Originally published by www.modernenglishteacher.com
The recent closing of brick and mortar schools due to the global coronavirus pandemic has led to dramatic changes in teaching and learning. Record numbers of classes are now taking place online (Moe, 2020). This move online will also cause dramatic changes in teacher development and evaluation. These changes have the potential to cause a renaissance in reflective teaching, giving teachers unprecedented access to data about their own classrooms. These changes could also have less positive consequences, such as the covert surveillance of teachers and students by school management or the replacement of supervisors by artificial intelligence. Pandora’s box is well and truly open. How we choose to use the contents remains to be decided.
It has long been recognized that a cheap and easy transposition of offline teaching practices to online is ineffective (Hampel, 2006). I believe a cheap and easy transposition of offline teacher development practices to online will also prove ineffective and our profession needs to move beyond webinars and online training. In this article I will argue that teachers, trainers and managers must harness the power of online teaching for teacher development and carefully contemplate the dangers posed by this new technology.
Opportunities for Data
Any process that undergoes digitalization is more open to surveillance, monitoring (Harari, 2020) and data collection. In the case of online teaching, this means online lessons being recorded and stored. Teachers, trainers and supervisors now have more information about classroom interactions available to them than ever before. This could revolutionize our understanding of our teaching, giving teachers the data necessary to become effective researchers of their own classrooms (Walsh, 2016).
Video recording of teaching dates back 50 years (Borg, et al., 1970). The filming of offline lessons, however, remains a novelty for most teachers. This practice is mostly limited to training course assignments and is rare among practicing practitioners (Walsh, 2016). Recordings of online lessons on the other hand are already the norm. In the online schools I have worked in, every single lesson is recorded and stored, available for future observation.
Benefits for Teachers
The most immediate benefit these recordings offer to teachers is for self-observation. Watching recordings of their own teaching can help make teachers more aware of their own practices, awareness being a “prerequisite to practicing reflective teaching” (Bailey, et al., 2001, p. 22). These recordings can shed light on classroom interactions, a departure point for effective professional development (Walsh, 2016) and for evaluating effective teaching (Richards & Lockhart, 2000).
There are three key differences to recordings of online lessons compared with offline. The first is convenience. There is no longer a need to book the department video camera, find a tripod for your iPhone or ask learners and parents to sign consent forms (assuming this is part of the permission required to take online lessons in the first place). Lesson recordings are available via a few clicks. Secondly, there is no observer’s paradox. Attempts to observe natural behavior often create unnatural behavior (Labov, 1972), and this is certainly the case when a cameraman is lurking at the back of a classroom (Bailey, et al., 2001). However, since all online lessons are recorded, this paradox cannot exist: teachers and learners cannot act ‘unnaturally’ in every class. Third, recordings of online lessons offer accurate representations of lessons. A video camera in the corner of an offline classroom offers one perspective of a lesson, but one different from any particular student. And while such recordings are useful for teacher fronted activities, they tend to yield little useful audio during group work or mingle activities. A recording of an online class is different. Online classrooms do not have multiple perspectives and therefore recordings can more accurately capture the experience of participants.
Uses for Recordings of Online Lessons
A lesson recording is only a starting point, and needs to be viewed, discussed and reflected upon if it is to have a meaningful impact on teaching. Such recordings could used by teachers:
with a reflection or observation tool. Teachers could watch a recording of their lesson, collect data about their language used while teaching, and use this as a basis for reflection.
to share positive examples of successful teaching practices with peers, or as positive examples for new teachers to emulate.
in stimulated recall, by watching a recording of an online lesson with a peer and discussing with this critical colleague or friend.
by sharing or swapping a recording of an online lesson with a peer for a ‘virtual peer observation’. Peer observations create ‘value for money’ by offering learning opportunities to observers and observees alike (Bailey, et al., 2001). In my experience as a manager and teacher trainer, although many teachers show an interest in peer observation, in practice this often is not possible in busy schools as most teachers are teaching at the same time. ‘Virtual peer observations’ remove this limitation, allowing the sharing of recording of lessons between colleagues without timetabling constraints.
Benefits for Teacher Training
Recordings of online lessons also offer benefits for teacher training programs, allowing the observation of lessons with specific observation foci for trainee teachers. Many preservice training programs include a peer observation component, focusing on a specific aspect of teaching. Observation forms are handed out, teachers sit at the back of the class and hope to observe these specific procedures. Needless to say, they are sometimes disappointed (Douglas, 2019). If, for example, trainees are observing for error correction in a lesson when no correction occurs, the observers’ time is wasted. Using recordings of online lessons could prevent this problem and ensure guided observations always find what they seek. An online guided observation task involving error correction would first involve the trainer selecting recordings of lessons with discussion-worthy examples of error correction. Trainee teachers would then observe these recordings, complete the related observation form and possess enough data for a meaningful discussion with peers and trainers.
Increased Autonomy in Teacher Evaluation
These initiatives are mainly ‘bottom up’, relying on teachers themselves. Recordings of online classes also have the potential to give teachers more control in ‘top-down’ observations and evaluations. In traditional teaching contexts, supervisors may permit teachers more or less control over the observation process (Bailey, 2006). At the ‘low control’ end of the spectrum (Figure 1), supervisors may observe teachers unannounced, at a time of the supervisors’ choosing (a “surprise observation”). At the other end of the spectrum, teachers may choose a particular class for a supervisor to observe and evaluate (a “negotiated observation”), or even invite their supervisor to observe a lesson (an “invited observation”).
Now, for the first-time, teachers may choose a class they have already taught to be observed and evaluated, by sending a recording of an online lesson to their supervisor. As well as giving teachers more ownership over their own development, these “pre-recorded observations” also potentially allow supervisors to observe lessons which teachers found troublesome, not merely lessons that were predicted to be so. Instead of asking "Can you please watch my class next Tuesday at 4pm, I usually have trouble with that group?" teachers can request "Please watch the recording of my class from last Tuesday at 4pm, I had real trouble setting up a task at the end of the lesson. I'd appreciate your advice on this." Such supervision is bound to be more focused on teachers' needs.
Dangers of Surveillance
However, this technology can also extend this continuum (Figure 1) in the opposite direction. Now, for the first time, supervisors have the capacity to observe teachers without the teachers’ knowledge, (‘covert observation’), by accessing recordings of lessons without teachers' knowledge. While it has always been possible for supervisors to barge into lessons unannounced, their presence was always quickly noticed after they walked through the door. This is no longer the case. Teachers can now be assessed and evaluated on any online class they have taught, giving supervisors previously unknown power. There are also implications for the observation of students without their consent.
Quantitative data from these recordings could also be analyzed to assess teachers. Schools could collect figures on ratios of teacher to student talking time, the number of interactions in each class, and even students’ facial expressions. Once in possession of this information, schools could use data analysts or AI (artificial intelligence) to evaluate teachers in place of supervisors and rank teachers in terms of their effectiveness at encouraging learners to speak, or their ability to make students smile.
This qualitative data could also offer teachers insights into how often their students speak, which students speak most, how long do they speak for, how long teachers wait for students’ answers before speaking, etc.
Figure 1: The teacher observation continuum, adapted from (Bailey, 2006) with * denoting ‘new’ options for observation.
Conclusion
Online teaching affords many potential benefits for teacher development. I am not, however, arguing for the adaption of new technology here: that has already happened and the genie is not going back in the bottle. This new technology, the recording and storage of online lessons, offers our profession exciting new tools for teacher development. We need to make the greatest use of these whilst debating how they can be used ethically.
References
Bailey, K., Curtis, A. & Nunan, D., 2001. Pursuing Professional Development: The Self As Source. Singapore: Cengage Learning.
Bailey, K. M., 2006. Language Teacher Supervision: A Case-Based Approach. s.l.:s.n.
Borg, W., Kelly, M. L., Langer, P. & Gall, M. D., 1970. The minicourse: A micro teaching approach to teacher education. London: Collier-Macmillan.
Douglas, A., 2019. I can see clearly now: rethinking teacher training observation tasks. In: T. Pattison, ed. IATEFL 2018 Brighton Conference Selections. Faversham: IATEFL, pp. 222-224.
Hampel, R., 2006. Rethinking task design for the digital age: A framework for language teaching and learning in a synchronous online environment. ReCALL, 18(1), p. 105–121.
Harari, Y. N., 2020. #201, A Conversation with Yuval Noah Harari. [Online]
Available at: https://samharris.org/podcasts/201-may-1-2020/
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Labov, W., 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Moe, M., 2020. Dawn of the Age of Digital Learning: An Acceleration of Trends That Have Been Building for Years. [Online]
Available at: https://medium.com/gsv-ventures/dawn-of-the-age-of-digital-learning-4c4e38784226
[Accessed 11 5 2020].
Richards, J. C. & Lockhart, C., 2000. Reflective TEaching in Second Language Classrooms. 1st ed. Beijing: 人民教育出版社.
Walsh, S., 2016. Classroom Discourse and Teacher Development. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.