Unlock Teacher Growth through Coaching and Reflection

Pete Morgan:

Okay, let’s go ahead and get started. Everyone, hello. Hello and welcome to our webinar today. We’re thrilled to have everybody that has joined us and hope that you enjoyed our presentation and are able to walk away today with some further preparation on how to unlock teacher growth through coaching and reflection. My name is Pete Morgan. I am the strategic account manager for GoReact, and I will be moderating today’s presentation. For those that are not familiar with GoReact and why this topic today is so important to us, GoReact is a video feedback solution and we’ve taken our 10+ years of experience in helping higher education institutions with student skill development and jumped headfirst into this new help in helping teachers and school districts support teacher growth through the same technology. Before we get started, I’m going to go through just a little bit of housekeeping to make sure that we’re all up to par before we get going.

Today’s event is scheduled for about 45 minutes. That’ll include 30 minutes of the presentation itself, and we’ll leave 10 to 15 minutes at the end for Q&A. So be sure to think about questions that you would like from our two panelists today and any question that you would responded to. Put those things through the Q&A and I’ll talk about that here in just a second. We will be recording today’s presentation, so if you need to hop off for any minute, any reason before we finish, don’t worry, the recording will be shared and you can also pass that along to other colleagues and receive that recording through email for the same situation that you signed up with. We do want today’s presentation to be as interactive as possible, so please, please, please use the chat, make sure that your chat is open up to everyone so that everybody is able to see your responses, your questions, those types of things, and if you have any particular questions that you would like answered during that Q&A session towards the end, make sure to submit that in the Q&A section.

We also will be monitoring everything in the chat. Please feel free to introduce yourself, tell us what school you’re from, share any relevant resources that you’d like with other attendees. All of those things can be done through the chat. Any particular questions, like I said, use the Q&A. For any difficulty, technical that you experience, anything that way, let us know, reach out through the chat. You can go ahead and send that to us as well to make sure that we get it all taken care of for you. Now to introduce our guests for today, we are incredibly excited to have Lindsey Wickersham, an induction coordinator, and Jennifer Merry, teacher on assignment and instructional coach from Ontario-Montclair School District in California.

We today are going to jump right into a series of questions and a number of things that we’ve received from our customers, from our own internal uses, and be able to really get into this topic of unlocking teacher growth. So why don’t we get started with a couple of intros. Lindsey, why don’t you start first and then Jennifer, I’ll have you follow. Just introduce yourself briefly for us.

Lindsey Wickersham:

Hi everybody, my name is Lindsey Wickersham and I am the coordinator for induction here in Ontario-Montclair. So I work with new teacher candidates and then I work and train the mentors who work with the rest of our large group.

Pete Morgan:

Great.

Jennifer Merry:

Hi everyone, my name’s Jenny Merry. I am a full-time induction mentor, which means that I get to work with some of our newest teachers in our district.

Pete Morgan:

Fantastic. Thank you so much. For everybody that’s here and listening, be excited. This is going to be a great chat. We’re going to have a lot of really good discussions and we have a lot of confidence in these two panelists. So as we get started, we’re talking again about unlocking teacher growth through coaching and reflection, which I think is pretty important to state here. As we talk about unlocking anything, there are particular keys to unlock talents, unlock our different competencies. So as we talk about coaching and reflection, there’s so much that will come out of all of this. So maybe Lindsey, why don’t we start with you. The first set that we have here and what we’d like to know is if you could just tell us a little bit about your observation process. How many observations generally need to be done and how are mentors and teachers completing them with you right now?

Lindsey Wickersham:

Sure. So in every year of induction, our candidates have four observations that they’re required to do by their mentor, and two of those we want to be in person. So the mentor typically gets a sub if they’re a classroom teacher themselves, goes into the class, takes observation notes. And then two of them, we started using GoReact so the candidates could choose the lesson and the day they wanted to record, they would record using GoReact, and then the mentors would be able to watch and give feedback that way.

Pete Morgan:

Okay, fantastic. So maybe if I shift gears… Or no, let’s stay here. Let’s stay with Lindsey. This is a good idea. Let’s do this. Tell me a little bit about with the intro of GoReact, how does that compare, say last year’s observations when GoReact was fresh to everybody compared to this year’s observations as people are more in tune with the tool and GoReact?

Lindsey Wickersham:

So last year, always introducing something with technology is a bit tricky because some of our mentors have been mentors for years, so something new changes things and that makes them uncomfortable. So Jenny and I created all the assignments, so all they would have to do is click the button and record. We had some struggles with technology and being connected to the internet last year, but this year we started off the year with having a year under our belt. So now even for the in-person observations, I would say about 75% of our mentors are using GoReact to record even if they’re in person, and then allowing their candidates to watch their own lesson prior to their post-observation debrief. And we changed the settings this year to allow mentors to have control of the assignments so they can go and record on their own device and then watch their candidates teach so we don’t have a mix-up of devices, if that makes sense. They have more control to observe their candidates compared to Jenny and I creating those assignments for them.

Pete Morgan:

Jenny, pick up on that just a little bit. We talk about pre-configured design, the simplicity of access, right? Tell me a little bit more about your experience last year versus this year in that same regard.

Jennifer Merry:

So I think that other than it being easier for mentors because now they have a little bit more control and they kind of know what is going on, it’s easier for our teachers that have been with us for the second year now. Now they understand the layout, now they understand where to find things, and we didn’t have to reintroduce it. It’s more of a common language with the candidates that we’re working with. Like last year we were a little bit more lenient with the reflection piece, which I know Lindsey’s going to talk about, but now we’re trying to zone in on the reflection and grow the self-reflection a lot more, and it does seem to be, like I said, more of a common language and a little bit easier for everyone involved.

Pete Morgan:

Definitely. And I think that we see this everywhere inside of GoReact as well, that common language, common practice, being comfortable with the technology that is at our disposal that way helps us to level up our progress, our ability to progress quickly. So when we think about just that, I want to know, Lindsey, maybe pointing back to you, what are some of the biggest gains that you’ve observed in the practice of your new and developing teachers now that this comfortability is that foundation?

Lindsey Wickersham:

So there’s been a lot of research on how watching yourself teach has a big impact on student instruction is actually more valuable for teachers and professional development compared to like a sit-and-get PD. So I know that if teachers are watching their teaching and they’re really reflecting, they’re going to see that thing that didn’t go right, the thing that the kids were doing in the back of the room that maybe they didn’t see when they were focused on teaching the lesson. So it makes me so happy when I record a teacher or they record their own lesson and then I look on GoReact and I can see tons of reflective feedback and comments where the teachers say, oh my gosh, I shouldn’t have done this. Or I noticed those students in the back of the room, they weren’t engaged at all. They pick up on all of those things. I don’t know another way to say it other than it’s just that thing they see it.

So then when we meet, the conversation is already there because I can say, all right, I see that you left all of these reflective comments and you caught these strategies or lessons or students that didn’t go the way you wanted, and we can plan from there. So instead of me just coming in kind of saying like, well, did you notice this? Or here’s this and me telling them everything, they’ve already self-reflected and saw it, so now they’re ready to grow and learn and we could move forward kind of at a quicker pace and dig into what matters most in instruction.

Pete Morgan:

Almost like cutting out the nuance in between of having to compete with memory, right?

Lindsey Wickersham:

Yeah.

Pete Morgan:

[inaudible 00:09:54] back and say, hey, I recognized or noticed that you did this, and that teacher who was so focused on a great lesson is saying, no, I didn’t. I saw everything. I was there, I was present. This idea of competing memories we see so often, but when it comes back to self-reflection and we’re able to notice those things well before the discussion ever happens, all those details and those nuances get pushed to the side because we’re already in the right channel to provide better mentoring, better coaching, and speak to more specific details. That’s great.

So if we have those moments, self-reflection, we have those moments of understanding and we can jump right into better coaching. Maybe Lindsey to kick off, and Jenny, if you wouldn’t mind following up here, what are some of the changes that you’ve made in your mentorship program that have had maybe the biggest impact then? What things are you implementing and change because we’re able to jump right to really great coaching?

Lindsey Wickersham:

So prior to GoReact, we wanted mentors to record lessons and in that sense they would use their phones or if they had an iPad. They would record the lesson when they were there in person because we had none online. And then we didn’t really have a process or a template for how the teacher would view it. So sometimes they would upload it to a Google Drive and have say, okay, I want you to watch this video, but there were no questions, there was no follow-up when the teacher was watching. So realistically we had no idea if the teacher was watching or not.

So now using GoReact, number one, the greatest thing for me is that it’s time coded so it stops when they watch it, which is really helpful when reflecting and leaving those comments. But so now the expectation is that mentors and our candidates will record using GoReact, mentors can leave feedback, but we also tie it to the six California standards for the teaching profession, and those are markers that we have at the bottom of GoReact. So that makes it easy because everything in induction is going to be tied to the CSTPs, those standards for the teaching profession, and we’re leaving evidence and asking questions based on those. So now that they’re there, that’s all done via GoReact.

Pete Morgan:

Fantastic. Jenny, what else? Piggyback on that.

Jennifer Merry:

Yeah, so I think that, it seems so silly, but one of the greatest impacts too is that pause button, or it’s not even a pause button, but as soon as we as mentors start typing, it stops the video and so everything is timestamped. So we can go back and have that conversation about what were students doing in this 15 seconds? And we can have resources ready because we know that the teacher already noticed it also because of their comments, so we can kind of plan for our conversation to go deeper. And then another, it’s just everything’s all in one platform now. So before when we had videos here, we didn’t know if they were watching and then we had documents here, everything’s in one thing. So it just creates more brain space for our teachers and for our mentors because everything’s in one place and we know exactly where we’re going to go. And we can also share resources through GoReact, which we’ve been doing too. And so again, it’s all in one place so we know where to find it. So that’s been really great.

Pete Morgan:

And through both of your answers, we’ve had a couple of different details, lead ups to this next question, but as we think about how GoReact is able to gather information, bring everything into one place, tell me a little bit about how your debrief process has evolved since adopting GoReact as well. Let’s jump back, Lindsey, why don’t you kick off and then Jenny, you as well build on that just like we did before.

Lindsey Wickersham:

So the debrief, kind of like how I mentioned before, is that it’s smoother, it’s more natural, and I think it’s more authentic. And it lessens the, maybe if there’s some uncomfortable things that need to be talked about or the vulnerability of the candidate and the mentor, because the teacher’s watching themselves teach, they get a chance to process it before they meet with somebody who’s going to say, what do you think and what do you think we can work on or where do you think you want to go from there? So the candidate’s able to pick up on the things the mentor probably would’ve said, or that’s our hope at least, and then see it. Of course, it doesn’t always go like that. Sometimes teachers are like, I think that’s the greatest lesson ever. But then you have the video in GoReact to say, let’s look right here and you can pull up the minute and say, tell me what you see so you can be doing that sitting together and using this video.

Pete Morgan:

[inaudible 00:14:32] productive and how supportive in that, right? To say, well, of course you did a great job, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t still improve. Let’s focus on this point. That’s great. Jenny?

Jennifer Merry:

Our district, we have a great coaching system already and we focus on student-centered coaching. We have a student-centered coaching philosophy, so looking at what students are doing and what they’re producing to kick off the conversation with teachers. And then, again, GoReact is a perfect way to do that because we’re recording not just the teacher in the front of the room, but we can pick up most of the students if not all of the students. So we can have those conversations like, well, you asked your students to talk to their table partner about the math lesson or whatever. And then using GoReact, we can look and see how many students were actually turning to their partner and talking and putting it on students so that it makes it a little bit easier for teachers to hear that feedback, which has really been great for ensuring the self-reflection piece.

Pete Morgan:

Right, definitely. Great answer. Lindsey, I know that we’ve heard, and I know that you’ve had in the past a few issues with some subtitles inside of maybe utilizing this tool. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about the issue that you had and how you were able to solve those problems?

Lindsey Wickersham:

So after COVID, we all know that changed everything, but in terms of substitute teachers, when a teacher got sick, they had to be out for a certain number of days. So we were short substitute teachers within our district to the point where all of us here at the district office were being asked to sub a certain number of days a week because there was such a crisis with substitutes, and our subs cost quite a bit of money per day. So what we found is that with GoReact, well, let me back up a little bit. The first priority of substitutes goes for illness. So if we have a training or a PD or mentor observations in this case, if there were more teachers that were out for medical reasons or sickness, those subs got canceled for those trainings or observations and put towards illness. So that was priority number one.

So then we had teachers who were creating lesson plans thinking that their mentor was going to come and observe them, mentors who were creating lesson plans for their day out for a sub that would get canceled sometimes the day before or the day of. And so that would just throw everybody off. So by using GoReact, it took that away in the fact that now the mentor could observe the candidate at their own time after school or during their prep or whatever because the candidate got a record, upload, and then the mentor got to leave feedback in that sense. So not only was it a financial savings for the district because of the increasing cost of what it cost to pay for a sub, but it also allowed the teachers to be observed and the mentors to observe them without having to physically leave their classrooms.

And then I think, well, number one, it’s a little bit safer too. So having the mentor not be there in person sometimes is a little bit of a relief for the candidate. And although our sub situation has improved over the past year or so, there’s still things that happen and there’s still sicknesses and they will always get pulled to cover illnesses first. So it’s not officially like a backup plan, but it provides us a peace of mind saying like, okay, my sub got pulled, I want you to record instead, and we can still accomplish the same task.

Pete Morgan:

Definitely. Well, and such an important topic to talk about when we utilize the tool as it’s supposed to, right? When it opens up these opportunities in these difficult situations, not only is there the cost savings like what you talked about in the cost of a sub, but we also have cost savings in those places that may not have the luxury of being close in proximity within their districts that require an eyes on experience that generally is translated to be there in person. The travel costs, the in between, all those different things. There’s so much that we’ve seen throughout our spheres where GoReact is saving districts and institutions and universities so much money in being able to provide even better in context and constructive feedback without the requirement of as much travel or the cost of a sub, anything that way. Really, really good points, thank you there. Jenny, maybe let’s turn to you for a sec here. Are there any specific articles or studies that you’ve come across that reinforce the importance of a strong mentor and teacher relationship? I think this could be a very interesting point here.

Jennifer Merry:

Yeah, I actually came across an article just last month in NIET Today. I think the link is going to be shared with you, but it just is all about how a good mentor is so pivotal for teachers in general, but especially new teachers. And we know that teachers are not staying in education for as long as they once were. And keeping teachers in the career is something that’s really important because, I mean, and then we were just talking about cost, but the cost of hiring and training a new teacher is a lot also. And if we can keep teachers in their classrooms and if we can keep teachers in education, then they grow as professionals. So the article is all about just different data points showing how a good mentor can help new teachers stay in education for longer. They have that person to go to to vent about things or to say like, this parent needs this and I don’t know how to answer this yet.

It’s just like the experienced person that can help you out with just different things that you have no idea how to conquer that day. Because there’s like 20 things that’s being thrown at a new teacher every single day and they don’t have that prior knowledge yet, so a mentor can help them with all of those things. And that’s one thing that Lindsey and I have talked a lot about of GoReact I think helps the relationship, and we kind of touched on this before because it can be more genuine.

I don’t have to go in and point out all the things like we were talking about before, where they are usually catching them. And if they didn’t catch them, then I can go like, oh, okay, let’s go back to 10 minutes, 35 seconds, and just like, let’s look at what students are doing here. So it’s not like I’m picking on them at all, and I can just offer the advice, have the resources ready, and just have that conversation with them and go a little bit deeper with the conversation. So GoReact has really helped the mentor part for us to be there for our candidates.

Pete Morgan:

And for everyone that’s listening, the article that Jennifer is referencing is in the chat for you, but you can see where we’re starting to be able to extract some of those keys to unlock teacher growth and this professional development. In the very beginning, we talk about streamlined technology, easy access to those types of things. Great self-reflection is another one of those wonderful keys that unlocks these pieces. But all of those build up to this kind of pinnacle moment where if I don’t have a foundation of trust or a good relationship with my mentor, I still don’t have someone to turn to in those difficult situations with that knowledge that I don’t yet have, with the questions that I would like answers to.

So I feel like that’s another fantastic key to unlocking the potential here is utilizing all these other aspects to form a great trusting relationship with someone so that I, as a teacher, as a future mentor or with my mentor, I’m able to just feel like I’m taking care of, that I have someone that is an advocate for me as a progressing and growing teacher. I think that’s a great, great point there. Lindsey, let’s turn back to you for our final question that we have here on the set, but how are you partnering with your mentors to constantly improve this process?

Lindsey Wickersham:

Yeah, so like you said, you brought up trust, and that’s our first piece is how to build that rapport and trust with mentors so you can have that relationship. So you can be at a place where you can give feedback and ask those tough questions. Because ultimately we want those teachers to improve for our students so we have student growth. So a big chunk of the training that we do with mentors is giving feedback, and we really have shifted from making it all about the teacher to student-centered feedback. So that also lessens the hard conversations because instead of saying, did you see what you did here? You let students go without making sure they understand the concept and then you just let them go independently and that didn’t work. That can be received as harsh. But instead you can say, are you seeing what the students are doing here? Do you think that they understood the directions and the task and how do you know that? Or how do you know the students were engaged?

So it flips it from focusing on the teacher to what are the students doing and how do you know? So just this past induction session last week, in terms of improving the process of feedback, I had a specific slide where I gave very explicit directions on what I wanted to happen with GoReact. So for the second observation, we just finished the first one, which is in person. The second observation is a GoReact recorded lesson, and I want everybody, so now we’re talking about last year we kind of were lenient, this year we’re more focused in on the expectations for GoReact. So every candidate needs to record their lesson and they have to watch it within that first week and leave some reflective comments, questions, or those aha moments, those things that they catch, prior to their mentor watching it. After the candidate has self-reflected on their own lesson, then the mentor will leave some feedback and questions and then they can meet in person to debrief. So always effective feedback. So that’s I think step one.

We have a mentor training coming up in a few weeks, and we’re going to look at feedback. So my plan is to pull up some samples of GoReact feedback from this past observation and see what works and what doesn’t, how we keep it student-centered and not teacher focused, and then it’s just we’re all in the same room together so we can build off of each other. So if I say I’m having a problem, this teacher is really struggling with classroom management, has anybody experienced that and what are you saying? These mentors just share ideas and say, okay, I did that. Here’s what I did when I recorded this lesson, there was these minutes where the students were not listening and they were getting up. So I was able to have that conversation and ask, what are your routines? What are your procedures? So that’s just an example.

So I think looking at the trends or patterns we see with the feedback that we’re giving and looking at examples, that’s the feedback that I’ve received from mentors in the past is seeing examples, being able to read examples of feedback, and then talking with each other to get those good question stems about how they’re going to breach this topic with their candidate.

Pete Morgan:

That’s fantastic. So great and in depth, great example. That brings up one or maybe even a couple of questions that I have as we transition into our QA session. Both of you, phenomenal. Thank you so much, so much detail, so many different examples and good practices for everybody to understand. For everyone that’s listening, as we transition into the QA, please feel free to open up the QA section, write any of your questions that you’d like posted there. I know that we haven’t seen any just yet, so if anybody does have a question, a comment, an example, something that you’d like to be shared here, feel free to open that up. Maybe I’ll kick off with a question for the both of you. I think either of you could handle this or maybe both of you would be better, but I’ll kick off with a question and kind of open things up and then hopefully we’ll get a couple of different QA questions coming in from the audience.

We talk about this final topic, the partnering with our mentors, student-focused feedback rather than teacher-focused feedback. Tell me a little bit about the self-reflection process and if you’ve noticed that someone that goes in and is able to effectively reflect on the video before you start to get together as a mentor and teacher candidate, how well does an instructor do for themselves when they self-reflect versus not or when they effectively self-reflect versus just getting in there and going through the motions? Do you notice a difference and do you have any examples of teachers that are progressing in a good head space or progressing quickly because they are effectively utilizing the tool and self-reflecting?

Jennifer Merry:

I have some teachers this year that are really, really great at self-reflection and some that I’m going to be coaching along on building those skills. So some of the teachers that are really great at self-reflection, I mean some of them will even notice things before they even watch their video. So I’m packing up my bag and I’m like, okay, make sure you watch it and I’ll see you next week. And they’re like, well, I know that it didn’t go the way I planned, and they are already listing all that and I’m like, yeah, but there were some really great things too. So I want you to watch and I want you to just be open and just look and see what happened.

So those teachers are reflecting on a minute to minute basis. But with GoReact, they’re able, as you were talking about and we’ve talked about like they’re student-centered, so I might have thought in my lesson that I didn’t explain it well, and so if I already know that going in watching, then I can watch it and I can watch to see what my students are doing. So I can reflect on that piece and that’s kind of what I’m hoping to get my teachers to do a little bit more.

On the ones that aren’t as reflective, like I said, like coaching them. So I might have a bunch of things to say when I come into a debrief, but I’ll always start with what went well and I want them to point out three or four things that went well during their lesson and we’ll start with really little things. And if they can’t, then I’ll help them along getting there and I’ll go back to the video and we’ll look at a minute here, 30 seconds here, what did you notice? What do you like about this part? And then what could have gone better is my second question. And then that kind of just opens it to, you know, people are their harshest critics in most cases. So then that’s when the flood gates open and like, well, I could have done this. And then so I’m like, okay, well let’s rein it in and let’s look at what students are doing, so how you want to change things, but what would that do for student learning? So we talk about that and we just make it, like we were pointing out, student-centered.

Pete Morgan:

Fantastic. I know that we just got a question coming through the chat, and so I’m going to read over this really quick to make sure that I have the focus of the question. But the topic that you’re bringing up there, Jenny, is really interesting and I want to hear a little bit about. My interpretation of this is that, and when we start with self-reflection, maybe somebody’s first time really self-reflecting, first I have to learn how to self-reflect. I have to learn how to watch the video and interpret those details correctly. But as I progress in that, as I become comfortable in self-reflection, like you mentioned, all of a sudden I can start to reflect in the moment, or like you mentioned, minute by minute. I’m able to see what’s happening in the moment of my teaching without having to go to the video after. So when I do go to the video after, I have specific moments to jump into that I know exactly what I want to touch on.

I think that is such a powerful statement in saying that the more comfortable I become with self-reflection, not only am I already going to be my own harshest critic, but I can be more specific in the moments of what really need to improve and maybe what things are not that important, that are just, okay, that passed on. Lindsey, I saw you nodding a whole bunch through all of that, you have something to say. So feedback on that for me and bring it on top.

Lindsey Wickersham:

So when Jenny was mentioning that sometimes it’s easy and you have those naturally self-reflective with the growth mindset teachers, that’s a lot of our new teachers, but you do have some teachers that, number one, will just look at the video and make an overall statement and they don’t know how to pinpoint it. So because we’ve built those relationships with the teachers, like I know which teachers are going to do that. So then I will leave a comment in the beginning of GoReact for their lesson, and I’ll say, hey, when you’re watching this video, I want you to pay attention to X and Y. So the last one I did was I want you to pay attention to how students are interacting with each other and how much time students get to talk versus how much time teacher gets to talk. So then they have certain things to focus on so they’re not focusing on everything because sometimes, like Jenny said, we’re our harshest critics, so they’re going to pick apart everything and I don’t want it to be about that.

And I don’t want them to focus on them as a teacher, like how they look and what they sound like and all of that. I want them to focus on the instruction and what the kids are doing. So a lot of times, I have my like, I call it my sneaky little way. Like I want them to pick up on some things before we talk so I’m going to guide them to pay attention to those, and it helps them just to have a focus and not look at everything as a whole.

Pete Morgan:

And this topic drives perfectly into the question that came through the chat, so I’m glad that I turned to you first, Lindsey. The [inaudible 00:33:44] of the entirety of a video or a lesson is a lot to consume. It’s a lot of time spent inside of there. But if we can narrow things to a very particular focus and drive to a very specific few moments, that not only streamlines the entire reflection process, but helps us hone in on the most important details to continue building as a coach or mentor.

Denise has an explanation and a question in here, but I want both of you to take a stab at this after I’m finished reading through the question. What Denise Petit says, “We’re just kicking off the use of instructional coaches in my district. We have one for math and one for reading district-wide. We do not utilize mentor teachers, at least in the same capacity y’all are describing. My question is how could we best utilize this in our small district when we only have two coaches to serve the entire county? Sounds like GoReact may be a great option simply because our attendance in the classroom may not be necessary every time.”

So build on this for me. We’re talking about streamlining the process, we’re talking about honing in on focal points so that we provide really good feedback. What else are your suggestions for two mentors for an entire district and county that need to be able to be effective in their use of time?

Lindsey Wickersham:

So my ideas for that would be, I’m sure you guys have goals for language arts and for math and you wanted to focus on something. So let’s say for example we’re focusing on language arts and we’re focusing on comprehension as a district. So if they’re out there, if there’s only, I’ll say, okay, there’s only one, and this coach knows that there are some really strong teachers who effectively teach many lessons in comprehension, she can use GoReact to record that exemplary teacher and then use that video to train or to support other teachers by having them watch it and give them specific look fors.

Like when were students engaged with the texts? What parts of the text were students reading versus the teacher reading? What questions did the teacher ask to get the students to comprehend the material? So she could use it kind of like in a flipped way. Here’s a great example, here’s what it can be, what do you guys notice? And she doesn’t even have to say this is a great example. If the teacher’s open to sharing that and letting somebody come record her class or recording her own lesson, just like, what do you notice? What was effective? And kind of let them see that. I don’t know, Jenny, do you have anything else?

Jennifer Merry:

No, I was thinking the same. I think that that would be a great way in the door to start talking to teachers. It’s not like going into teachers’ classrooms that you don’t know yet and recording them and then getting them to try to self-reflect on it or point out those things. I think it’s more approachable when you’re like, oh, let’s look at what this teacher is doing. Are there aspects of this lesson that you can use in your classroom? So I think that that is a good idea.

Lindsey Wickersham:

Oh, you could also, I have one more idea. If she has somebody who’s willing to do like a mini coaching cycle with her and opening her classroom door so they could work over a period of three to six weeks and then be able to record weekly to then learn, the teacher’s going to grow by watching herself, but then she can use that example to impact more teachers in the district.

Pete Morgan:

This builds on such a principle that I see in my world in GoReact as the strategic account manager so often is that far too often when GoReact is opened up for the very first time, people jump straight to recording. Which is great. It’s a 95% use case across the board for GoReact. But what I feel misses far too often is just what you two are touching on. Is how do we introduce the topic of what is best practice and allow ourselves to set the expectation for those teacher candidates to say this is what we’re focusing on. These are the key aspects of what I want you to be able to see and implement. Now go and record.

Flipping the script that way and utilizing what GoReact’s functionality calls a comment only assignment where instead of recording ourselves, we launch to see a prompt video, something that’s already in play for us. And the only responsibility of the user there is to observe, to analyze, to see what best practice really is before I ever contemplate recording myself. What a powerful opportunity to jump in and use GoReact in a flipped motion, but gain perspective and comfortability with the tool from the get-go. Really, really great example there.

We have time for I think one last question. We just had one come through the chat, so we’ll jump into here and I’ll let the both of you stab at it again because doing a phenomenal job. Bonnie here, Bonnie Reedy says, “We will be using GoReact for admin observations of teachers, new and veteran. Would you say the self-reflection piece and the ability to comment on the videos are the most effective ways to use the tool? Maybe what are some of your insider tricks, your sneaky ways, as you put it, Lindsey, what are the best ways to utilize GoReact in that type of instance?”

Lindsey Wickersham:

That’s so cool that you’re using it for teacher observations. I actually brought this up with my boss. I don’t know if our teachers would even do that or our union wouldn’t allow that, but I think the self-reflection piece, so okay, I’m just giving an example here. At the beginning of the year, teachers set their goals, their own professional goals that they want to work on throughout the year and they share that with their admin. So if I’m up for an observation this year and I know that my principal is going to be observing me and recording it, maybe if my goal is classroom engagement, to increase classroom engagement, then it can be self-driven and that’s what I’m going to look for evidence of. So my principal says, all right, you stated that your goal was increase student engagement in the lesson. So after I record this lesson, I want you to reflect on the different engagement pieces that you saw in the lesson so then we can talk about that after.

Because I think it has to be, it’s not like a caught you thing, because that doesn’t work well with teachers. We don’t like that feeling. We like to come up with our own, like what do we want to improve on and then find it, compared to a principal saying, did you see you did X, Y, and Z? That was not good, or however they’re going to say that. But if a principal does, I’m thinking of like a tricky teacher who maybe needs some real help, as an admin, I would say as you watch this video, I want you to look for, and I would give her or him the things that I want them to look for evidence of in the video and see what they come up with. Because clearly, if the students aren’t engaged and I say, tell me ways the students were engaged, they’re not going to be able to come up with anything or it’s going to be stretching it. And that leads to a conversation on how do we improve that after.

Pete Morgan:

Yeah, great point. Jenny, I see your head moving. What have you got for me?

Jennifer Merry:

No, I’m just agreeing with everything she’s saying. I think we’ve talked a lot about self-reflection and then the comment part of GoReact and we use the markers like we talked about earlier. I think even admin could even go in there and put little things like in the next two minutes, count how many students are on task. And then again, that puts it back on the teacher to notice what’s happening in that moment. And there is a focus and it’s funneling down to what the admin wants, but it’s just like what we do in the classroom as teachers. We know where we want our students to grow and go for that lesson and so we’re guiding them there, and that’s the same as the mentors, or the admin in this case. We’re guiding them to what we want them to see so that they can be empowered by their own discovery.

Pete Morgan:

Yeah, really great. And it does, it opens up an opportunity not just to allow for basic self-reflection for the video recording, but to set the guidelines, to set the focus there. And I think that’s such an important piece, is setting up these teacher candidates for success. Setting up these professionals that are trying to grow and to enhance their skills, giving them the tools for success or the guideline, the pathway to lead to that point. Because what you are, right? You’re the mentor, you’re the coach, you’re the one that has looked at as the expert. So what a powerful way to utilize the tool in so many different ways. Thank you both so much for the discussion, everyone that’s here as well for your participation, especially the couple of questions, Denise and Bonnie, thank you. This has been really great. Lots of good info, tons to come from this recording. Please feel free, again, like we said in the very beginning, pass this along to anyone that needs to hear it, share it with those that would be necessary. There’s just so much that we can gain from this.

And maybe just on that note, a final thought of mine as I’ve been listening and understanding or learning more about this topic. The keys to unlocking teacher development or professional progress, there are so many of them, but it feels as though there’s a process from this discussion. There is a streamlined technology, something that is easy to access and be able to empower certain skills, there is deliberate guidelines, whether that is observation of good practice or focus points for self-reflection, and there is a level of trust and relationship from a mentor, a coach, or somebody that is able to provide good constructive feedback. I feel like on those foundations, those keys, if you will, unlocking teacher potential and progress can be really easy and very positive. So everyone, thank you for being here. You’re fantastic. Really appreciate you. Thank you to our panelists. You were incredible. I hope everybody has a really great rest of your day and can take something from this webinar. Thank you so much everybody, and have a good one.