their own professional development.
Echoes of the âbest practiceâ idea resonate throughout the education system: Teachers ask, âWhat is best practice for grouping children in mathematics lessons?â Scholars systematically review the research literature to ascertain âwhat worksâ in teaching higher-order thinking skills. Policymakers wonder, âWhat is the evidence that one early reading intervention is better than another?â The schools inspectorate publishes reports on âlearning from the bestâ education providers and schools. And government, education publishers, school improvement consultants and even the entertainment industry, produce and market videos of âoutstanding lessonsâ, âevidence-based methodsâ and âbest teaching practicesâ.3
We want to clarify from the outset that we see a role for research into which pedagogical practices are more or less effective (for which purposes and under what circumstances), and for demonstrations of productive practices and the principles underlying them, including through video recordings. Teaching involves structures, tools, techniques and routines that can be demonstrated and imitated, and it would be foolish to expect teachers to devise all their methods on their own.4 Our concern is with teacher professional development that is focused exclusively on the inculcation of best practice through demonstration and imitation, and specifically with the dominance of this approach in the production and consumption of video recordings of practice.
So what is wrong with over-reliance on best practice? Our primary concern is that the best practice strategy is founded upon an unrealistic â and distorting â vision of teaching. Teaching is complicated and difficult, but âbest practiceâ tends to iron out or overlook complexities, and thereby makes teaching practice appear relatively straightforward and even simple. Teaching is complex first and foremost because multiple factors interact to shape the success of teaching encounters:
- the pupils â their relationships with the teacher, their relationships with one another and social dynamics as a group, their differential levels of knowledge, understanding and interest;
- the content, its demands on teacher and students;
- institutional requirements and supports, such as assessment, performance management and professional development;
- the physical setting; and
- the teacher, their skills, manner and values; and more.5
Such complexity poses formidable challenges for designers of best practice methods: How can they ensure effectiveness across multiple, unpredictable situations? A method that works in one context â in the particular constellation of teacher, pupils, relationships, culture and setting â will likely unfold differently, and with different effects, in a different set of circumstances. Transferring good practices between teaching contexts is possible, but requires sensitivity, flexibility and judgement.
A further source of complexity in teaching is the overwhelming demands practice places on practitionersâ attention. There is a lot going on in the classroom, all at once, and from every possible direction. Walter Doyle describes this phenomenon:
During a discussion, a teacher must listen to student answers, watch other students for signs of comprehension or confusion, formulate the next question, and scan the class for possible misbehavior. At the same time, the teacher must attend to the pace of the discussion, the sequence of selecting students to answer, the relevance and quality of answers, and the logical development of the content.6
Teachers must interpret and act upon a great deal of information rapidly. There is insufficient time to process consciously the multiple signals, the issues they raise, the options available, their relative advantages and the overall lesson strategy. Instead, teachers rely heavily upon intuition and habit, and their knowledge about such habitual activity is primarily tacit, that is, knowledge that teachers donât know they possess or find difficult to articulate. Here then is a second challenge for the design of âbest practicesâ: How to recognize, formulate and transfer such tacit knowledge? How can it be acquired except through direct experience?
Another cause of complexity in teaching, which undermines attempts to achieve agreement about which practices are best, are the many and contested goals of education. Teachers are supposed to impart academic knowledge and skills; and also to care for their pupilsâ emotional and spiritual well-being; and to promote their moral development; and to make sure that everyone is engaged and interested; and that no one is excluded (socially or academically); and to promote civic values such as tolerance and integrity; and to foster safe and caring learning environments; and to instil respect for authority while cultivating critical and independent thinking; and more. Goals conflict, sometimes deeply, such as the tension between maintenance of teachersâ authority and cultivation of pupilsâ critical thinking, and at other times superficially, inasmuch as attending to pupilsâ emotional needs demands time that might otherwise have been devoted to academic content. Which goals should be given priority, and when? At any given moment goals shift as new opportunities and/or crises present themselves. So, teaching is not merely complex because teachers must simultaneously attend to multiple signals, but also because those signals beckon them to move the lesson in different directions, all legitimate and desirable.
In summary, many facets of teaching â its complexity and unpredictability; its dependence on the particularities of changing contexts; the centrality of tacit knowledge and the mu...