Why do Teacher Prep Programs Need GoReact?

Allison Smith:

Well, there are some pretty common challenges to coaching candidates and this is all this is backed by research and practicality of it. So I’ll talk about the practical part of it in that getting to certain locations with content experts. So for example, at UMass Global we serve districts across the entire state. So we have rural locations and we have very urban locations. Both are problematic for different reasons in getting a supervisor to the actual school to do an in-person observation is sometimes really difficult and more and more schools are less likely to let just anybody in. It’s a big process to get someone on campus for many of our very recent and ongoing issues of safety and just concerns in the community.

And so video has really been helpful with creating that opportunity and access. Also from the program side, thinking about we’ve experienced supervisors needing to get paid for all of their mileage and so the mileage expense can sometimes be outside of your budget unanticipated because you don’t always know the location of where your candidates are going to be. So that’s on the practical side. Then looking at the actual observation, sometimes the feedback for candidates can be very subjective and also lead to bias from the supervisor. When you have a third point of reference of video, oftentimes it makes it less biased in that you have something to look at. It’s not just about the supervisor’s opinions on things. It actually creates a more equitable and more collaborative opportunity for university supervisor, district mentor and the candidate to talk around this video. This third point creates those conversations that can happen and lead to deeper support. The other thing is the challenge is when an observation becomes evaluative rather than that holistic growth mindset where it’s supporting the candidate to improve, allowing space for errors and having this video, an asynchronous video observation is a focus where the candidate can really be supported and I’ll talk about the coaching conversations.

So when you meet with your candidate, you have this point and the mentor and the coach with the candidate, it fosters this collaboration rather than a judgment of what’s happening. The research is showing that candidates really appreciate this point of reference, oftentimes not even remembering, wow, I didn’t realize when I was teaching that was happening. And we all can empathize with that in that when you’re teaching you don’t necessarily remember all the details.