What the Research Reveals: The Impact of Video Self-Reflection in Early Childhood Education

Erin Stanley:

Hi, welcome to our webinar today. I hope you’re all staying warm, and we hope that you’re going to get some really great takeaways from this webinar. I know after this conversation you will, so excited to dive into Dr. DeCarlo’s research. But before we do that, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Erin Stanley. I am on the Gore React team here. For those of you that aren’t familiar, gore React is a video feedback solution that’s taken 10 years of experience in helping higher ed institutions with skill development, and now we’re helping school district support teacher growth. And I’m happy to be joined by our presenter today, Dr. Cindy DiCarlo from Louisiana State University. After our conversation, we’ll definitely leave some time for q and a. So as questions come up at any point, click that q and a box at the bottom, put your questions in there and we will be sure and get to them. There’s also a chat function, so I’m going to invite you right now to introduce yourself and tell us where you’re joining from.

There will also be some polls that will pop up, so we invite you to participate in those. So Dr. Cindy DiCarlo is a professor of Early childhood education and the executive director of the Early Childhood Education Institute at Louisiana State University. She’s also the coordinator of Early Childhood Education Teacher Education Program, and she oversees the Early Childhood Education Laboratory Preschool, which is a research and model demonstration site, DeCarlo’s research focus on interventions to improve outcomes for young children and clarification and innovations in recommended practices in early childhood. She currently serves on the editorial boards for infants and young children, the Journal of Teacher Action Research and Beyond Behavior. So the study that we’re going to discuss today is called the Impact of Video Self-Reflection on Teacher Practice, and that Dr. DiCarlo, along with her co-author, explored how video coaching influences teacher development specifically in early childhood education. Anything you want to add to that introduction? Anything I missed?

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Nope, that bad says it all.

Erin Stanley:

So talk to me about what kind of inspired this study? What were the things that you were seeing or that you were thinking about that made you want to dive a little deeper into this particular subject?

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

So the study really was inspired out of necessity. So we had had in our teacher education program a little bit of experience with the use of video and the self-reflective process like everybody else. We have multiple demands and teacher ed and higher ed is no different. Our first experience with video self-reflection was with student teachers. At the last minute we lost one of our university supervisors and we had four students that we had to supervise and really not a whole lot of time. And so in order to competently supervise them, what we had them do, and it was pre go react days, it was super old school and very, very cumbersome. And so what we had the student teachers do was to videotape themselves and they had to compress the video, which was excruciating, took so much time. And then they had to upload it to an external share portal where then I would be able to at the university level, download it, decompress it, also a very labor intensive process and watch the video, score it, fill out a score sheet, email it to them.

And so it was just multiple layers of steps and it took so much time, like I jokingly said, I could have driven to the school and back and the time that it took to do all of that. And so when Gore react came out, it was fantastic because it really cut that time. The major complaint that we had from students and our mentor teachers in the field was the labor that was involved with uploading the video, downloading the video. That was very, very cumbersome. But what we try to do within the context of that semester is mimic what happens in real life and do everything virtually. And so the biggest hurdle though was just the size of the videos and the email attachments, which have been much more streamlined with access to a platform like Gore React. So when we took over our laboratory preschool and brought it underneath the academic unit, we really had difficulty with finances.

We were just launching, we were transitioning from being just a campus childcare center to being a research and model demonstration site. And of course we wanted to be state of the art and we wanted to use all of the great tools that are available. We were teaching our students about, such as the environmental rating scales and the class tool, which is what our state was using to evaluate teachers. And we were using to evaluate our student teachers as well. Well, anybody in early childhood knows that the class is an excellent tool, but to go through the reliability training is costly and it’s also time intensive. So you have to be able to allocate two full days for your teachers to not be in the classrooms to attend the training. And it is an excellent training, but it also costs around $200 if you have a local trainer, if you have to go on the class website, it’s about $700.

So it’s pretty cost prohibitive. So at that time, we really did not have the funds to send all of our teachers to the reliability training, and we definitely didn’t have the additional funds to pay substitutes while we sent our teachers to a two day training. So we were like, okay, what can we do to acclimate all of our teachers to this instrument, which at the time was newish and bringing them on board with this model, which was not a tool that they had used when we were a campus childcare center. So what we did is we had one of our coaches trained to reliability on the class tool, and we do operate a center that has 15 teachers, 15 assistants and 192 children. So what we did was an overview of the class tool as a professional development with all of our teachers. So it was a two hour training that we just gave them an orientation because this was the mechanism by which the state was going to be assessing all of our teachers.

And we were going to get our score just like how public schools get a letter grade, childcare centers get a star rating, which is very equivalent, but a little more high stakes because it’s tied to the Louisiana tax credit. So we really wanted to make sure that we were doing well. So what we did is we devised a study, single case research design where we had our teachers self-reflect. They would videotape themselves, watch their own video, and then they would score themselves with a rubric. And so there is a lot of research that suggests that using a rubric when you’re reflecting is really the way to go. So you’re comparing yourself to some other previous standard because sometimes when you just watch yourself, and I will tell you that our teachers did this for sure, you’re critiquing the size of your bottom, what you look like on camera, what you sound like, and so you like that’s not on the rubric, don’t concentrate on that.

So those were the things that they were talking about, and I was like, no, no, ladies, let’s look at this rubric. This is what we’re really looking for. You just have to get over. Nobody likes what they look like on video. Nobody likes what they sound like on video. And so that was a learning process. And so what we ended up doing is having the teachers reflect. And for the purposes of our study, we did this every week. They recorded a 20 minute segment, they watched themselves, they scored according to the rubric, and then our reliability observer, the person that we had sent to the training and spent the money to train, she also scored. But at this point in the study, we did not share her scores with the teacher. We just wanted to see what they would do. Okay, well, so we had just taken over the center, and so the teachers I think were not really sure about us. And so when they scored themselves, the class is on a seven point scale, so everybody got sevens. They gave themselves six and sevens on everything. And so what we noticed is every day that they, or every session that they recorded themselves and they scored over time, those sevens got lower. And it didn’t mean that they were getting worse because when we compare them to the reliability observer, what we found is they were getting more accurate.

And it was because through repeated observations and being steeped in the language of the tool, because it didn’t cut it the way the class is, you can assign yourself in each of the 10 dimensions, a score between one and seven, but it wasn’t going to cut it for them to just circle a number and call it a day. They had to give evidence and that evidence had to match the descriptors on the tool. So we wanted to make sure that they were reading the tool very thoroughly and when they were scoring the tool that they had enough written to substantiate that score. And so what ended up happening is the scores got looked worse, but they got more accurate. And then we started seeing them increase. And so that was really fantastic. And so what we learned in the study is that for, because we used the toddler class tool, and so they did really well in self-correcting their own behavior with our first little segment of the study, which was just the video, but they needed just a little bit more help with the instructional domain.

And so what ended up happening is when we didn’t see enough growth in that instructional domain, we did a phase change. And so we started having the teachers in addition to scoring their own video using the rubric, we would share our coaches score also, so then they could get that feedback, which Gore react allows you to see in real time. And the thing that’s really, really nice about that in both of the phase changes is that it fits very nicely within adult learning theory paradigm because adults want to learn things that they need to know that they can use. And so if you’re just sitting in a training and people are talking and saying, do this, do that, you have to go through the cognitive process of thinking about when you would do that. And so with video, you don’t have to think about when you would do that because you’re videotaping yourself going through the normal routine that you’re doing all the time.

And then you get this little ding that says, Hey, at this point, why don’t you do blah, blah, blah, blah to meet the criteria of the rubric. So in real time they can see when they should use the skill that is being recommended. And so once that second layer was added to the study and that intervention, the teacher started to make gains in that last instructional domain. And so as a result of that study, what we did is we scaled it center wide. And so part of our everyday practice now is we don’t do it every week, but we do it once a month. So once a month, each classroom has to videotape their own behavior and they have to score it according to the rubric. And then we have our coaches, which it sounds like, ooh, it’s a lot of people, it’s really not.

That’s like a fancy word for the director and the assistant director who have been trained to reliability on that tool. And they are spot checking everybody. And so some people were like, Hey, if we score well, can we stop videotaping and reflecting? And I’m like, until when you get a bad score, no, we’re not doing that. As you get more practice of videotaping yourself and scoring according to the rubric, you get more proficient and it’s easier. You maybe only have to watch the video once. But the really nice thing for those teachers who were new and it’s unfamiliar or may struggle is that that video becomes a permanent product and they can go back and watch it over and over again. So that was more than what you asked for, but there you go.

Erin Stanley:

I love it. I have so many questions, but before I dive in, I want to ask the audience, how many of you use self-reflection in your program? You’ll see a poll pop up and you can answer that because it really sounds like Cindy, you knew going in self-reflection was really valuable. I mean, you’d done that with other kinds of videos, so you knew that was going to be really valuable. Curious, how many of you use that in your program? Okay, 82%. 82% of our audience use self-reflection in their program. So they also seem to understand the value. And like you mentioned, sometimes you even know the value of it, but the technology and the budget and all these other pieces don’t align. Talk to me for a minute about the class framework for those of our audience who are unfamiliar. Just give us a little bit more detail about what that framework is.

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Sure. So it really focuses on teacher child interaction. So unlike other tools that are on the market, such as the environmental rating scales that look at the room arrangement and the materials that have to be present, and they really do have some interaction, but it’s really, really small. And then there’s the early childhood language and literacy classroom observation focuses a lot on literacy practices and just a little bit on interaction. Whereas the class tool, the whole thing is about the experience of the child and the interaction that they have of being in the classroom. And one of the things that I think sometimes people get hung up on is that it’s the child’s total experience. So if you’re the most awesome teacher on the earth and you have a teaching assistant who maybe is a little bit rough, or you have a lunch lady that comes in or a therapist that’s really, really rough, that’s still part of that child’s experience. And so if somebody comes out and they’re observing you, they’re considering all of that in your observation. And so it basically looks just across 10 different dimensions of behavior, across three different domains and kind of breaks it down in very minute detail. So it’s one of the things that I love about it because it allows you, most of my work is with student teachers. It allows you to give very, very specific detail on how to change practice, which makes it excellent for a video self-reflection kind of project.

Erin Stanley:

And it is specific to early childhood,

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Is that right?

Erin Stanley:

Class is really, yes. They have early childhood or maybe even kindergarten, first grade, is it sometimes you

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Yes. So they have an infant tool, they have a toddler tool and they have a pre-K tool and then a case to third grade tool.

Erin Stanley:

I love that, that it’s really looking at the entire environment. Of course it should. So I want to step back for a minute and talk about these teachers’ experience with video and themselves. And we kind of mentioned that some of them were maybe a little resistant. And I know in your study as well, those moments that you chose to observe to capture on video were the most stressful times of the day. Is that right? So how did you talk them into it? Was there resistance? What was that experience for the teachers?

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Okay, so we are a research and model demonstration site. So when people are hired into this environment, they know that that’s part of the deal. And so for those teachers that were working there before we transition from just a campus childcare center to being a research and model demonstration site, they signed off, yes, we are all in. We are for this. And I think that they understood that we were really supporting them to be state of the art and they wanted to know exactly what they were doing because there was going to be more student teachers and outside observers than ever before, and they really wanted to. If you think about early childhood in general, none of us are rolling in the do or anything. It’s a labor of love and people want to do a good job. They truly love children, they believe in what they’re doing.

But I will say for this particular study, and really pretty much all of our studies, we asked for volunteers. And so we had three very dynamic teachers who had been there for a pretty decent amount of time and they were kind of like the senior faculty and they were going to be the trailblazers. Did they complain about themselves on video? 1000%. We actually wrote a practice article after the study was over. I am a practitioner, I come from the classroom. So whenever I do a research study, I always try and have a companion practice article because I really want the work that we’re doing to get in the hands of practitioners who are going to be working directly with young children. And we jokingly named the article, does this professional practice make my butt look big? Because that was said so much in the study and it really had very, very nice outcomes for the teachers.

They actually almost became ambassadors for being participants in any of our research projects because they felt their sense of self-efficacy increased so much because now there was this relatively tool and they became steeped in that language. They felt very knowledgeable, they could talk to people about the aspects of the tool and the things that they were learning by critiquing in their own practices. And they almost informally formed a professional learning community because now they all spoke, which is what we want in early childhood. We’re trying to get those recommended practices infused in all of our classrooms. And so now we had these three teachers that were all steeped in that language of class and they were using that language to have conversations with each other about different practices in their classrooms. They were now, even though they thought their butts looked big, they were swapping videos with each other to show each other the things that they were doing in the classroom. So it was really great.

Erin Stanley:

Oh, I love that collaborative learning piece.

Amazing. And as a former high school teacher, I know how easy it is to just really get into the tasks that have to be done every day. It would be like I’d get in my classroom and it’s like, oh no, this person didn’t turn in assignments and I need to give this new project and all the things. That’s what I was focused on. But one thing I loved in your study, there was this moment that teachers had where it’s almost like their perspective just shift a little because of the rubric, because of them video themselves, instead of just thinking about those things that had to get done every day in the classroom that they’d been doing for years and years, like you mentioned, all of a sudden their perspective shifted into, oh, well what can I do better? They were more self-reflective about their teaching. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Yeah, they were less, and really a big challenge in early childhood environments is finding the time for this. And so we were very deliberate and constructing our schedule, very young children and these teachers all were two teachers, two year olds, and so we made sure that we structured our schedule that there was a period of time during naps, children usually nap about two hours at that age. And so we made sure that we had a solid 30 minute block that the teacher would not be interrupted. We did not expect her to give up her lunch to work on this project or engage in this self-reflected process, but we made sure that in addition to taking her lunch break, that she also had that dedicated 30 minutes of uninterrupted time while the children were napping, that she knew that this was the time that she needed to do that.

So I think that is always a challenge. I think if you’re not really intentional and planful that the schedule might seem a little bit chaotic because nobody’s ever just because you tell a 2-year-old like, Hey, it’s 1230 time to go to sleep. They don’t say, okay, and then immediately fall asleep. So we made sure that we were realistic. We didn’t say, okay, your time is 1230 to one because nobody’s going to fall asleep at that time. So we made sure that we gave enough time for the children to wind down and fall asleep, and for those who might be early risers that we didn’t leave it to be that last 30 minutes and then their time would get interrupted. So we made sure that we dedicated that. So I think that’s really a really important consideration.

Erin Stanley:

Absolutely. If you’re just telling teachers just self-reflect, but not giving them the time or the tools to do that, you’re absolutely right. I love that you were intentional and realistic. That’s absolutely necessary. So another poll for our audience. How many of you use video-based coaching or observation? Cindy, I’m curious if, I think your program does do in-person observation as well as video. Is that right? And the studies that we’ve seen have found that the combination of the two is really powerful. So 42% do use video coaching, another 33% would like to implement it soon. What advice would you have for that group that is looking to implement it? They know that this is something their program needs from your own experience, what advice could you give them?

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

I think really explaining the value of it to your teachers, that it’s just not a box to check. Kind of like we all have to do assessments in the classroom, and a lot of times people just kind of hurry up and go through it and don’t really understand how that’s supposed to be used. This is not something that you do and you check the box that you did it. What you are doing is it has to be a couple of things you have to buy into. Number one, the tool that you’re using. You have to understand the way that it was created, understand the benefits that it’s going to have for you, and really the benefits because the ultimate outcome is positive outcomes for young children. And so if there is a tool that is going to help you do something better so then children have a more positive outcome, the teacher has to first buy into that tool and then recognize her role.

The research is just unequivocal that the best thing to increase positive outcomes for young children is a highly skilled, highly qualified teacher. And so that’s who you want to be. You want to be that highly skilled, highly qualified teacher. And so when you promote the self-reflective piece as a vehicle of improving your practice, so you are doing the best that you can and making your time with young children better and more meaningful and increasing positive outcomes for young children, that’s really what needs to happen. It has to be the buy-in. I’ve been in the fields for a really long time and I’ve worked in community centers all across metropolitan areas, and I’ve seen teachers when I go in and maybe I used to do intervention for children with disabilities, and so I would go in and see a child once a week, and it was really, really difficult to get buy-in in those situations because I actually had someone tell me one time that she’s going to make the same amount of money whether she does what I tell her or not.

And that’s tough. And so fortunately for us, the people that we have at our lab are really very passionate and very driven, and that’s who you want when you’re interviewing people to work at your site or at your school. You want people who this is not just a job that this is a calling, a passion something, because when you’re invested, no matter what it is, no matter what the job is, you want to do really well. And so if you can sell the tool that you’re using to reflect and you can sell the video self-reflection as that vehicle to improve and you’ve hired the right people, then it all comes together beautifully.

Erin Stanley:

And thinking about that teacher you mentioned, that sounds to me a little bit like a sign of burnout. I think the support that your program also offers to these teachers, this not only the culture of continual improvement, but we’re going to support you in this. We’re going to give you time to do this, we’re going to do what we can, is really admirable and I think makes for better teaching, right?

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Absolutely.

Erin Stanley:

Yeah. So Cindy just asked a question that, do you offer questions or core teaching practices or other support to help teachers ask great questions of themselves and to have a target to improve their skills?

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

So within this particular study, we did stick to the class tool. And so we would keep our questions related to things that were on that tool. If you’re talking about more globally, we do professional growth plans with our teachers every year. And so basically what we ask them to do, we also do something that I call responsive training. And so we use a variety of different assessments and tools that probably most of the early childhood people in this audience are familiar with. And so if we notice that a teacher maybe has a little area of need on a certain tool, then those are the things that we target on that professional growth plan of what the teacher is going to do to address this global area and then offer some suggestions on things that they can do to improve their practice in a specific area. Does that make sense?

Erin Stanley:

Yeah, yeah, totally. And kind of related, as you are training your coaches and mentors, how do you train them in giving feedback? Does the class framework kind of talk about what kinds of feedback to give or how to phrase things or do you offer in that area?

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Yes, and so, okay, one of the things that I talk to everybody who’s giving feedback, I don’t ever want it to be that I don’t think you should do this because it’s not about me. And it’s not about whoever the coach is or whoever the mentor is, it’s about the tool. And so you phrase everything as it relates to this is a tool that is a standard in our practice, this is deemed to be the gold star tool, and it represents what we believe in as a field. And so what we’re talking about is alignment with the tool. So it’s not about I don’t want to see you doing that again, it’s never about you as the mentor or the coach or the trainer. It’s always about the teacher’s alignment with the tool. And so that’s one thing because if I come in and I say, I don’t like this, then it’s like we all hate Ja Carlo, we hate her. We’re not going to listen to her. But if it’s about the tool that makes it a little more challenging to argue with.

We also try and start off with strength. So when you are going in, it’s kind of like the golden rule. You have five positives, very one minute manager, kind of a mindset. You start off with something really positive, then you kind of sandwich in your constructive criticism. And it needs to be very concrete, very specific, which is a basic tenant of early childhood. It’s what we’re doing with children all day anyway. And then we end with something positive, really go-getter. You have great energy and I have no doubt at all that you can pull this off, want to keep it constructive,

Erin Stanley:

Brilliant,

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

And lots of praise. And also there is a lot of research that talks about giving feedback and you want to make sure what research tells us is that what people want the most in their job is positive, specific job related feedback in front of peers. That’s what they want

Erin Stanley:

In front of peers.

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

In front of peers surprises

Erin Stanley:

Me.

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

And so you want to make sure that you are praising in public and that you’re giving feedback. In private, we don’t ever give feedback in front of anybody else. It is a very private kind of thing. Even right before this meeting, I was in my discussion forum for one of my graduate classes. And so I was giving some feedback. And so if somebody said something really good and meaningful, I was typing back a response that everybody can see. But if they said something that was a little bit off the mark, there’s a box I can check that says reply in private. And so nobody else sees it, but that specific student.

Erin Stanley:

And

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

So it’s really, really important because if you give negative feedback, it causes the person to in front of other people immediately become defensive. And we really want to make sure that we’re focusing on those relationships and we’re nurturing those relationships because when I have to have a hard conversation, I’m going to need that trust relationship already built for them to be able to listen.

Erin Stanley:

I was just mentioning how amazing the collaboration then between your study participants was that they were sending videos to each other, and I’m sure they were used to this culture where they were praised among their peers and they wanted to do more of that among each other.

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

And so now we do have a pretty high degree of compliance with people. We don’t have to prompt people too often like, Hey, I need this month’s video. People are pretty compliant. And we’ve seen our scores go up and up. I mean, after Covid, I would say it was really tough because we did have a fair amount of turnover like everybody else. And whenever you onboard a new employee, reacclimating them to the model and maybe they stay, maybe they don’t. And so we’re just kind of in the last year at the point where I feel like our workforce has stabilized. And so we’re starting to see as a program, our scores go up again, which is really nice.

Erin Stanley:

That’s amazing. Mary asked just a clarifying question. When you’re talking about that you’re using a tool and that’s what you’re using to observe against, you’re talking about the class framework for example, or another kind of rubric could be used, but that’s basically Yes.

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Okay. Yeah. So for example, if you were, I’m working with somebody right now who is a literacy researcher. And so she’s looking at open-ended question questioning teachers use of open-ended questioning on mean length utterance with young kids, how much they’re going to respond. And so we have a separate rubric for that. So I mean you can use video self-reflection for a lot of different things.

Erin Stanley:

Yeah. So thank you so much for your time today sharing this study with us, sharing what continuing to do after this study and what you’ve learned. One last question for you. How do you see this video-based professional development evolving in early childhood education over the next decade? And more broadly, what do you see happening with early? What are your hopes for early childhood education over the next decade?

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Well, what I’m seeing right now with early childhood education, well, what I’m hoping for early childhood education in the next decade is that we continue to professionalize the profession of early current education. So we maybe see increased credentialing of teachers in birth to four who are in community-based settings, more of a system for that segment of the education population and increased requirements because of the burst of brain development that happens during that very critical time. And that teachers who work in those settings have access to the same kinds of salaries and benefits that we see in public schools. So credentialing is great, but the trade is that sometimes once teachers in early care environments get those credentials, and I can’t blame ’em, they move on where the pay is a little better and the benefits are a little better. And so we really don’t want our youngest learners to miss out on having those really strong, highly skilled teachers as far as using video-based professional development and early childhood, I think we learned a lot of lessons during covid of what is possible.

And so in the time where we were open, but we were not yet accepting visitors into our centers and kind of during a classroom quarantine kind of model, we still were able to participate in our video supervision of our students and still able to satisfy our licensure requirements of having our teachers assess using video-based modeling. And it really is just such an efficient means of getting the information that’s needed rather than having people driving all over town and gaining access to centers and things like that. So it makes a lot of things possible and easier.

Erin Stanley:

Yeah, love that. And that’s my hope for early childhood education as well. It’s so important. Thank you. Thank you. So last thing I’m just going to mention is Gore React puts on a virtual conference every spring called Reaction. And this is a time where we bring together higher education, K 12, early childhood, all different kinds of education and leaders and instructors to talk about what’s happening in education, what the trends are, what they’ve learned, what they’re doing. And so I just want to invite all of you to check out our call for proposals page. We’ll put the link in the chat to get more information, and we’d love to have you submit a proposal to speak at this conference that’s happening in April. The deadline for proposals is January 31st, and you can always email me with questions. Reach out, please and everyone have a great day.

Dr. Cynthia DiCarlo:

Thank you.