Recently I was asked, how do I reflect? I was in a group of FE practioners and I was curious to others responses. One said she calls someone at the end of her day and debriefs. One said she answers the OTLA sheet of questions she has to complete and then it came to me. How do I reflect? Face to face teacher version
1.0 of me reflected by talking in the office after a lesson, maybe sharing what didn't land right and a colleague passing a resource they were using that was more successful. Teaching online version of me 2.0? I watch the video and cringe, but then how can I take action?
We are missing that collaboration, that informal connection that supports our practise. I wonder what value we have missed by not having those opportunities? Just like we are working hard to create online supportive environments for our students, we should be placing the same amount of emphasis for staff. How can we create spaces for staff to thrive rather than survive when teaching online?
One large factor is time. Time to reflect, time to think. In FE we are often so very short of time already it is hard to picture opportunities to carve out more time. I heard from a college this week that due to under recruiting (genuinely no one's fault!) all staff had to increase teaching hours or provide cover in traditional PPA time. The value on staff developing their practise has been valued at a low level in this example. If a colleague reached out and said they wanted to talk about their practise, would you have the time to listen? Would they have the time to speak?
Time is precious. We can't make more of it. We need to maximise the value of the important stuff and minimise the noise. In a radical thought this week I wrote down all the things that I do that someone who was less qualified and paid less than me could do vs all the tasks it needed to be actually me there to do them. There was so much I think I could make a case for a PA! But how true is this across all our roles? How often do we undertake roles because it is easier for us to do them?
So when do we have time to reflect? When we became teachers, however our route into teaching looked, we were encouraged to reflect. Write down our evaluations. Compare those with our mentors or our observers. Develop action plans to improve our practise. A sort of Gibbs model for reflection. Now we are learning how to adapt our craft in new ways. We could probably do with another view on how it's going? But we may not have time!
If you, like me, have videoed yourself teaching, perhaps consider uploading them to a Flipgrid. Flipgrid is a wonderful tool that if it is unfamiliar I do encourage you to check it out. I'm a huge fan of right tool, right job, and although I am proud to be the first female goodle coach in EMEA and one of 78 globally for Google Innovator in 2020 this Microsoft tool is the right tool for many jobs. Flipgrid is a space for you to create a noticeboard of videos posted by others that you inspire with your topic creation. In teaching I use it to get students to talk through their working out on paper. The bit that I greatly miss in teaching online! We use it for staff birthday cards and there is some competition now as to who makes the best video for Flipgrid!
For teaching reflections though it is a great tool. I upload a video of my lesson. Generally the recording from Google Meet but this could be from Zoom or Teams or whatever you use. I can then insert timestamps of key parts where I want to make notes or ask for others opinions. Perhaps I want some new ideas for how to do starter activities as mine felt a little flat? Maybe I'm happy with my questioning and want someone to check they agree? Or I might be amazing at differentiation and have been asked by a peer to share my good practise. Observers can join the Flipgrid via a link, a code, restricted to domain or public. You are in control. I get that fear that your ventures into online teaching may not be ready to be viewed by the world. Mine aren't either! Mine are locked down to only those that I share the flipgrid with can view!
I choose to share with different people depending on what I am looking for. I might share with peers if it is subject specific content I want help with. I might share with the TLA team if it is more broad areas I want help with. Sometimes though I like to share just to check I'm on the right track and I share with that trusted colleague who will be kind, specific and helpful in their feedback. It can be a lonely place teaching online and I'm finding lots of ways to oversome that by using Flipgrid. Observers can record video feedback for me. Their freshest thinking. They can skip to my timestamped section. I can hear their initial thoughts. Text comments are also a feature. I can read a summary evaluation. I quite like seeing a written summary, perhaps with reference to a resource that might help me next time round or some extra reading.
This tool has wider reach and power though as a TLA tool. Perhaps we could form peer TLA groups where we all share via a Flipgrid and comment on each others teaching? The time it takes to upload a video is seconds. The video is created via the online meeting software I have taught my learners via so that takes little effort too. To watch another's video will take time, 10 minutes. To comment and leave a reply, probably 2-5 minutes. With time being so tight I'm hopeful we could find 15 minutes to reflect on our practise. But I'm more inclined to suggest that we should make time to reflect on our own practise.
If you want to know more about how we, at Driving Digital, can help you with supporting reflective practise culture at your institution please get in touch.
