Using GoReact in Teacher Prep: Post-COVID & Forever

Hillary Gamblin:

Hello, and thank you for joining today’s workshop on using GoReact in a post COVID environment. My name’s Hillary Gamblin, I’m the GoReact employee and the host of the Teacher Education podcast. And today, I’ll be interviewing Dr. Tom Fisher. Tom, do you want to introduce yourself?

Tom Fisher:

Well, I guess, I mean, this is like the third time, so I don’t have anything new necessarily to say about myself other than to say, this is the trilogy, right? And the only original cast members are myself and Jordan, so shout out there to Jordan, out there behind the scenes. I’m Tom Fisher and I supervise student teachers and I teach courses at UNC Charlotte, and we are either the largest or second largest, depending on semester, producers of teacher candidates in North Carolina.

Hillary Gamblin:

Thank you for joining us, Tom, for the third time, as you said, it’s a trilogy. As you said, you’ve been using GoReact for years, and as the vaccine is becoming more widely available in the US, it seemed timely to maybe discuss how to use GoReact in in-person instruction, because hopefully that’s where we are going. And some GoReact users have only used it for online and hybrid instruction because they joined us during the pandemic. So, this workshop is to help remind everybody, how to begin using GoReact for those in-person learning environments.

Hillary Gamblin:

Now, for those of you who are new to GoReact workshops, let me outline how we structured the virtual events. For the first 30 minutes or so, I’m going to be discussing with Tom how it’s not only possible, but necessary, to use GoReact for in-person instruction. And then after interviewing Tom, we’re going to do a live Q&A for about 15 minutes. If you’d like to submit a question for the Q&A, there is a tab just below the video feed, and there is a fantastic little upvote feature. So, if you see someone else’s question and you’re like, “Yes, I want the answered as well.” You can vote for it. Don’t forget the chat feature, which is located on the right side of the video feed. And that’s where people discuss ideas, exchange information, yada, yada, yada, no really, yada, yada, yada, it really is important. A lot goes on there, so don’t miss out there.

Hillary Gamblin:

And right next to that, is the ask a question, it’s a polling feature. And we actually would like to start off today’s workshop getting to know you, our audience that’s here live, a little bit better with the polling questions. The question is, have you used GoReact for online and hybrid instruction? And the answers you can select are, yes, yes, but I’ve also done face-to-face, no, I’ve only used it for face-to-face, and then no, I’m new to GoReact. We’re going to give you a few seconds to answer that polling question and we’ll see who is joining us today.

Tom Fisher:

I’m going to go ahead and advance the slides to my silly quote, while they’re doing that.

Hillary Gamblin:

Okay. So, a lot of us are new to GoReact. That is great to know. Fantastic, Tom. Yes, now we know who’s joining us. We will for sure be trying to get all the information that you need to know how you can use it in hybrid, online and in-person learning environments. So, fantastic. Now, we’ve covered technical details, we know a little bit more about you or audience that are participating, and we outlined the goals of the workshop, let’s get started.

Hillary Gamblin:

Tom, you started using GoReact before the pandemic, during that time, how were you using it?

Tom Fisher:

Yeah, so I definitely used it before the pandemic and the reason I did, so it was for distance education. So, I handle a lot of RDE, we do have quite a few candidates pre pandemic. We had quite a few that we would have to see remotely because they would be several hours from Charlotte and it wouldn’t be possible for me to drive there. So, we were using things like WebEx and Skype and FaceTime, and sometimes those things were unstable or they just weren’t reliable. And so, there was some logistical nightmares around that, so I was asked to do a little bit of piloting with GoReact. So, our college was piloting it in different ways, and that was the specific way that they wanted me to use it was, how might I use this for supervision? So, that was … it feels like I say all the way back, but it was fall of ’19, was the first time.

Tom Fisher:

August of ’19, was the first time I was sort of introduced to it and loved it right away for the very reason of if there was unstable internet, they could always just upload a recording. So, that’s the great thing about GoReact is, you don’t have to do it … you don’t have to just do a live capture, you could actually record from any device and then upload it directly in. So, they could do that for me, or I could see the recording that they did sort of like in real time through the app, which was also possible. And then, if there was potential for me to see it live, that is an option as well. And even if you do it live, Hillary, you know it records. It’s always going to record, which is awesome because you can always go back to the tape.

Tom Fisher:

So to my quote here, when I looked at the slides, it says, “Do you have a quote?” And I’m like, I don’t know, but I’m a big sports fan and a former coach. And one of the things that we would always do is we always recorded our opponents and we always recorded ourselves and we would go to the tape, right? The camera never lies. Why did you miss that block? Why did you run the wrong route? We would talk about those things and we could go to the tape. And so, that’s what I want my student teachers to do. Don’t think you did something, go look at the tape and see if you really So, it’s a great way to sort of reflect and be ready for that feedback that’s coming.

Hillary Gamblin:

Now, you mentioned that you used it for a couple of years ago for distance learning education. Your program is still going to be using it after the pandemic. What convinced your program and you to keep using GoReact? In other words, what were the benefits that you saw for using GoReact beyond distance education and in-person learning?

Tom Fisher:

So of course, like you said, pandemic-wise, there was a sort of a push for, “Okay, what are we going to do? We’re not necessarily allowed in the schools.” And so, even if it was a local school, I still needed to use that. But part of this, was that our numbers grew. Our program grew, but our staff, our faculty did not grow, so that meant more responsibility. Just to give you an example of my last three semesters, I went from 17, which was in the pre pandemic semester, sort of half pandemic semester to 21 candidates last semester to 25 candidates now. And I need to see those candidates three times minimal. And if somebody’s having issues, I might need to see them a fourth time. Now, if you think about over the course of three months, how is that logistically possible to be everywhere that you need to be, or see everything that you want to see from your candidates, if you have to be there live and in-person constantly. So, it’s sort of a logistic nightmare from the standpoint of our growth.

Hillary Gamblin:

Thank you for that. We are trying to provide some tangible examples in our workshops. So can you share with us how your program has been using GoReact for traditional observations in the coming semesters, how they’re going to be using it?

Tom Fisher:

Okay. Yeah, so one of the big things like the slide that’s up here now, it’s talking about reflection and feedback. And I think that, that’s one of the great things that GoReact allows you to do. And then, when we see some examples of that in the slides, when I have some real actual students up here on the screen, you’ll see exactly how that’s done. So, they have a chance to reflect and use the evaluation tool markers, I have that opportunity to use those as well. So, you’re going to see some examples of that coming up. But of course, it’s not just about the student teaching experience, it’s also, and I know this is probably people listening out there, 41 states use edTPA as some sort of tool for licensure or program completion.

Tom Fisher:

And so, edTPA is something that’s going to come up in this conversation. And we talked about this back in December, right? And I told you what I was thinking about doing with this, edTPA is not going away anytime soon. We have to accept how we’re going to do that. No matter how you feel about this evaluation tool, it includes making a video of your teaching. You have to make a video. GoReact is all about capturing that video of the student teaching. Whether you’re in a pandemic or not, you still have to capture video, right Hillary. So, that’s exactly where my mind went when I’m thinking post pandemic, how am I going to use this tool GoReact, to the optimal level for my students on edTPA?

Tom Fisher:

So, right here on the screen is … so this is a screenshot and I do have a video that will play afterwards. So this is, Hillary, can you tell me, I know this was something we didn’t talk about necessarily, but what stands out to you about this particular screenshot?

Hillary Gamblin:

Your screenshot’s actually minuscule for my screen right now, so I can’t read it.

Tom Fisher:

I don’t think I can make a bigger, because it’s like an actual classroom. It’s an actual classroom. So, I assumed people might’ve thought I was going to just show a screenshot of a teacher teaching virtually. That’s not what you see on your screen, that’s not what they see out there in the webinar land right now, it’s an actual teacher in the classroom. I blurred out the faces of the students that are there, but she’s capturing this classroom footage. This is just like what she would have to do for edTPA. Now, on this first screen that I’m showing right now, what everybody can see out there is, I have something called observation number one, edTPA task to look for. So, what I did was I melded together an actual observation that I had to do for her, using the markers.

Tom Fisher:

And if you guys can see these color coded markers down here on the bottom right, center right. What you can see is these markers, that’s from the evaluation tool. You’ll see that on the next page. But what I also did, was I built-in the rubrics for ed-TPA. The rubrics that she was going to be scored on when she turned in her real edTPA video. Her real edTPA video. I gave her a little bit of feedback here. So, I give her a little bit of feedback on her video, so she knew exactly what she could work on, what she could expect. Obviously, proficient as a level three, that’s kind of what we want is her to be looking for that level three.

Tom Fisher:

As I go on to this next slide, not only did I give her a score, but I gave her feedback directly based on those rubrics. Directly based on those individual rubrics six, seven, eight, and nine. Those are the edTPA rubrics, straight from the video that you make, whether it’s pandemic or post pandemic or pre pandemic, this is something that student teaching candidates in 41 states must do to get their license or finish their program. The great thing, obviously, Hillary is, this lives where she and I can both still see it. She can go back to this, she can look at this feedback. She can work off of this, she can think about what improvements she wants to make and plan for those next steps.

Tom Fisher:

If I go back, I’ll show you real quick. I’ll show you, it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t bad. She had two threes, oh excuse me, she had three threes and a two on this particular video. That was my feedback. When she made the adjustments and turned in her real video, I’ve got her real results came back last week. She got two fours and two threes on her video after making some adjustments.

Hillary Gamblin:

Fantastic. So, already you can see how using go Rex is helping prepare her better for her submission for edTPA.

Tom Fisher:

Absolutely. Absolutely. There’s one example. Now of course, if you are doing some sort of virtual teaching and we go to this next slide. What I’m going to do here is I’m just going to play this video. And this is, you’re not going to hear anything, but what I can do is I can talk about some of the things that we can actually see in the video. So, this is one of my candidates and she’s an English teacher and she was teaching completely virtual. And then, she went to sort of a hybrid sort of situation. And you could see, here’s the evaluation tool. Here’s her making comments. Now, one of the things that I talked to her about, Hillary, that is really helpful for her going forward is, you could see, she’s making a lot of marks. She’s making a lot of marks on here, and then you see I’m making comments. I’m making comments. One of the things that she wasn’t doing, was she wasn’t putting some of her markers into context for me.

Tom Fisher:

So, that was a conversation that she and I had to have around her work, is that I wasn’t sure that this was, why was this a check for understanding. What are you hitting? Are you hitting the learning target or the directions? These are markers that I didn’t create, these markers came directly from the evaluation tool that we use for student teachers. So, I’m not just thinking about edTPA right here, I’m thinking about whether or not she can actually see what she’s doing and is she actually describing it. Why are you engaging students here at one minute and 50 seconds? And what I didn’t want is I didn’t want this marker soup where they’re just constantly clicking.

Tom Fisher:

I mean, if you look up here, 51, there’s 51 comments in a 20 minute video. That’s a lot. That’s a lot. So, if we go ahead and I think I can advance this a little bit, it’s only a five minute video. I want to get to a couple of the … All right, so this is showing the folks out there that never used it before, what GoReact looks like. There’s the recording is on … this is what I see. I see the recording as an instructor, I see it on the left-hand side. And then, here’s where you can do your comments and markers and add those rubrics that we talked about. This is added and you do this after you’ve completed the recording. And again, I can mark, she can mark, we can both comment, respond to each other’s comments. We obviously, post, conference and get together and talk about these things. But it’s nice for her to know what that conversation is going to entail before we get there.

Tom Fisher:

She can see my comments, she can see the marks that I’m making. So you can see, again, not a lot of context by her. Let’s get to a little bit further in the tape, let me scroll a little bit further ahead. All right. So you could see, she’s starting to make a few more marks. And then, what we see is we start to see my comments coming in. Some of my direct comments about what I want her to work on. And the very first thing, I go right out of order here, because this is an English teacher and she’s talking about The Outsiders. She’s talking about The Outsiders here, and I’m not hearing the students give a lot of textual evidence. That is a key point for edTPA. And it’s just a key point in English language arts altogether. So, it’s not just an edTPA thing, it’s teaching English thing.

Tom Fisher:

If you’re going to talk about the book and you’re going to give your thoughts on it, you better be ready to cite textual evidence. And I found that to be an area that she needed to work on, and there it is, rubric nine. And so, I marked it below proficient. The questions, again, the same thing about the questions, I marked it below proficient. I didn’t think the right kind of questions were being asked. So, in the end we talked about it, we sat down, did the feedback. She was very receptive to it, she was able to see it, she was able to watch the video. She didn’t … This is a teacher of record already, a resident. The first one I showed you, that was an undergrad, undergrads are a little bit more receptive because they’re in somebody else’s classroom. They’re being mentored. Sometimes resident candidates, they are a little bit more territorial, it’s their classroom, they don’t know me. I’m coming in, I’m telling them this stuff.

Tom Fisher:

But she went back and watched the tape and she agreed. She agreed with me. And again, I’m happy to say, when she got her scores back, two fours and three threes, two threes on the video and two fours on the video. So overall, just tremendous growth by these candidates in their video segments for edTPA. And of course, I’m going to look at all of my data. I’ve done a little bit of crunching, but we’re still trying to finish the semester, so I haven’t … I still have some scores outstanding, so this is the first time that I’ve done this. This is the first time that I’ve really looked into doing this sort of material. So, here’s what I did. So here’s my list.

Tom Fisher:

What did I do? Official student teacher observation. And that was that, you saw those markers. I did edTPA prep. Remember everybody listening out there, I did not watch her official or their official edTPA videos, these were practice videos. I gave them feedback on multiple tools, on the edTPA rubrics, and on our CPAST markers and rubrics. There was student reflection in there. There was student preparation in there. There was data collection done by me. I’m collecting these mock sort of edTPA scores that I can now compare to real edTPA scores.

Tom Fisher:

And this is how I did it. I created the markers from the student teaching evaluation tool, which GoReact allows you to go in there and create them yourself. Very, very simple. I know the edTPA task rubrics backwards and forwards, so I knew those, but I loaded those in there. I created a “look for” document for other people to use. So this wasn’t just me that was using this technology, right? It was all the folks in our middle secondary program. I created exemplars, I piloted it all by myself in the fall semester because I was thinking, this might be a way to go. I created clear protocols, you saw that both of those were only 20 minute videos, and that was purposeful because you can’t send any more than 20 minutes to edTPA of footage, so that was purposeful.

Tom Fisher:

And I built a calendar for success. And what I mean by that is, I was able to lay out, here’s what I want you to be observed by me. Here’s when I’m going to give you feedback. Here’s when you have to do edTPA by, I can’t give you feedback. And here’s when you’re going to turn it in. And that’s what I did with this tool. And again, to the point that you made earlier, why wouldn’t I do this after the pandemic? Why wouldn’t I do this? This is just good protocol, especially in terms of edTPA preparation.

Hillary Gamblin:

Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. And as you said, it’s great for edTPA, during the pandemic, post pandemic. Another use case that is very popular with GoReact, it’s just using it for observations. And just to make it more real, one of your colleagues has joined the workshop to share her experience. They learned to use GoReact during the pandemic, and they decided to continue using it after the pandemic, when they do in-person observations. So Tom, do you want to introduce Amy and explain what you’ve asked her to share in the chat feature?

Tom Fisher:

Yeah. Amy Rogan, one of my colleagues. So Amy, I told her that I was going to tell a funny story about … So Amy, came to … leadership asked me, in the heat of the pandemic, they were like, “We can’t go to schools. We need help. You’ve been using this tool. Can you help people get ready for remote learning?” And so, I did some open swims and some workshops on it and stuff like that. And I don’t know if I came on, necessarily, I don’t know, did I come on too strong with it or whatever, but during one of our meetings, one of our office meetings, a question came up about logistics. How are we going to schedule all these meetings? And then, I would say, “Hey, you can record with GoReact.” And then, there was the question was, “Hey, what if they have … What if I can’t get on … What if their wifi is unstable” or “What if I get locked out of the zoom or something like that?” Because everybody in most of the districts were using zoom.

Tom Fisher:

And then I said, “No worries. Zoom works really, really well with GoReact and you can upload it.” And then, Amy jumped in and said, “I think Tom gets paid every time he says the word GoReact.” So, she jumped in with that snarky comment, during one of our zoom meetings. And I answered that snark by simply putting on one of my favorite GoReact hats to respond back to her. But seriously, she was one of the [ELET 00:23:38] program, because I’m middle secondary and she’s one of the leaders of El Ed and I think she around to it. So, I’m sure she’s got some thoughts in the chat. Jordan, I don’t think I can see the chat, but I hope Amy’s doing well out there with baby Scarlet. We want to definitely congratulate her, she’s a new mom.

Hillary Gamblin:

Tom, from your experiences from people that are doing observations, why are they using GoReact? What are some of the benefits that they’re seeing for using it post pandemic to do observations?

Tom Fisher:

There’s three, and we’ll talk about those takeaways. You definitely have to think about the flexibility of it. The flexibility, and I think that Amy will probably will put that in the chat. That was one thing that popped, that she said to me was, the flexibility of, if she did go to somebody’s classroom and she saw something that was a weakness that that candidate had, then she could say, “Hey, you’re not doing a great job on teaching your lesson. Tomorrow, can you just record the five or 10 minutes where you launched the lesson with your students and send it to me.” So, it was an easy way, even if she was going in person, that she could still be able to coach that candidate and then have that candidate send something very specific to her. So I think the flexibility of getting something like that.

Tom Fisher:

Also, flexibly being able to schedule yourself. Again, back to those numbers that I have. I started with 25 this semester. If I was going to schools, Hillary, I couldn’t possibly go to all 25 of those student teachers. I think I only have two pairs that are in the same building. So, that’s got me going to what, like 22 different schools, right? 21, 22 different schools that I would have to go to, if I was going in-person. Logistically it’s hard. Do they want me to see something specific? Like that launch or that pedagogy. Science teacher wants me to see a lab that they’re trying for the first time. “Hey sorry, I can’t come to that lab. I got to take my son to school.” Because that’s real life, right? I got to take my son to school. I can’t be at your high school at 7:15. Go ahead and record it on, GoReact, I’ll watch it later and give you feedback.

Tom Fisher:

I think that leads to being productive. I think that’s ultimately productivity and that doesn’t have to be, again, pandemic-based. I think, when you think about focus, I’m talking about the focus rubrics here. And you can see, look at this number, Hillary, this is amazing. So, there’s two rubrics on edTPA that change by content and that’s rubric seven and nine. Those are content pedagogy focused. Now, I had four, there was more than four supervisors, four that had really big numbers of student teachers. So, 60 plus between four of us. And three of the four student teacher or three of the four people like me, all of their student teachers were proficient or better on rubric seven. And then again, three of the four faculty site coordinators had their students hit three or better on rubric nine, which is pedagogy focus. Guess what I want to see? I want to see pedagogy.

Tom Fisher:

Listen, I don’t want to see a quiz. I don’t want to see morning announcements. I don’t want to see homework collection. I don’t want to see roll call. Those are things, I don’t want to see if I’m in a classroom. I want to see teaching and I want to see pedagogy focused teaching, that’s my job. That’s what I’m supposed to give feedback on, and that’s where we can focus with a tool like GoReact.

Hillary Gamblin:

Now, as you pointed out, you can use GoReact for more than just observations. We’ve, before and during the pandemic and the after, we’ve seen it for disposition screenings, methodology courses, certification, and then gathering evidence for accreditation. Now, I know you specifically, have started using it in your methodology courses. So, can you share with us how you’re using GoReact and you’ll be using GoReact in, in-person courses like your methodology course?

Tom Fisher:

Absolutely. So, going back to something I mentioned right at the beginning, our program is growing, but our budget has not grown. That means we didn’t hire new people, and the course that I talked about in the very first webinar I did back in June, where we were sort of forced into the pandemic and we talked about something I did and something that I was going to do going forward with that particular course that I taught? I had 16 students in that course last spring, Hillary, I have 35 students this spring. It’s more than doubled. And we do a lot of rehearsals, because they’re going to be teachers and they have to rehearse things that they’re going to do. They have to deliver directions, deliver expectations. So, that’s one set of videos I have them do.

Tom Fisher:

They also have to … Part of the course I teach is called Classroom Leadership. A lot of people think it’s just a behavior management type course. Well, you are going to have to deal with off task behavior in the classrooms, in virtual or face-to-face, but you’re going to have to deal with that. And so, I put the students through doing a whole class reset, how would they handle the whole class, not being on task, and then how would they handle individual situations? And so, I want to rehearse those things. Well, we can’t rehearse 35 students in an hour and 15 minute class, twice a week. Everybody’s not going to get their shot and I’m not going to be able to get around and give feedback to everybody as they do these rehearsals. So guess what the best way to do it is? Through GoReact.

Tom Fisher:

So now, three semesters in a row, I’ve done it through GoReact and I’ve gotten great feedback from the students that are glad to do it because a lot of them are very … this is the first time they’ve done any sort of public speaking. And a lot of them, they don’t have that teacher voice yet. So, this gave them an opportunity to see themselves and start critiquing their voice, their delivery, right? Like things that they wouldn’t necessarily get from their peers. Peers are oftentimes not going to give them the real feedback on those things, because their peers want them to do well. I want them to do well, but they need to be their own biggest critic when it comes to teacher voice, delivering these expectations, being thorough, using economy of language. So, these are all things that I’m using GoReact for, because again, go to the tape, the camera never lies.

Hillary Gamblin:

Now, we’re getting close on our time and I want to leave enough for Q&A, but just to make sure, I know you got a lot of fun numbers, you’re so excited to get your edTPA numbers back. Is there anything with the numbers that you want to discuss before we open up for a live Q&A?

Tom Fisher:

Yeah. So, if we go back and look at these numbers, I’ll just go through these real quick. We had on the first round, we had an 89% pass rate. And that’s 60 plus student teachers with four different faculty site coordinators, I trained on that protocol that we used. So, there’s no reason not to use that. I just talked about these focus rubrics. And then right here, it doesn’t look like a huge jump, but you got to remember, this is a five point rubric that the students are being scored on, and the average was 2.9 over the previous semesters. And now, the Task-2 average is up above three for our candidates. So, that may not look like a huge jump, but it actually is. Statistically, that is a major jump. And I didn’t have a chance necessarily, to poll everybody that used it, but this is what the data tells me right now.

Tom Fisher:

98% of the students that we did this with, this score, this average that they had on Task-3, would project, right? You got to remember there’s three tasks. So, could they really totally tank one of the other tasks? They could, they could. But based on this average that we’re getting from Task-2, it projects to success on the whole project. If they do similar to what they’re doing on Task-2, which is the real proof, right? People can write good lesson plans. People can write good … I’ve written good lesson plans, but I’ve delivered terrible lessons in the past. I’ve delivered terrible lessons. So, it comes down to that video footage. So if you can show success on that video footage, that’s a good indicator that you’re going to do well on the whole product.

Tom Fisher:

And then look at this, this is just my own candidates, a 100% of them, when I talked to them about using it, they were very, very pleased, they liked it. There was a few hiccups when we tried to do, and I think that was from maybe a software issue with Microsoft or using OS, that they had some issues for me to join them live. But those are the only issues we really had, was sometimes me trying to join a live GoReact. Last thing on numbers, it was only me. So, I was started and used it with 19. I used it with 19 candidates in the fall, that were willing to do this, with the practice edTPA, we did it with 90 plus this spring. Now, you heard me say that UNC Charlotte is either one or two in terms of production of teacher candidates. So, there’s at least 200 plus every semester in our program, because we’re talking about foreign language, TESOL, we’re talking about El Ed, we’re talking about Special Ed.

Tom Fisher:

So, not everybody used these protocols that I created. Not everybody used them, but I think once you see the data, I think a lot of people are going to be like, “Yeah, I want to use that. I want to use that process going forward.”

Hillary Gamblin:

Thank you for sharing those numbers, it’s exciting that you have proof now, that it’s all working, and GoReact is helping with it. Now, I actually want to quickly jump to questions because they’re pouring in and I want us to have enough time to answer all your questions.

Tom Fisher:

[crosstalk 00:34:51].

Hillary Gamblin:

So, the first question that … the team has been monitoring your questions and have been submitting them to us, and I’m going to ask Tom. The first one is, do you ever go over the video with candidates live, like play it at the same time and discuss it?

Tom Fisher:

I have done that a few times, when there were like things that I was really sort of excited to sort of talk about, that they did. I saw one the other day and I’m a history teacher, but it was an ELA class and they were talking about Animal Farm. And one of the students in the class, had a really great analogy that they used. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I got to go back and play that for you.” And some of the terminology that the kid used and he used the term, talking about like trying to control the masses in Animal Farm, and this kid use the term gaslighting. And I had to go back and play that, because this was like a middle school kid, I went back and I was like, “How does he know that? Did you introduce that?” And then she said that she did, but I said, “I don’t care. The fact that he used it correctly, it was great. I loved it.”

Tom Fisher:

So yeah, I do that from time to time, if I have things that I want to address that were concerns. One of the ones that I would say, that would happen, definitely happen when you see somebody like Caelynn that you saw in a live classroom. Something I played for her was some disrespect from one student to another, that was glossed over a little bit. And then, she and I talked about like the relationship between those two students and maybe what happened there. And did she address it off camera, that I didn’t see it later on. So yeah, those are things that I would do.

Hillary Gamblin:

Okay. The next question is, how do we convince the old school people to change? I have students capturing their teaching with zoom, but old school people just want to go for a live visit. That is the direct question. That is a quote, “old school people,” just FYI.

Tom Fisher:

Hillary. I love going in schools. I love … I mean, right now is the time that a lot of my candidates are being contacted to be interviewed for jobs and stuff like that. And in the old days, when I was out in the schools, I could network and help them a lot more than I am right now, because I don’t know where the openings are necessarily. And usually, when I’m in the school, I hear about those things. That’s one of the main things I like to do is connect out there. And I do like to see great live teaching, but let’s be honest for a moment, doesn’t everybody want to be productive? Doesn’t everybody want to push their level of teaching to another level? Don’t they want it? I mean, that’s what we do. That’s why we reflect.

Tom Fisher:

If you go back to that earlier slide, where I talked about reflection and using feedback to improve, this tool allows us to do that more so than being in the classroom. We can have a greater reach than we ever could without it. And that’s why I have the job I have now. When I was teaching high school to just 90 students a year, I only could reach that many students, but then when I have 25 student teachers, I can influence 25 student teachers that influence 90 to 100 students. So, thinking about how we can be productive and how we can have a greater reach, I would say that to somebody that’s a dedicated educator, that still thinks old school about logistical things because this is a logistical thing I’m hearing. This isn’t a real feedback thing.

Hillary Gamblin:

That’s a really smart argument. Well put, I found that convincing.

Tom Fisher:

Did I sell you on it? Can I go ahead and sign you up for a contract?

Hillary Gamblin:

Our next question is, do you record during in-person observations for additional evidence or as an addition to in-person observation?

Tom Fisher:

So, I haven’t really had the opportunity to necessarily do that, but yeah, you could do that, obviously. Because you would just load the app on the laptop and it could be there. I could be there, and we could be recording and stuff like that. One thing that I would always say when I did go in person was, definitely don’t record your edTPA when I’m here, because I would knowingly be giving you feedback on your video. So, as long as I knew that they weren’t necessarily using it for edTPA, I wouldn’t have a problem with them recording while I was there.

Hillary Gamblin:

Okay. The next question is, how do you do faculty training for GoReact? Is this part of your job? And how much time is involved in training other faculty?

Tom Fisher:

I’d have to go back and see how much time that I’ve put into it. But it was just one of those things, they came to a group of people and they said, “We need your help.” And I’m sure there was a minuscule stipend in there for me somewhere. I did not get a reduction in student teachers or anything like that. And what I basically did, was took some of the piloting stuff that I was doing and I would build it into slides, and I would have an open swim. And I would have people copy mine. So, that’s exactly how I did it for middle secondary, is I made my canvas page, I loaded GoReact as an external tool. I created all of the assignments in advance, and then what I did, is I had an open swim where everybody then imported my stuff.

Tom Fisher:

So, everybody just copied my course. And then what I did is, I demonstrated how to use it for them. And then I would have followups. I would have … I think I did three total. I did the introduction, and then of course I recorded it. I recorded it, so that it lived in the media gallery, so people could go back and watch it. And then I had a followup, to see how things went with that TPA. And then I had one where I taught people how to do the live function, which is really, really simple, but sometimes there’s a couple of things that could go wrong with that, that you need to be ready for. So, I did an open swim on the live, again, I recorded it so people could go back and watch it at their leisure.

Hillary Gamblin:

Okay. So it doesn’t sound too bad. I will also say that I feel like GoReact is really intuitive, so that helps a lot as far as training, right? It doesn’t require a ton of training. It’s one of those programs that once you start using it, it makes sense what you’ll be doing next. Our last question is, we are set to mostly observe the master teacher in the fall, have you any success recording exemplar, but local master teachers and then using GoReact to highlight the video supervision process and highlight the master teacher strengths.

Tom Fisher:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the things that I would absolutely do with that, and one of my colleagues that is now back in the classroom, did his … We did this process looking at his national boards. So, he’s a master teacher, and so we had to look at like his video and we did it, we loaded it into GoReact. And because I had to help him with some of the technical aspects of it, and we loaded in there, and we could see the things that he was going to then write about. And one of the things that we wanted to do, assuming that the pandemic was going to … we didn’t know how long it was going to last, but one of the things that was on my radar that I think I talked to you about in December, was an idea where our students getting into schools for clinicals has become very difficult.

Tom Fisher:

Our program has grown, but we don’t have as many clinical sites and master teachers for them to go and see. So then the idea was, hey let’s do this, let’s find a handful of master teachers that will let us come into their classroom using GoReact, then when my students have to do a clinical experience for my class, I have them watch the GoReact of this master teacher. And then, what we’re going to do is bring that master teacher in for a Q&A, much like I’m doing right now, and talk to him about some of those nuances. Now, of course, what we would do is we’d want to make sure that we connect those things that those teachers are doing, he or she is doing in the classroom, we want to connect them to our markers.

Tom Fisher:

So, I think that’s one of the things I don’t want to get lost here today, is that GoReact doesn’t create the markers for you, that’s up to you. So that’s up to your evaluation tool, the better your evaluation tool is, the better your markers will be and the better your videos will be in the way that you can give feedback. So, that’s on us as curricular developers, to have that really solid tool that we’re going to use, whether it’s me and my methodology classes, or whether it’s the student teaching rubric that we use or edTPA. It does come down to what are you looking for and can you identify it in the video?

Hillary Gamblin:

Thank you so much for answering those questions. Those were the five that I was given, I hope we answered all the ones that were asked if we didn’t, I am so sorry. Maybe you can submit a question to our next workshop and we’ll get to it that time. So, don’t lose heart. But before we end, I always like to have our guests share with us three takeaways. So Tom, what are your three takeaways?

Tom Fisher:

So, there they are. I alluded to them all throughout. So, I was dropping some Easter eggs as we went through, but there’s the number one is, flexibility. And I can’t be everywhere that I want to be, or they want me to be, but the recording allows me to see what they want me to see or what I want to see. If I gave feedback and said, “I want to see this.” And I just had this conversation with one of my math candidates, Ryan, the other day, who was having trouble calling on students. And one of the things I talked to him about, one of the feedback areas that I gave him was, when you’re circulating and monitoring your classroom, because he is in a hybrid situation. I said, “Circulate and monitor and see what they’re doing and pre-select your volunteers, build their confidence, tell them what you want to see. Tell them that this is a good answer. I’d love for you to share. I’d love for you to share.” And he goes, “But I’m hybrid.” I said, “Have kids send it to … Have kids use the [Desmos 00:46:24] or send it to the chat.”

Tom Fisher:

And so, his video that we just talked about yesterday, it was the focus was on him circulating and monitoring, and then he pre-selects students to give great answers and him give great follow-up. And it was, what could I ask for better than that? For him to apply my feedback, and then him tell me, “Oh my gosh, everything went so much smoother and I got so many kids to engage that I don’t normally get to engage.” Awesome. Awesome. And I did that all using GoReact.

Tom Fisher:

Number two, leading right into that, is the focused feedback. I’m able to give that focused feedback that I want. There’s a lot of things that he does well, I don’t want to talk about all that. I need to talk about where he needs to improve because I only get to see him so many times and I only get so much time when we post-conference. So, I want to make sure that I’m given that focused feedback on the pedagogy, not observing that arbitrary or inconsequential stuff.

Tom Fisher:

And then, the last one, I’m just more productive. I’m more productive with my numbers, with not being overwhelmed. There’s no way … I mean, just, I have time anxiety that I always think that I’m late for something. I always feel like I never have enough time. And one of the things I teach my students is time management. And just the thought, that overwhelming thought of trying to be at 22 or 23 different schools in a semester and see these students and just rushing back and forth. I’d feel like I’d be at a school, and all I’d be thinking about is how long is it going to take me to get to the next school, rather than having my mind be in that post-conference. And I think I’m much more productive with this tool, it’s just a fact.

Hillary Gamblin:

I love those three takeaways. Thank you so much for sharing those. Thank you Tom, for just sharing in general and being so willing to be with us today and share your experiences because you did this voluntarily. So we just appreciate you taking your personal time to share your expertise with your fellow teacher educators.

Hillary Gamblin:

And thank you to everyone that joined us live. To show our appreciation, we randomly selected one participant that joined us live today to win a pair of AirPod Pros. Yes, you heard me right, AirPod Pros, they’re the best, they’re my favorite technology that I own. And that goes to Paige Medlocke. So we will reaching out to you to ensure that you get your AirPod Pros, and we’re going to be doing this for all of our workshops in the future months. So, if you didn’t win this time, join us next time live and maybe you can win then.

Hillary Gamblin:

So, we noticed that this workshop would be really helpful for those who participated live and those who maybe couldn’t join us today live. And so, we’re going to be sending an email with the link of the recording of today’s workshop, along with the slide deck. Tom’s wonderful slide deck. So, watch for that in your inbox. And then also, if you know someone that you would like to recommend to be a guest for our future workshop, we have a recommendation form that we’re going to be putting in the chat. There’s so many experts and experiences out there, and we want to be a megaphone for pressing ideas and topics in teacher prep. So, please help us become that for everybody and to become that resource and by sharing some people that you would like to see in the workshop.

Hillary Gamblin:

But that is it for today. Thank you to those who participated. Thank you for those working behind the scenes, Jordan, as he was introduced today. And our guest, Dr. Tom Fisher, and Amy as well. Thank you so much for joining us and we will see you next time.