For my son Cameron Knight

A computer genius, but more importantly, an incredibly kind-

hearted man. I’m very proud to be your Dad, Cam.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin

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 CONTENTS

List of Companion Website Resources

Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Author

Chapter 1. The Power of Video

Micro Cameras Are an Example of “Disruptive Technology”
Why Are Micro Cameras a “Disruptive” Innovation?
Why Video Is Important
Accountability and Autonomy
What Do We Mean by Autonomy?
What Is Accountability?
Turning Ideas Into Action
To Sum Up
Going Deeper
Chapter 2. Getting Started With Video-Enhanced Professional
Development
Getting Started
Guidelines for Success
1. Establish Trust
2. Make Participation a Choice
3. Focus on Intrinsic Motivation and Safety
4. Establish Boundaries
5. Walk the Talk
6. Go Slow to Go Fast
 Setting Up Video-Enhanced Professional Development: Practical
Concerns
Turning Ideas Into Action
To Sum Up
Going Deeper
Chapter 3. Instructional Coaches
Video-Enhanced Instructional Coaching
Video Increases Trust
Video Facilitates Partnership Coaching
Video and the Components of Instructional Coaching
1. Enroll
2. Identify
3. Explain and Mediate
4. Model
5. Observe
6. Explore
Turning Ideas Into Action
To Sum Up
Going Deeper
Chapter 4. Teachers Using Cameras to Coach Themselves
Decide Where to Point the Camera
Film a Class
First Watch
Second Watch
Watch Yourself
Watch Your Students
Turning Ideas Into Action
To Sum Up
Going Deeper
Chapter 5. Video Learning Teams (VLTs)
Setting Up Video Learning Teams: Creating Psychologically Safe
Environments
1. Establish Team Leadership
 2. Select Team Members Carefully
3. Establish Team Values
4. Develop a Learning Process
5. Use Effective Communication Strategies
6. Set Goals
Turning Ideas Into Action
To Sum Up
Going Deeper
Chapter 6. Principals
Video-Enhanced Teacher Evaluation
Why Video-Enhanced Teacher Evaluation Works
Fostering Implementation
1. Walk the Talk
2. Shape Culture
3. Fight for Resources
4. Develop Deep Knowledge
5. Employ Partnership Leadership
Turning Ideas Into Action
To Sum Up
Going Deeper

References and Further Readings

Index
 LIST OF COMPANION WEBSITE
RESOURCES

Access the following videos and resources at

www.corwin.com/focusonteaching

Video 2.1 An Overview of How Video Can Be Used

Video 3.1 An Overview of Coaching Using Video

Video 3.2 A Coach’s Process
Figure 3.4 Watch Your Students Form
Figure 3.5 Watch Yourself Form

Video 4.1 Teachers Using Video to Learn

Figure 4.1 Ratio of Interaction
Figure 4.2 Growth/Fixed Mindset Chart
Figure 4.3 Consistent Corrections Chart
Figure 4.4 Opportunities to Respond
Figure 4.5 Question Chart
Figure 4.6 Instructional vs. Noninstructional Time
Figure 4.7 Teacher vs. Student Talk
Figure 4.8 Engagement Chart

Video 5.1 Video Learning Teams in Action

Figure 5.1 After-Action Report
Figure 5.2 Lesson Study Observation Questions
Figure 5.5 SWOT Form
Figure 5.8 Video Learning Team Self-Assessment Form
Figure 5.9 Impact Goal Form
Video 6.1 Principals Using Video
Video 6.2 Advantages for Administrators
Video 6.3 A Principal’s Process
 PREFACE

learned about the power of video from my friend and colleague Mike
I Hock close to two decades ago when we were both doctoral students
at the University of Kansas. Mike had created a successful tutoring
program, Strategic Tutoring (Hock, Schumaker, & Deshler, 2001), and
he spent a fair amount of time training tutors to tutor in a way that
ensured students learned how to learn as they completed academic tasks.
In his work with tutors, Mike noticed that many were struggling to
learn and fluently implement the specific stages and practices that made
up strategic tutoring. He decided to video-record the tutors in action and
then have them watch themselves tutoring and analyze their practices
with the help of a checklist. The results were amazing! When tutors saw
themselves on video, they quickly realized how they needed to improve,
and their tutoring significantly improved.
I could see that video was a powerful learning tool for educators, but
video was such a hassle at the time. We had to get cameras—they were
usually expensive—set them up, tape a session, and then transfer the
video to a VHS tape so we could watch it. Besides, the rather large
camera on a tripod usually disrupted the class so that whenever we
brought a camera into a teacher’s classroom, the class inevitably ended
up being largely about the camera. In other words, even though video
clearly worked, it took too much effort and caused too many distractions.
In 2006, I got a solution for the video hassle from an unlikely source:
Mick Jagger. As I watched the televised coverage of the World Cup that
year, I noticed that Mick was shown several times recording the events
with a flashy little camera, which I learned was a Flip camera—a tiny,
easy-to-use, inexpensive HD camera. Watching Mick film parts of the
game, I figured that I could use a Flip camera to record a class without
disrupting the teacher’s lesson. So I decided to try out Flip cameras as a
part of our research at the University of Kansas.
 I first introduced cameras to our team of instructional coaches working
on our research projects in Topeka, Kansas. We quickly realized that
video was a game breaker. Professional learning would never be the
same again! As time has passed, technological innovation has made it
easier and easier to video-record and share a lesson, and in all likelihood
video will become even easier and more powerful as technology
advances in the future.
This book summarizes the findings of a number of projects that
directly or indirectly studied video and coaching. As mentioned, first, our
research team at the Kansas Coaching Project at the University of
Kansas and instructional coaches in Topeka, Kansas, explored how video
might be integrated into the coaching process. Then our team and
instructional coaches from Beaverton, Oregon, employed a design
research model (Bradley et al., 2013) to refine how coaches could use
video with teachers to gather data on current realities in a classroom, set
goals, and monitor progress toward the goals. Our team is now in the
midst of a second design study with coaches in Othello, Washington,
who are also helping us refine how to use video within the components
of coaching.
In addition to these studies, I conducted a study of how to use video or
audio recordings to improve communication skills. As part of the
research, I received more than 500 reflection reports from people
working on their communication skills in countries around the world,
including India, Australia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Canada,
and the United States. The volunteer participants in this project,
sponsored by the Instructional Coaching Group, wrote about how they
used recordings to improve how they listened, built emotional
connections, and found common ground during their interactions with
others.
Finally, Marilyn Ruggles, my colleague at the Instructional Coaching
Group, and I conducted about 50 interviews with teachers, coaches, and
principals in U.S. schools about their experiences with video-enhanced
professional development. The names and positions of the interviewees,
who generously agreed to be interviewed twice, are included in the
Acknowledgments.
In writing this book, I have drawn heavily from my interviews and
included the comments of teachers, instructional coaches, and principals.
All interview comments are taken from transcripts of interviews. In some
cases, I have modified comments slightly to increase clarity (e.g.,
replacing pronouns with antecedents, for example) or made them more
concise (e.g., putting two comments together). However, I have been
careful to keep the content of each participant’s comments intact.
Video changes everything. That is the big message I heard in all of our
interviews. But those changes can be helpful or damaging. Used poorly
in a compulsory, heavy-handed way, video recording can damage teacher
morale at a time when, for many teachers, morale is at an all-time low.
Used effectively, in a way that honors teachers’ professionalism and
learning, video can be the most powerful improvement we have
experienced in our schools in a long time. My sincere hope is that this
book will enable us to use video effectively in a way that will help us
provide the best possible learning opportunities for all of our students.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners
who make our souls blossom.

—Marcel Proust

ach publication I write is possible only because of the minds, hearts,

E and works of many, many people. Educators, authors, researchers,
and friends all share ideas with me, and, like potters collectively
forming a blob of clay into something useful, we test out ideas and shape
our thinking until, I hope, we arrive at something useful. Sometimes I
learn from others by reading their books and articles, sometimes I learn
by conducting interviews, and sometimes I learn from conversations in
classrooms or at kitchen tables. And of the works that I have written, this
book is the one that has benefitted the most from help from others.
There is no doubt in my mind that this book would not have been
written without the love and support of my family. My wife, Jenny, is my
north star, my partner in business and life, my one, true love. She brings
tremendous joy into my life, and I am certain I could not have written
this book without her love and faith. My parents, Joan and Doug Knight,
have always believed in me, and their constant encouragement started
me down the research and writing path that I find myself following
today. My children, Geoff, Cameron, David, Emily, Ben, Isaiah, and
Luke, inspire me, challenge me, and every day more and more increase
my optimism about the future because of the good work they do in the
world.
I’m grateful to my colleagues at the Instructional Coaching Group,
Michelle Harris, Ann Hoffman, Ruth Ryschon, Tricia Skyles, Conn
Thomas, and Susan Woodruff. They do an outstanding job organizing
and sharing our ideas and they push my thinking when we get the chance
to meet and work together. I am also grateful to my research partners at
the Kansas Coaching Project at the University of Kansas. My long-time
mentors Don Deshler and Jean Schumaker are friends who have taught
me as much about life as they have taught me about research and
education—and that is an enormous amount. My longtime colleagues
Mike Hock, Marti Elford, and Devona Dunekack have worked with me
for more than a decade, and I’m grateful for their partnership, for all they
do to ensure that our research is successful, and especially for their
commitment to children.
Many have contributed a great deal to help make this book a reality.
At the Instructional Coaching Group, Marilyn Ruggles conducted most
of the interviews that make up a substantial portion of the book; Carol
Hatton has taken on numerous tasks to help me find references, create
learning maps, edit texts, review notes, and on and on; and our graphic
designer Clinton Carlson created the exact cover I wanted even though I
didn’t know it until I saw it. I also owe a great debt to my copy editor,
Kirsten McBride, who has improved just about every page I have
written. At Corwin, my indefatigable editor Dan Alpert has stuck with
me through thick and thin and encouraged me with warmth and faith,
always, when I most needed encouragement. Melanie Birdsall, senior
project editor at Corwin, has gracefully and patiently walked this book
through the entire production process, while always interacting with
patience, kindness, and smarts.
Many educators have contributed significantly to this book by trying
out these ideas and sharing what worked and what didn’t work. I’m
grateful to the coaching teams from Beaverton, Oregon—Susan Leyden,
Jennifer MacMillan, and Lea Molczan—and Othello, Washington—
Denise Colley, Jared Farley, Marci Gonzalez, Jackie Jewell, and Jenn
Perez—who all helped shape what I know about video and instructional
coaching. I am also grateful to the many teachers, instructional coaches,
and principals who agreed to be interviewed twice, before and after using
video-enhanced professional development.
Finally, I’m grateful to the musicians who inspired and energized me
as I wrote down word upon word. I began this book listening to the
Grateful Dead, especially the Betty Boards from the spring ’77 tour. I
finished the book listening to the magical jazz created between 1955 and
1960, especially by John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Most days while
writing, at some point I found myself listening to Emanuel Ax’s
wonderful Haydn Piano Sonatas. In my opinion, Ax’s Haydn sonatas are
the best music to listen to while writing.
Educators Who Graciously Agreed to
Implement Video-Enhanced Professional
Development and Be Interviewed for This Book
and Videos
Jennifer Adams, K–5 Instructional Mathematics Coach, Deerfield
Public Schools, Illinois
Crista Anderson, K–12 Title 1 Instructional Coach, Missoula County
Public Schools, Montana
Jill Baird, Assistant Principal, Rockwall ISD, Texas
Jean Clark, Special Consultant, Cecil County, Maryland
Sarah Coons, Education Specialist, Wichita Falls, Texas
Amy Grabenkort, Associate Principal, Evergreen Public Schools,
Washington
Chad Harnisch, High School Principal, Sauk Prairie School District,
Sauk, Wisconsin
Melissa Hickey, Instructional Coach, Capital Region Education
Council (CREC), Connecticut
Michael Hodnicki, Instructional Coordinator for Professional
Development for Secondary Language Arts and Media, Cecil County
Public Schools, Elkton, Maryland
Courtney Horton, Instructional Partner, Madison City Schools,
Alabama
Denise Lohmiller, K–5 Elementary District ELAR Coordinator,
Rockwall ISD, Texas
Lea Molczan, Sixth-Grade Humanities Teacher, Beaverton School
District, Oregon
Tony Mosser, Middle School Science Teacher and Instructional
Coach, Spring Lake Park Schools, Minnesota
Kimberly Nguyen, K–4 Special Education Teacher, Delton Kellogg
Schools, Michigan
Rychie Rhodes, Clinical Professor, Office of Professional
Development, St. Vrain Valley School District, Longmont, Colorado
Catherine Rich, Principal, Phalen Lake Hmong Studies Magnet, St.
Paul, Minnesota
Kimberly Richardson, Supervisor of Instruction—Title I, Hampton
City Schools, Virginia
Beth Sanders, Secondary Social Studies Connected Educator,
Birmingham, Alabama
Caroline Schaab, Instructional Technology Coach, Park Ridge, Illinois
Kirsten Shrout Fernandes, Instructional Coach, The Learning
Community Charter School, Central Falls, Rhode Island
Bill Sommers, Middle School Principal, Minnetonka Middle School
West, Minnesota
Kandy Streety, Regional Support Staff, Alabama Reading Initiative,
Birmingham, Alabama
Sharon Thomas, English Teacher and Instructional Coach, Cecil
County Public Schools, Maryland
Amanda Trimble, Instructional Coach 6–8, Noblesville Schools,
Indiana
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jim Knight is a research associate at the University

of Kansas Center for Research on Learning and the
president of the Instructional Coaching Group. He has
spent close to two decades studying professional
learning and instructional coaching. He has written or
co-authored several books on the topic, including
Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to
Improving Instruction published by Corwin and
Learning Forward (2007), Unmistakable Impact: A
Partnership Approach for Dramatically Improving Instruction (2011),
and High-Impact Instruction: A Framework for Great Teaching (2013).
Knight co-authored Coaching Classroom Management (2006) and edited
Coaching: Approaches and Perspectives (2008).
Knight has authored articles on instructional coaching and
professional learning in publications such as The Journal of Staff
Development, Educational Leadership, Principal Leadership, The
School Administrator, and Kappan.
Frequently asked to lead professional learning, Knight has presented
and consulted in most states and eight countries. Knight also leads the
coaching institutes and the Annual Instructional Coaching Conference in
Lawrence, Kansas.
He has a PhD in education from the University of Kansas and has won
several university teaching, innovation, and service awards. Knight hosts
Talking About Teaching on the Teaching Channel and writes the
radicallearners.com blog. Contact Knight at jimknight@mac.com.
Chapter 1: The Power of Video
 1
THE POWER OF VIDEO

Using a video camera during coaching is like opening a door so teachers can observe
their own classroom.

—Tara Strahan, Instructional Coach, Orange City, Florida

learned about the power of video when I watched a video of myself in

I a research team meeting at the Kansas Coaching Project. We had been
asking coaches to record themselves and the teachers they were
coaching, so I thought it would only be fair if I watched myself on video.
I set up my laptop camera, and during a 45-minute meeting, I recorded
my interactions. That night I watched the video recording at home.
Watching myself on video wasn’t new to me. I had seen recordings of
many of my presentations, but a presentation is tightly structured
whereas a meeting is much more spontaneous and dynamic. A meeting
makes a bigger demand on your communication skills. Since I taught
communication, I was interested in seeing how effectively I interacted
with my colleagues, and I was especially interested in this particular
meeting because I wanted to find out how I could speak up more since I
knew from previous meetings that my colleagues did most of the talking.
I wasn’t happy with what I saw. I left the meeting thinking I hadn’t
had enough time to say what I wanted to say, yet the recording showed
that I spoke more than anyone else. And worse, I looked rude. When
others were talking, I looked bored. I interrupted people while they were
talking. I didn’t listen.
While watching the video, I could feel my face getting flushed as I got
more and more embarrassed, realizing, “This is what people see all the
time when I meet with them!”
It hurt to watch the recording, but that 45-minute video made me want
to improve. I realized that I had to change my way of communicating
immediately. If I wanted people to collaborate with me, and I did, I had
to be the kind of person with whom people would want to collaborate.
Video pushed me to change, and video became a way for me to monitor
my progress toward being a better collaborator. Such is the power of
video.
When we record ourselves doing our work, we see that reality is very
different from what we think. As a result, we are often disappointed by
what we see. In more than 40 interviews for this book, for example,
educators told us again and again that “teachers are way harder on
themselves than anyone else would ever dream of being.” At other times,
we are delighted by what we see, noticing perhaps that a learning activity
truly did engage students authentically. Either way, video is a powerful
tool for growth and professional learning. As Beth Sanders, a middle
school teacher from Birmingham, Alabama, told us, “There is a
vulnerability with watching yourself. But I am realizing more and more
that my willingness to open the door that video opens up is where growth
happens. I really think video is a game changer.”

Micro Cameras Are an Example of “Disruptive

Technology”
In a flash, new technology can transform the way we do just about
anything. Jets revolutionized travel. E-mail altered how we send and get
messages. MP3s replaced CDs, which had replaced records. And the
Internet has transformed how we do just about everything else, including
finding and sharing knowledge, getting help, shopping, meeting people
(including significant others), and staying connected.
Micro cameras will be like jet engines for professional learning. Micro
cameras such as those built into smartphones, tablets, and other mobile
devices are so powerful and easy to use that in just a few years, video-
enhanced professional development (VPD) will be a central part of the
way teachers learn in most schools around the world.
Micro cameras are an example of what Harvard researcher Clayton M.
Christensen (1997) has labeled disruptive technology. Disruptive
technologies usually start out as poor-quality innovations, but over time,
as they are improved, they become so powerful and easy to use that they
upend entire fields.
 Educators have long known that video can be a powerful tool for
professional learning, but in the past cameras were too cumbersome,
distracting, or of too low a quality to be effective. The increasing quality
of video cameras and the promise of ever-more-powerful technologies,
coupled with the development of video-sharing websites such as Be a
Smarter Cookie, Edthena, Sibme, and the Teaching Channel, means that
educators are finding it easier and easier to video-record a lesson and
share the recording with colleagues, teams, or students. Professional
learning will never be the same.

Why Are Micro Cameras a “Disruptive”

Innovation?
Video recording has been a part of teacher education for many decades.
In particular, microteaching and National Board Certification have led
many teachers to record their lessons and learn from watching the
recording. Microteaching was first developed in the early 1960s at
Stanford University for teacher education programs. During
microteaching, teachers (a) watch a video recording of a master teacher
modeling a teaching practice, (b) try out the practice in a brief lesson that
was video-recorded, (c) receive feedback from an expert on how they
implemented the practice, (d) try out the practice after revising lesson
plans, and (e) receive feedback again from experts.
The National Board Certification (http://www.nbpts.org) process has
also prompted many teachers to watch themselves teaching on video.
The National Board established its teacher program as a response to A
Nation at Risk (Gardner & Larsen, 1983) to “develop, retain, and
recognize accomplished teachers.” Today, more than 100,000 teachers
are National Board Certified (NBCT), and many others are working
toward achieving NBCT status. To be certified, teachers must submit a
portfolio of video recordings of teaching practices.
Although the National Board process and microteaching have
introduced many teachers to the power of video, the hassle of recording a
lesson and watching video has often made it difficult for them to learn all
they can learn. Today, those constraints are gone. New, tiny cameras are
able to do amazing things that were not possible even 5 years ago. Thus,
a micro camera, smaller than a deck of cards, can record high-definition
video with reasonably high-quality sound. And with each new generation
of a device, the quality of video, the quality of sound, and the ease of use
increase at a breakneck pace. Furthermore, the technology we have today
is the worst of what we will see in the future. We can only guess at how
powerful Google Glass and other new technologies will be as tools for
accelerating professional learning. If today’s iPhone is my son’s
Commodore 64, as Jaime Casap from Google has said, just imagine what
type of technology will be available in 5, 10, or 20 years.
Video-recording a class used to involve signing out an expensive
camera from the principal’s office or the AV department, setting it up on
a tripod, figuring out how to follow the complicated manual for how to
operate the camera, and then converting the recording to a medium that
could be viewed on a TV screen. There was nothing discreet about a big
camera set up on a tripod in a teacher’s classroom. Recording a lesson
took a lot of work, usually upset classroom routines and distracted
students, and then only produced low-quality video. All of that has
changed!
Now a teacher can set up her iPad in her class in about 5 seconds and
get a reasonably high-quality video of exactly what happens during a
lesson. Setting up a camera is quick, doesn’t disrupt the class, and
involves pushing one button. Then at the end of the day, the teacher can
look over her lesson to either set a new goal or monitor her progress
toward a goal that she has already set. Additionally, in order to move
closer to her goal, she can implement high-yield instructional practices,
such as those described in High-Impact Instruction: A Framework for
Great Teaching (Knight, 2013), which I will refer to throughout this
book, or other books such Marzano’s (2007) The Art and Science of
Teaching, Saphier, Haley-Speca, and Gower’s (2008) Skillful Teacher, or
Lemov’s (2010) Teach Like a Champion. Video has enormous potential
for improving teaching and learning.

Using a video camera to learn about your teaching is like looking

into a mirror. You get to actually see what you are doing and all of
your actions. You are able to see what you normally couldn’t see
with your own set of eyes.

—Courtney Horton, Instructional

Coach, Madison, Alabama
Why Video Is Important
Perhaps the major reason video is so useful for learning is that it helps us
see exactly what it looks like when we teach or our students learn. This
is important because professionals often do not have a clear picture of
what it looks like when they do their work. In our research
conversations, teachers and coaches tell us that when they see video
recordings of their lessons, they are often amazed at what the video
reveals. Many times, teachers are pleased to see evidence that their
lessons are working. In other cases, teachers are disappointed (every
coach told us that teachers tend to be extremely hard on themselves) by
what they see.
Sometimes teachers are both pleased and disappointed. Kimberly
Nguyen, a teacher in Michigan, watched two classes she was teaching,
her most and her least engaged. She was surprised to see that she was a
different teacher in each room. During our interview, Kim said,
What I really noticed was that with the engaged group, I am much more animated, and I
interact more. With the second group, I really struggle with my mood, and my response time
is lower. In that class, I think, I am really boring.

Many people, we have learned, have had the same experience as

Kimberly: They do not know what it looks like when they teach until
they see the video. And because they are unaware of what it looks like
when they teach, they often do not feel the need to change. They might
be open to trying new practices, but they don’t feel compelled to change.

When you are in the middle of teaching, you just don’t see so many
things. I had a teacher who was very surprised because she saw
students being kind to each other on the other side of the room, and
she noticed them helping and sharing. You don’t see that when you
are going around in small groups. That aspect of video is really
nice. You also see areas where you could provide more support. It is
the outliers that you just don’t catch when you are teaching.

—Tara Strahan, Instructional Coach,

Orange City, Florida
 James Prochaska, John Norcross, and Carlo DiClemente’s (1994)
research into the personal experience of change provides us with
language for describing and understanding why people are so surprised
by what they see in video recordings. After conducting more than 55
clinical studies of change with more than 1,000 people, Prochaska and
his colleagues concluded that the first stage of change is what he refers to
as precontemplation. Change begins with people “pre” “contemplating”
change; that is, at the start, people aren’t even thinking they want to
change. Prochaska writes, “G. K. Chesterton might have been describing
precontemplators when he said, ‘It isn’t that they can’t see the solution.
It is that they can’t see the problem’” (p. 40).
Our work with teachers, coaches, and principals has led us to similar
conclusions. When we show videos of lessons to teachers, their response
is often that they had no idea that their class looked the way it looked on
video. To Beth Sanders, a teacher in Alabama, watching video puts her
inside the situation of her class:
It is much different being in the situation vs. being outside the situation looking in. It is
really important to me that I am kind of getting the full-circle view of my classroom, seeing
things that matter, things that could be better, and things that I can do to hopefully make
things better by watching my class.

Watching yourself on video feels similar to the often unsettling

experience of hearing a recording of your voice for the first time—but to
the power of 10.
There are many reasons people are precontemplative and have such
little awareness of what it looks like when they do the work that they do.
Three main reasons are the busyness of teaching, habituation, and
confirmation bias.

The Busyness of Teaching. Anyone who spends even a short period of

time in a classroom quickly realizes one big reason many teachers have
an incomplete understanding of everything that occurs in their
classroom: Teachers have too much to think about while teaching to also
be able to step back and oversee everything that is happening in their
classes.
The authors of Introduction to Teaching: Becoming a Professional
contend that “teachers make somewhere between 800 and 1,500
decisions every day” (Kauchak & Eggen, 2005, p. 55). For example,
teachers must think about delivering material, monitoring student
learning and behavior, setting up activities, and maintaining engagement,
all while keeping an eye on the clock. As a result, for most, it is
extremely difficult to step back and take in everything that is happening
in the class while teaching.

Habituation. A second reason many professionals struggle to get a clear

picture of reality in the classroom stems from a phenomenon
psychologists refer to as habituation—the fact that we lose our sensitivity
to just about anything we experience repeatedly. Through habituation,
therefore, we can become desensitized to any experience, pleasant or
unpleasant, beautiful or ugly. This means that what at one time would
have been impossible not to see can eventually become practically
invisible.
When habituation happens in the classroom, it can have dire
consequences. First, teachers can forget about the true joy of this work,
how important and beautiful it is to teach—to empower students to read
and write, to become numerate, to help them transcend their social status,
to mentor them to be the first in their family to go to college, and much
more. Second, teachers can stop seeing children when they aren’t
learning. They can stop noticing students who are bored, wasting time, or
hating school. They can come to believe that off-task behavior and poor
performance are all that can be expected from students.

Confirmation Bias. A third reason we may not get a clear picture of

reality in the classroom is confirmation bias. In Decisive, Heath and
Heath (2013) describe confirmation bias as our natural tendency to seek
data that support our assumptions:
Our normal habit in life is to develop a quick belief about a situation and then seek out
information that bolsters our belief . . . Researchers have found this result again and again.
When people have the opportunity to collect information from the world, they are more
likely to select information that supports their preexisting attitudes, beliefs, and actions. (p.
11)

This tendency to seek out support for our beliefs can keep us from
getting a clear picture of reality. Thus, for example, we might take the
correct answers of four students as evidence that all students are
learning, or we might take a student’s failure to learn as evidence that he
lacks motivation rather than as a prompt to change our teaching.
 Using a video camera to watch your teaching is like having the
ability to go back in time because it allows you to take something
that has already happened and really look at it, think about it, and
see what you would want to change.

—Kimberly Nguyen,
Teacher, Delton, Michigan

Our tendency to seek out data that confirm our biases is further
increased by the anxiety we feel when we realize students are not
learning and we don’t know what to do. In such cases, we may be
especially inclined to find proof that we are not at fault.
The power of video is that it cuts through habituation, confirmation
bias, and the complexity of teaching and shows a true picture of what is
happening. Tennis coach Timothy Gallwey (1974) tells a story about the
power of getting a clear picture of reality in his book The Inner Game of
Tennis. Gallwey writes about working with Jack, who “considered his
erratic backhand one of the major problems of his life.” Jack knew that
he took his racket back too high on his backswing because “at least five
different pros told [him] so.” After watching Jack take a few practice
swings, Gallwey concluded that “the five pros were right.” Yet despite all
the advice, Jack hadn’t changed his swing.
Gallwey asked Jack to stand in front of a large reflective window and
watch his swing:
We walked over to a large windowpane and there I asked him to swing again while watching
his reflection. He did so, again taking his characteristic hitch at the back of his swing, but
this time he was astounded. “Hey, I really do take my racket back high! It goes up above my
shoulder!” . . .

What surprised me was Jack’s surprise. Hadn’t he said that five pros had told him his
racket was too high? I was certain that if I had told him the same thing after his first swing,
he would have replied, “Yes, I know.” But what was now clear was that he didn’t really
know, since no one is ever surprised at seeing something they already know. Despite all
those lessons, he had never directly experienced his racket going back high.

At the end of the day, Jack said by watching himself in the window, he’d “learned more in
ten minutes . . . than in twenty hours of lessons I’ve taken on my backhand.” (pp. 22–24)1

Such is the power of seeing yourself doing what you do! Video
recordings give us a chance to see, as tennis player Jack did, what it
really looks like when we do what we do. Video provides a clear picture
of reality, which is critical for setting meaningful goals and monitoring
progress toward those goals. But video is most powerful when it is a part
of professional learning that is designed to have maximum impact, such
as the professional learning approach I describe in Unmistakable Impact:
A Partnership Approach to Dramatically Improving Instruction (Knight,
2011). VPD will not have any impact unless it is part of an overall
approach to learning that focuses on meaningful goals and celebrates the
professionalism of teachers.

Accountability and Autonomy

When describing professional learning, people often adopt an either/or
stance. For example, some believe that instructional leaders must hold
teachers accountable in order to improve the way they teach. If there’s no
accountability, they claim, no meaningful improvement will happen in
classrooms. Others say the exact opposite: Because they are
professionals, teachers must have complete control over their learning.
The idea that teachers would be “held accountable,” they say, is insulting
to the profession of teachers.
After collaborating with schools around the world for a decade and a
half, I have come to believe that professional learning is not either one or
the other—both are needed. That is, effective professional development
honors the autonomy of teachers but recognizes the importance of a form
of accountability grounded in that autonomy. Both are essential.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY AUTONOMY?

Autonomy, as I’ve written about in Unmistakable Impact: A
Partnership Approach for Dramatically Improving Instruction (Knight,
2011), involves at least three elements: choice, thinking, and status. Each
of these is briefly described below.

Choice. At its heart, autonomy involves offering choices—in this

context, trusting professionals to make many of their own decisions. If
we don’t allow others some measure of choice, any change initiative is
doomed to fail. The surest way to ensure that people won’t do
something, whether they are 6 or 66 years old, is to tell them they have
to do it. In Timothy Gallwey’s (1974) words, “When you insist, they will
resist.”
Giving people choices is important for other reasons than just reducing
resistance. If we tell staff they must do what we, the principal, the central
office, or the state, say they must do, we are working from the
assumption that there is only one answer and that we know what it is, or
at least that we know better than they what they should do.
In reality, however, those who work directly with students know a lot
about what is best for those students. Teachers’ knowledge should be
embraced, not suppressed. When we give teachers choices, we ask them
to think carefully about what they are implementing in light of what they
know rather than simply implementing a one-size-fits-all plan. And when
teachers’ knowledge is a part of the process of planning and
implementing, better teaching occurs.
Finally, choice is important because when we employ professional
development programs that don’t give teachers choices, we are, in effect,
pushing an approach that can only be called dehumanizing. As Freire
(1970) states, “freedom . . . is the indispensable condition for the quest
for human completion . . . without freedom [we] cannot exist
authentically” (p. 31). Similarly, Peter Block (1993) emphasizes the
primacy of choice: “Partners each have a right to say no. Saying no is the
fundamental way we have of differentiating ourselves. To take away my
right to say no is to claim sovereignty over me . . . If we cannot say no,
then saying yes has no meaning” (pp. 30–31).

Thinking. If we want reflective educators, teachers who think, we must

make sure that teachers are free to make meaningful decisions about
what and how they teach. Telling people exactly what they must do
leaves no room for thinking. Autonomy, therefore, is also essential for
reflective practice. Thomas Davenport (2005) describes the attributes of
people who use their knowledge, skills, and imagination to do their work
—knowledge workers—in his book Thinking for a Living: How to Get
Better Performance and Results From Knowledge Workers. Based on
interviews and surveys designed to identify the attributes of knowledge
workers, Davenport found that “one important characteristic of
knowledge workers” is their need for autonomy:
Knowledge workers . . . don’t like to be told what to do. Thinking for a living engenders
thinking for oneself. Knowledge workers are paid for their education, experience, and
 expertise, so it is not surprising that they take offense when someone else rides roughshod
over their intellectual territory. (p. 15)

A teacher with 32 children, who is trying to communicate clearly, to

keep each student engaged, and to gauge how well each student is
learning, is a prime example of a such a professional.
In Unmistakable Impact (Knight, 2011), influenced by Donald Schön
(1991) and Joellen Killion (Killion & Todnem, 1991), I divide reflection
into three processes: “looking back,” “looking at,” and “looking ahead.”
The ability to think for yourself, autonomy, is essential for each, and
each way of reflecting is an important part of how teachers learn from
video-recording their lessons.
When we “look back,” we consider an event that has passed and think
about how it proceeded and what we might have done differently. When
teachers use video recordings to “look back” at a lesson, they explore
what worked and what didn’t work and reflect on what they might do
differently in the future. Schön refers to this as “reflection on action.”
When we “look at,” we are thinking about what we are doing in the
midst of the act itself. For this form of reflection, therefore, teachers
think about their actions based on what they learned from watching a
video of a previous lesson. Teachers often see their classes through new
eyes after watching their lessons and therefore might make adjustments
based on that insight—increasing praise, adjusting activities to increase
student motivation, clarifying expectations, and so forth. Schön refers to
this way of thinking as “reflection in action.”
Finally, “looking ahead” is thinking about how to use an idea, practice,
or plan in the future. When we “look ahead,” we consider something we
have to do in the future and what we can do to ensure success. Teachers
collaborating with instructional coaches, for example, might “look
ahead” by using a video recording as a point of departure for exploring
how ideas might be adapted to meet the needs of students in a future
lesson. Killion and Todnem (1991) refer to this as “reflection for
practice.”
Whether “looking back,” “looking at,” or “looking ahead,” teachers
are quintessential knowledge workers, and if they are going to use video
effectively, they need autonomy since autonomy is essential for
reflection. Most of us want our children to be taught by reflective
professionals who think for themselves rather than by skilled laborers
who primarily implement what they are trained to do. To get the kind of
teachers we want for our children, we must ensure teachers have the
autonomy they need to truly be reflective practitioners.

Status. A final reason autonomy is important is that denying autonomy

sets up an unequal relationship that interferes with learning among
professionals. That is, when teachers don’t have autonomy, those who
tell them what to do clearly have more power. Edgar Schein (2009)
makes this case in his book Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive
Help:
All human relationships are about status positioning and what sociologists call “situational
proprieties.” It is human to want to be granted the status and position that we feel we
deserve, no matter how high or low it might be, and we want to do what is situationally
appropriate. We are either trying to get ahead or stay even, and we measure all interactions
by how much we have lost or gained. (p. xi)

According to Schein (2009), we do not feel a conversation has been

successful unless we are given the status we think we deserve.
When a conversation has not been equitable we sometimes feel offended. That usually
means that the value we have claimed for ourselves has not been acknowledged, or that the
other person or persons did not realize who we were or how important our communication
was. (p. 30)

Like anyone else, teachers disengage from conversations, as Schein

suggests, when they perceive they are not getting the status they deserve.
And being prescriptive with teachers in ways that deny choice and
reflection inevitably puts them in a one-down position. When people feel
one-down, they are “vulnerable to dysfunctional, defensive behavior”
(Schein, 2009, p. 37). Additionally, according to Schein, “if the other
person acts very parental by talking down to us, we may feel it is
appropriate to act childish by being passive aggressive” (p. 25).
In other words, teachers who make it clear that they are not listening
during a workshop by reading newspapers, grading, or engaging in side
conversations are communicating that they refuse to be put in a one-
down position. Put differently, doing sudoku, rather than listening in a
workshop, is a way of saying, “I’m not going to put you in a one-up
position.” Giving teachers meaningful autonomy is one way by which
leaders can give teachers the status they deserve and, in the process,
dramatically decrease “dysfunctional, defensive behavior” (Knight,
2009).
 In short, autonomy is a vital part of authentic professional learning
that makes an impact. When we do not give teachers autonomy, we
deprofessionalize teaching by suppressing teacher knowledge and
humanity, inhibit reflection, and dramatically increase the likelihood of
resistance. Positioning teachers as equal partners—see Instructional
Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction (Knight,
2007) and Unmistakable Impact (Knight, 2011) for more information on
how to do that—is essential. However, autonomy will not bring about the
changes we need to see in schools without accountability.

WHAT IS ACCOUNTABILITY?
When the term accountability is used in professional learning, it has
many different meanings. For example, it may mean that teachers have
to give an account of what they do and implement a program or practice
that others have chosen for them. Accountability also might mean that
teachers are accountable to district leaders, students, or parents. However
it is described, accountability means to be obligated to act in certain
ways for reasons that are external to us.
How is it possible, then, for teachers to be both accountable and
autonomous? For our purposes here, when educators are accountable,
their professional learning has an unmistakable impact on student
learning. In this way, educators are accountable to the process, and
especially to children, parents, other stakeholders, and the profession of
teaching. Furthermore, at the individual or school level, accountability is
a genuine commitment to learning and growth on the part of every
educator, a recognition that to have learning students, we need learning
teachers, learning coaches, and learning administrators.
Some insight into how this kind of accountability can coexist with
autonomy can be gained by reviewing Robert Fritz’s work. More than
three decades ago, Fritz (1984) described the dynamics of personal
growth in his book The Path of Least Resistance. Growth, he wrote,
involves two factors: a clear picture of current reality and a clear goal.
When we know our current reality and commit to an improvement goal,
we create a tension that compels us to strive to get better so long as we
remain committed to the goal. Peter Senge (2006) summarized Fritz’s
ideas as follows:
 The juxtaposition of vision (what we want) and a clear picture of current reality (where we
are relative to what we want) generates what we call creative tension: a force to bring them
together, caused by the natural tendency of tension to seek resolution. The essence of
personal mastery is learning how to generate and sustain creative tension in our lives. (p.
132)

Two factors, then, are essential for growth as described by Fritz and
Senge: a clear picture of reality and a clear goal. These two factors are
also essential for accountability as I describe it here. Meaningful change
will not happen in a classroom or school unless both of those factors are
in place. If there is no picture of reality, we cannot be sure that whatever
professional learning is taking place addresses what is most needed.
Additionally, if there is no goal, we are unable to monitor progress and
determine success. Professional learning that is not grounded in current
reality and not focused on a goal will most likely not produce significant
change.
Let’s look at how this might work for an individual teacher.Imagine a
teacher who views a recording of her lesson and realizes that only 5 of
her 31 students are answering the questions she is asking. After watching
the video, she might set a goal of 20 of her students responding to
questions during each lesson. Then, once she has set the goal, she can try
various strategies to meet her goal. For example, she might use Thinking
Prompts, Effective Questions, or a cooperative learning structure such as
Think, Pair, Share from High-Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013) or other
resources on effective instruction. She could use her camera to monitor
her progress toward the goal. As long as she remains committed to her
goal, she can keep trying strategies or refining what she is implementing
until she hits her goal.
This is an example of professional learning that is accountable—
measurable changes will occur that will mean real improvements for
students. However, this type of professional learning also involves a high
degree of autonomy because the teacher observes her own lesson, sets
her own goal, monitors progress, and determines when she has hit the
goal.
In the rest of this book, we will see how VPD can be structured to
respect the autonomy of professional teachers and at the same time hold
them accountable so as to lead to unmistakable improvements in
learning. We will see autonomous and accountable professional learning
for individual teachers learning alone, with coaches, with teams, or with
administrators.
 Specifically, the book includes the following features:
Each chapter begins with a learning map depicting the key concepts in
the chapter. Each chapter also contains these features:

• Turning Ideas Into Action, suggestions for how students,

teachers, coaches, and principals can use chapter ideas to improve
instruction
• A summary of the chapter under the heading To Sum Up
• A Going Deeper section that introduces resources readers can
explore to extend their knowledge of the ideas and strategies
discussed
• QR codes with links to videos of teachers, instructional coaches,
and administrators describing how they use video recordings to
support professional learning in their schools

Finally, throughout the book you will find numerous checklists

clarifying how video recording can be used by teachers, coaches, teams,
and principals.
The following is a brief description of the contents of the remaining
chapters.
Chapter 2: Getting Started With Video-Enhanced Professional
Development provides important nuts-and-bolts information about
making video recording a part of professional learning. Specifically, the
chapter includes suggestions for what kind of camera to use, where to
place the camera, and how to share video. Additionally, the chapter
describes important considerations such as what kind of consent is
required for recording video, when (if ever) to share video, and what
issues to address with respect to video-recording students. Finally, the
chapter discusses six errors leaders must avoid if they want video
recording to be successfully used in their schools.
Chapter 3: Instructional Coaches describes how instructional
coaches can use micro cameras to accelerate the coaching process,
including for getting a clear picture of what is happening in a classroom,
setting goals with teachers, monitoring progress, and serving as a third
point for dialogue around instruction. The chapter also makes
suggestions for how coaches can enroll teachers in the use of video,
explains why video should initially be watched separately by coaches
and teachers, and identifies what coaches can do to facilitate dialogue
with teachers.
Chapter 4: Teachers Using Cameras to Coach Themselves
describes how teachers can coach themselves through the use of video.
Specifically, the chapter explores why teachers should watch video of
their classes at least twice, when teachers should focus on their students
vs. their own instruction, data points that teachers can attend to while
watching recordings to get a clearer understanding of what is occurring
in their classes, how to set measurable goals for improvement, and how
to monitor progress toward those goals.
Chapter 5: Video Learning Teams (VLTs) describes how teams of
teachers can come together to share video of their lessons and learn from
each other. Specifically, the chapter discusses what principals or
instructional coaches should do to create a trusting learning culture for a
team, why teams should be voluntary rather than compulsory, and how
teams can establish authentic team norms and present activities team
members can use to facilitate team learning, such as watching many
different examples of teachers implementing practices, focusing on
specific practices (such as “I do it, we do it, you do it”) or ratio of
interactions.
Chapter 6: Principals describes the essential role that principals play
in leading the use of video as a part of professional learning in schools.
Specifically, the chapter reviews how principals can best support
instructional coaches, guide teachers toward self-coaching, and lead or
support VLTs. Additionally, the chapter describes how principals can use
video to ensure that the teacher evaluation process is a useful,
constructive part of teacher professional learning.

Turning Ideas Into Action

STUDENTS

Our schools are successful only if our children are successful.

Ultimately, therefore, all professional learning should be
judged by the standard of student success. For that reason,
students should be among the first people asked about the
success or failure of teaching practices. As I explain in High-
 Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013), students can be involved in
the conversation about their learning and provide extremely
helpful insight into the effectiveness of our teaching. In some
cases, students can even be involved in discussing instruction,
and volunteer students can be asked to watch video of lessons
and subsequently comment on what helps and hinders their
learning. This won’t work for every student, but at a minimum
students can be asked for feedback on what learning activities
increase their engagement, make them feel psychologically
safe, and inspire them to strive to be better.

TEACHERS

Video is not for everyone. Some teachers simply find it too

difficult to watch themselves on video, but for teachers who
use it, video offers great opportunities for great learning.
Teachers who record their classes will be able to use the
recordings to get a clear picture of reality, to set goals, and to
monitor progress toward those goals until meaningful change
that helps students has occurred.

COACHES

Instructional coaches can use video recordings during all

components of coaching. Like teachers who self-coach,
instructional coaches can video-record teachers to get a clear
picture of reality, to set goals, and to monitor progress toward
those goals until meaningful change that helps students has
occurred. Further, video recordings can be used as the point of
departure for most coaching conversations.

PRINCIPALS

If principals want teachers to use video to improve their

teaching methods, principals should use video to improve their
own practices. For example, principals can record the way they
facilitate meetings to identify ways in which they can be
clearer, more efficient, and more supportive. Additionally,
principals can walk the talk by recording themselves teaching,
 sharing the video during a staff meeting, and then allowing
themselves to be coached by the instructional coach during the
meeting. When a principal walks the talk in such a way, he or
she will likely find that many more teachers agree to do video
recording of their lessons.

SYSTEM LEADERS AND POLICY MAKERS

All of the teachers interviewed for this book acknowledged

that although they thought video was incredibly helpful, lack
of time was a major barrier to VPD. Kimberly Nguyen’s
comments are typical:

I think the problem with implementing it with any real success would be time
—time for someone to video themselves, and sit down and look at it, and
analyze it. It helps if you have a coach, but you really have to be committed to
do it by yourself.

For this reason, leaders who want teachers to use video must
build in time for them to do this important work. Time might
come from early-release days for students or additional
payment for teachers who are willing to put in time (either by
themselves or with a coach) to record a class, set a goal, and
make the changes necessary to hit the goal. When time is
structured into teachers’ days so that they can do this powerful
reflective learning, they will be able to make significant,
meaningful improvements in the way their students learn.
Without time, it’s likely that little significant change will occur.

TO SUM UP
• Video is a disruptive technology that will transform the way
professional learning occurs in schools.
• Video is essential because professionals don’t have a clear picture
of what they do when they do their work.
• Teachers struggle to get a clear picture of reality because of the
demands of teaching, habituation, and confirmation bias.
• Effective professional learning involves accountability that
respects, even celebrates, teacher autonomy.
 • Autonomy involves choice, thinking, and status.
• Accountability as defined here involves establishing clear,
measurable goals and then working to implement them.
• Accountability means ensuring that learning has an unmistakable,
positive impact on student learning and well-being.
• Both accountability and autonomy are essential for effective
professional learning.

GOING DEEPER
Clayton Christensen’s (1997) The Innovator’s Dilemma: The
Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business is the
classic work on how disruptive technology transforms business.
Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the
World Learns, co-authored by Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, and
Michael B. Horn (2008), applies Christensen’s theory to innovation in
education.
Heath and Heath’s (2013) Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in
Life and Work explains how confirmation bias and three other biases can
dramatically interfere with our ability to make decisions and offers
excellent suggestions for how to overcome those biases and, as a result,
make sound decisions about the most important issues in our lives.
Richard Tedlow’s (2010) Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look
Facts in the Face—and What to Do About It is a business book that also
has implications for educators. Tedlow’s main point is that most of us
deny reality, and unless we learn to confront reality, our personal and
organizational work will suffer.
Finally, in many ways, this book is an extension of my earlier works.
For example, in Unmistakable Impact: A Partnership Approach to
Dramatically Improving Instruction (Knight, 2011), I describe the
necessity of positioning teachers as professionals and explain why
dehumanizing professional education (that thwarts teacher autonomy) is
unlikely to succeed. In High-Impact Instruction: A Framework for Great
Teaching (Knight, 2013), I present practices that teachers can use to
improve their instruction after watching video and setting goals.
1I’m grateful to Bob Tschannen-Moran, co-author of Evocative Coaching: Transforming Our
Schools One Conversation at a Time (Tschannen-Moran & Tschannen-Moran, 2010), for first
sharing this story with me.
Chapter 2: Getting Started With Video-Enhanced
Professional Development
 2
GETTING STARTED WITH
VIDEO-ENHANCED
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT

Using a video camera to learn about your teaching is like childbirth. You have a lot of
anxiety going into it, and it’s painful while you are going through it, but if you see it
through to the end, you will end up having a much better result than you ever could
have imagined.

—Sharon Thomas, High School English Teacher, Cecil County,

Maryland

ea Molzcan is a middle school reading teacher from Beaverton,

L Oregon. Lea is one of four instructional coaches we partnered with
when my colleagues and I at the Kansas Coaching Project studied
instructional coaching and, eventually, video cameras. Lea is a masterful
coach and teacher. As a coach, she made her collaborating teachers feel
safe and empowered. When we watched video of Lea asking questions
and listening during our focus group meetings at the University of
Kansas, everybody—coaches and researchers—wanted to be more like
Lea.
One of the goals of the study in which Lea participated was to find out
how cameras could be used most successfully during instructional
coaching. At the start of our team’s first meeting, I handed everyone a
shiny new Flip camera and asked them to try it out by recording a
partner, being recorded by a partner, and then watching the video by
themselves. I thought this would be a simple way for the coaches to
ensure they knew how to use the camera.
 Everyone gladly did the recording, but when they watched the video
recordings of themselves, the mood in the room immediately changed.
Lea’s reaction to seeing herself was especially powerful. Overcome with
emotion, she broke into tears. “I cried,” Lea said. “I was really upset
with the way I looked.”
I remember watching Lea during that session and wondering whether I
was asking too much of people by suggesting that they record and watch
themselves. However, Lea and her fellow coaches from Beaverton,
Michelle Harris, Jennifer MacMillan, and Susan Leyden, ultimately
convinced me that video can be an incredibly powerful tool for learning.
Indeed, after 3 years studying their coaching procedures, the coaches
agreed that watching video was the single most important part of their
professional learning. Lea, back teaching again, now considers video an
essential part of her development:
I think I’ve gotten so used to being taped that it doesn’t bother me to record myself. It is
natural for me to have the camera on. It has become old hat for me.

Video is a great tool and so easy to use. You can do it quickly and on the fly. There is not a
lot of planning involved. You can do it for a short time or a long time. You have complete
control. I will absolutely keep using it.

At first, most people are not particularly excited about watching

themselves on video, so it takes a little time to get used to it. For
example, high school English teacher Sharon Thomas said, “I think there
is this disparity between the way we feel when we are in front of the
classroom and what it looks like to a normal person. When I teach, I am
so comfortable up there. I’m Audrey Hepburn. I’m Gwyneth Paltrow. I
love it so much. Then I see the video and think, ‘Who is that middle-
aged lady up there?’”
But when you get used to watching yourself, used to your voice, the
way you look, and your surprising vocalizations, you can learn a lot.
“People are terrified at first,” instructional coach Courtney Horton noted,
adding,
[B]ut video is an excellent way to learn with teachers. So often we don’t even know how we
teach or what we do. Video is a great tool to catch things you might not even know about.
Watching a video of your lesson is like watching yourself in a mirror, but you are able to see
what you normally wouldn’t see with just your own set of eyes.

Sharon Thomas, and indeed everyone we interviewed, emphasized the

importance of working through the awkwardness of watching yourself
on video. “Give yourself time to get used to seeing and hearing yourself
on the video recording. It’s OK to be horrified the first few times. But
stick with it. Video really is the thing that is going to help you move
forward. How good we are with kids, how well we are serving kids, how
much we care about our profession . . . this is all a really big deal.”

Video 2.1
An Overview of How Video Can Be Used
www.corwin.com/focusonteaching

Getting Started
Since video has such great potential for accelerating growth, the
temptation might be to rush to get VPD up and flying in every classroom
in every school right away. However, given the complex emotional
reactions to watching a video of oneself, leaders must take the time
necessary to set up VPD in such a way that it has an excellent chance to
succeed. In fact, if VPD is not implemented with care, it can interfere
with, rather than improve, professional learning.
To increase the likelihood that VPD will succeed, educators should
follow a few guidelines for success and address a few practical concerns.
Each of these is addressed in this chapter.

Guidelines for Success

Cameras can be extremely useful for enhancing professional practice, but
if cameras are used in a way that diminishes teachers’ professionalism,
they will be good for neither students nor teachers. To increase the
chances that VPD will be embraced, educators should keep in mind a
few simple guidelines when introducing video in their schools.

Guidelines for Introducing Video

 1. Establish trust.
2. Make participation a choice.
3. Focus on intrinsic motivation and safety.
4. Establish boundaries.
5. Walk the talk.
6. Go slow to go fast.

1. ESTABLISH TRUST
One of the most frequent questions I hear about video is, “How do you
get teachers to do it?” When I asked that question of the coaches in our
study, who had each collaborated with teachers who agreed to watch
themselves on video multiple times, their first answer wasn’t very
helpful. They said, “I just asked them, and they said yes.” Then I asked
them why their teachers agreed, and now their answers were very
helpful. “They worked with us,” the coaches said, “because they trusted
us. So if teachers are not agreeing to be video-recorded, maybe the issue
isn’t the video; maybe the issue is trust.”
Many have written about the role of trust within professional learning.
Amy Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and
Management at Harvard University, who has dedicated much of her
academic life to studying how people work and learn together, concludes
that people need to feel psychologically safe in order to be productive
and learn. “In corporations, hospitals, and government agencies,”
Edmondson (2012) writes, “ . . . interpersonal fear frequently gives rise
to poor decisions and incomplete execution” (p. 118). She continues:
In psychologically safe environments, people believe that if they make a mistake, others will
not penalize them or think less of them for it. They also believe that others will not resent or
humiliate them when they ask for help or information. This belief comes about when people
both trust and respect each other, and it produces a sense of confidence that the group won’t
embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up. (pp. 118–119)

The relationship is really important in instructional coaching

because without that relationship and without that trust, the teacher
might want me to just tell her everything. Allowing the teacher to
make those choices and the coach to respond to those choices
 depends on trust. I don’t think we would have gotten to where we
got to if the teachers and I didn’t have that relationship.

—Susan Leyden, Instructional Coach, Beaverton,

Oregon

As Bryk and Schneider (2002) have written, trust is “forged in daily

social exchanges—trust grows over time through exchanges where the
expectations held for others are validated in action” (pp. 136–137).
Relational trust, Michael Fullan (2001) writes, includes “competence” as
well as “respect, “personal regard for others,” and “integrity” (p. 65).
Given this fact, when teachers are opposed to recording their lessons,
the reason likely isn’t the idea of being video-recorded but lack of trust.
The remaining guidelines will help leaders increase the level of trust in
their schools.

2. MAKE PARTICIPATION A CHOICE

Some leaders may be tempted to simply instruct their staff to record
their classes and watch their lessons. However, forcing teachers to record
their lessons and watch the video will almost certainly engender
resentment and a negative attitude about the video. Telling people they
must do something that they find unpleasant often leads to anxiety,
resentment, anger, and resistance and significantly interferes with
learning. Further, as explained elsewhere, if leaders genuinely want
teachers to be professionals, they must give teachers meaningful choices,
not take choices away (Knight, 2011).
Ensuring that teachers have meaningful choices does not mean that
choosing not to learn is an option. Learning in any profession is, by
definition, compulsory—professionals need to continuously improve; if
not, they are acting unprofessionally.
Teachers especially need to have choices about how they learn.
Getting a clear picture of reality is an essential part of professional
learning, but that picture can be acquired in many ways (for example,
review of student work, formative assessment data, or observation data).
VPD should be just one of a menu of options open to them.
 One particularly worrisome approach to compulsory video recording
is to use video as a cheap substitute for walkthroughs and other forms of
teacher evaluation. Administrators need to observe and evaluate the
teachers in their classrooms. Further, as I explain in Chapter 6, when
teachers agree, video can be a powerful part of the evaluation process.
But cameras must serve as a tool for learning, not spying. When cameras
are forced on people or used when people do not know they are on, they
damage culture and trust, not enhance learning. The idea that a principal
might have a monitor in his office and push a button to see what is
happening in any classroom at any time is an Orwellian vision that
should disturb anyone who loves children and learning.

3. FOCUS ON INTRINSIC MOTIVATION AND SAFETY

In worst-case scenarios, video might be used to apply pressure,
extrinsically motivate, or, at worst, embarrass teachers as a way of
pushing them toward improving their practice based on the rationale that
people change only when they feel the pressure to change. However,
such a primitive approach will likely make things worse, not better.
As researcher Theresa Amabile concluded after reviewing thousands
of data points from surveys, interviews, and observations of many teams
in corporations:
Managers who say—or secretly believe—that employees work better under pressure,
uncertainty, unhappiness, or fear are just plain wrong. Negative inner work has a negative
effect on the four dimensions of performance: people are less creative, less productive, less
deeply committed to their work, and less collegial to each other when their inner work lives
darken. (Amabile & Kramer, 2011, p. 58)

For video to be an effective tool, therefore, it must support and

enhance teachers’ intrinsic motivation to change. Done well, VPD
unleashes a teacher’s personal desire to achieve his or her personal best.

4. ESTABLISH BOUNDARIES
When we introduce VPD into a district, we must recognize that
recording and watching oneself on video is complicated and personal. As
Parker Palmer (2009) has written, “The things I teach are things I care
about, and what I care about helps define my selfhood” (p. 17). When a
conversation addresses topics related to who we are as persons, things
get messy. For this reason, when setting up VPD, it is critical to be clear
about boundaries, especially boundaries related to who sees a video and
how people talk about it.
In our interviews with coaches, a major theme centered around the fact
that teachers wanted to know who would watch the video before they
agreed to be recorded. Teachers, coaches told us, were willing to be
vulnerable and learn from recordings of their class, but they wanted
assurance that their most vulnerable moments would not end up being
posted on the school’s homepage for all the world to see. In most
settings, video recordings should be considered the property of the
person being recorded and shared only when the teacher is completely at
ease about them.
Boundaries must also be established for conversations about video
recordings, whether those conversations take place between teachers, a
teacher and a coach, a teacher and an administrator, or teams of
educators. For example, those discussing video recordings might agree
that their comments must always focus on data, be nonjudgmental, and
embody a respect for the complex nature of teaching. Additionally,
stakeholders may agree to keep all conversations positive, respectful, and
supportive and to offer suggestions for improvement only after being
asked for feedback.

Possible Boundaries for Conversations

• Focus on data.
• Be nonjudgmental.
• Respect the complex nature of teaching.
• Be positive.
• Be respectful.
• Be supportive.
• Offer suggestions for improvement only after being asked.

5. WALK THE TALK

If instructional coaches and administrators want others to take the
brave step of watching themselves on video, they need to walk the talk
by watching themselves on video, too. For example, coaches can record
themselves coaching and then review the video to learn how they ask
questions, listen, build relationships, find common ground, work from a
partnership perspective, or carry out other aspects of coaching. Teams of
coaches in a district could use video to collaboratively improve their
teaching by sharing video and discussing what they see. More
information about how coaches can use video to improve their teaching
may be found in Chapter 3, and more on teams and video in Chapter 5.
Administrators and coaches who lead workshops or meetings could
similarly record themselves in action and share their findings at follow-
up sessions. What matters is that leaders authentically use video to get
better at what they do in order to set an example for everyone.
In his presentations, coaching expert Steve Barkley suggests an
innovative way for principals to encourage others to watch video
recordings of themselves teaching. In schools that have coaches, Barkley
suggests that principals teach a model lesson, video-record themselves
teaching, and then show a section of the video during a staff meeting
followed by a public session with an instructional coach, also during the
meeting.
When a principal records herself and then participates in coaching, the
message is clear: “I’m not asking you to do anything that I wouldn’t do
myself.” Barkley mentions an added benefit. When a principal tells her
staff that she is going to show them a lesson and subsequently be
coached, everyone in the room will want to see what happens on the
video and during coaching. “You might have a staff that loves to leave
meetings as early as possible,” Barkley notes, “but they’ll stay to watch
that.”

6. GO SLOW TO GO FAST
It may be a cliché, but in this case, the saying is very applicable. If
leaders move too quickly to push VPD, there is a great likelihood that
their initiative will not succeed. Leaders need to take the time necessary
to ensure that implementation of VPD follows the guidelines outlined
previously.
One effective way to introduce VPD is to start with a few volunteer
teachers who are interested in and willing to try out the camera. Often it
is a good idea to begin with teachers who are considered informal
leaders, those teachers whom others generally listen to in the school. In
addition, certain simple messages need to be communicated again and
again: VPD is a choice, not a requirement. Teachers own their video, and
they have to share it only if they choose to do so. Perhaps the most
important message is that learning is expected for all, but every
professional has a great deal of choice around how he or she chooses to
learn.

Setting Up Video-Enhanced Professional

Development: Practical Concerns
In addition to the guidelines discussed above, some practical concerns
must be considered before setting up VPD. Some of the more important
ones are addressed in the following.

Type of Camera. As this book is being written, late 2013, there are
many cameras available that are suitable for teachers, coaches, and
administrators who plan to use video recording as a part of their
professional learning. Flip cameras, iPads, digital cameras, GoPros,
iPhones, Androids, and other smartphones may all be used to record
lessons.
Most cameras yield valuable information. In general, I suggest using a
camera you already own and are familiar with. If you are buying a new
camera, however, the following questions are useful as a basis for
making a sound purchasing decision:

• What kind of lens do I need? If the camera will be used

primarily to capture an entire classroom, a fish-eye lens is best.
Some cameras come with such a lens; for others, this type of lens
may be purchased to be added on.
• How important is sound? Usually it is important to hear teachers
and students clearly, so the sound quality of a recording is critical.
Sound quality varies a great deal from one camera to another, so
some research into this variable is recommended. Many teachers
own cameras, so a lot of information can be gathered easily just by
asking colleagues for advice. Since technology advances quickly,
doing a search on the web or posting a question on Twitter can
also yield valuable information.
 • How easy is it to use the camera? Most modern cameras are
extremely easy to use. If the camera involves pushing more than
one button, the alleged benefits may not be worth the complexity
for our purposes here. People are much more inclined to use
technology that is easy to use.
• How easy is it to share video? If you are an instructional coach or
administrator and you are going to record a teacher’s class, you
will need a way to transfer video so the teacher can view it.
Recording even a short video requires a lot of memory, more
memory than can be sent in a standard e-mail. Many of the
coaches we interviewed used file-sharing sites to share their videos
with coaches, usually either Dropbox or Google Drive. In addition,
several sites have been created just for the purpose of sharing
video, including Be a Smarter Cookie, Edthena, Sibme, and the
Teaching Channel. Courtney Horton, an instructional coach, found
that the easiest way was just to share her iPad with her
collaborating teacher.

Where to Point the Camera. Where the camera is faced, of course,

depends on what the viewer wants to learn. If I’m interested in how
much wait time I allow students to ask questions, I want the camera
pointed at me. If I am interested in my students’ level of engagement, I
want the camera pointed at my students (see the following “District
Video Policy” section regarding guidelines on privacy and consent).

Questions to Ask When Choosing a Camera

1. What kind of lens do I need?
2. How important is sound?
3. How easy is it to use the camera?
4. How easy is it to share the video?

Most people we interviewed tried to do a little of both. For example, if

instructional coaches were doing the recording, they often recorded the
teacher when she was leading discussion and then recorded students
when they were involved in conversations for activities. Instructional
coach Crista Anderson found a way to record the teacher and students
even when she was not in the class. She put her iPad in the back corner
of the room, from which the camera could view the front of the room, the
teacher’s desk, and the whiteboard, so she could see as much of the class
as possible.
The first time a class is viewed, capturing the teacher and students is
the best plan. Once the teacher has watched a video of her class, she will
be better able to decide if she wants to focus on her students or herself or
try to record both.

Who Should Record the Class? Once again, the simple answer is, it
depends. If a teacher is collaborating with an instructional coach or a
principal, then the coach or principal can video-record the class. An extra
adult in the room can record students, record the teacher, and move the
camera to capture whatever seems most meaningful at a particular point.
When possible, it is helpful if the coach is present to record the class,
since being in the class gives the coach information he cannot get just
from viewing video.
But teachers don’t always have an adult in the room who can record
their lessons. An alternative is to have a student record the class, so long
as the teacher determines that this will not interfere with the student’s
learning. Glen McLachlan, an administrator at Knox Grammar School in
Sydney, Australia, was able to celebrate a student’s ability with film and
get a great video of his lesson by having a student who was especially
interested in film record his class.
A final idea is simply to set the camera up at a fixed spot and turn it on
before students enter the room. Many educators, like Crista above, just
set up the camera and hit record. The most recent version of the iPad
makes this easy, as it can be propped up on the standard cover.

How Much of a Class Should You Record? The length of video

recorded by the educators we interviewed varied greatly. The shortest
video was just over 10 minutes. The longest was more than 70 minutes,
an entire block schedule unit. Most educators find that for the first video
they record, more is better than less. As a general guideline, recording an
entire lesson is probably worthwhile. But once the first video has been
watched and a goal has been set, a shorter video is often all that is
needed; in fact, to save time, a shorter video may be better. For example,
if a teacher is trying to reduce how long transitions take at the start of a
lesson, all he may need to record are the first few minutes of the lesson.
 I feel the videos do a really nice job of capturing what it is like to
be a student in my classroom. And that is helpful. I don’t think I do
that a lot. I think a lot about the variety of activities and engaging
lessons and so on. But the actual practicality of being seated in my
class; what it looks like; what I sound like; where I am moving
around and those little things outside of instructional choices, that
was really interesting for me to see and to get closer to that.
After you watch video for a while, it becomes less about what you
look like and sound like and more about what it is like to be a kid in
your class.

—Sara Langton, Middle School Science Teacher,

Beaverton, Oregon

Instructional coach Jennifer Adams told us that she found it “more

beneficial to focus on a certain aspect of a lesson, filming for a shorter
amount of time, but then really digging into it.” Especially at the
beginning of coaching, Jennifer noted that “when teachers are a bit
nervous watching themselves on video, it is easier to just do snippets and
talk about those parts—more frequent filming, but shorter segments.”

How to Keep Video From Being a Distraction. In most cases, students

are not that distracted by video, contrary to what many imagine. I have
been in many classrooms recording video for Talking About Teaching on
the Teaching Channel, which involves two large cameras, a boom
microphone, and sound and camera people, besides me, and in each case
the students pretty much carried on with their learning as if nothing was
happening. Nevertheless, there are a few steps to take to minimize any
distractions from the presence of a camera in the room.
Lea Molzcan, who was an instructional coach on our first study,
suggests telling the students about the camera at the start of the lesson
and letting them play around a bit, so they won’t be tempted to play
around during the lesson.
One of my most vocal kids noticed the camera at the start of class, and then everyone
wanted to know what the camera was for and why I was taping them. So I told them what
the camera was for and that they should get all their waves and giggles out. They didn’t even
look at it after that. Class just proceeded as normal.
 Others suggest setting the camera up before students come into class.
Many cameras are so small that they can be set up on a shelf and turned
on without students even noticing that they are being recorded. In most
situations, a quick explanation is all that is needed to keep students on
track.

District Video Policy. Whenever I discuss video-recording lessons,

people have concerns about privacy and consent. To ensure privacy,
districts should establish policy around the use of video.
As a general guideline, the more people who will see a video, the
more important consent will be. If a teacher records her lesson, watches
it on her own, and no one else sees the lesson, likely consent is not an
issue so long as the video can never become public. Similarly, if a coach
or administrator records a class and shares the video only with the
teacher in question, consent probably is not necessary since everyone
watching the video also watched the class. Nevertheless, both of these
situations and many others should be clarified through district policy.
Things become more complicated when the video becomes more
public. What if a video is shown to a team of teachers? As a parent,
would you want to know that a video of your children was being shared
across a school? What if a video was placed on the Internet as an
example of excellent teaching or learning? Would you want to know in
advance?
My suggestion is that district leaders consider these questions
carefully. First, a policy must be written to ensure that teachers are never
forced to be recorded when they don’t wish to be recorded. As
mentioned elsewhere in this book, forcing teachers to record themselves
when they are strongly opposed to it most likely will not lead to
meaningful learning; and, equally important, forcing teachers to record
themselves shows a lack of respect for their professionalism.
Second, policies and procedures must be established to ensure that
parents’ wishes are respected. Many schools send out a blanket consent
form at the start of the year covering all ways in which students might be
video-recorded. If parents don’t want their children to be recorded, their
wishes must be respected and their children seated off camera during
classroom recordings. Many teachers will want to also consider the
wishes of students themselves.
 By thinking about when and how video will be recorded and shared,
establishing policy, and communicating clearly with parents, leaders can
ensure that educators are free to use video as a central part of their
learning.

Turning Ideas Into Action

STUDENTS

Students can be and should be a big part of any effort to get

better at teaching. Students can participate in a discussion
about a given video. This may involve showing a clip to an
entire class and asking for their thoughts on what they see. For
example, a teacher who is studying questioning skills might
show a brief recording of a few questions and ask students for
their insights on how the questions affect them. Additionally,
teachers might invite select students to stay after class for more
in-depth discussion of teaching.

TEACHERS

The most important thing teachers can do is dive in and get

started with video. This might take a period of desensitization,
however. One way to get comfortable with video is to video-
record oneself in private, less formal situations. For example, a
teacher might record himself reading a story to his daughter or
having a conversation with his wife or children. It may sound a
bit silly, but the important thing is to get over the awkwardness
of watching yourself on video. Once you are at ease with video
—and that will almost inevitably happen—the real learning
can begin.

COACHES

There are at least three actions coaches can take to increase the
likelihood that they will get started in the most effective way.
First, coaches need to learn about their technology. A lot of
time will be lost if coaches incorrectly record and lose a lesson.
 Second, coaches need to get comfortable watching themselves
on video, which can be done by recording simple
conversations with friends and family at home. Finally,
coaches need to clearly understand district policy about the use
of video.

PRINCIPALS

To promote VPD, principals need constantly to communicate

four messages: (a) VPD is a powerful way to accelerate
learning, (b) how teachers use VPD is up to them, (c) VPD is
not compulsory, and (d) learning is compulsory. To get the
schools our students deserve, everyone in the school must be a
learner.

SYSTEM LEADERS AND POLICY MAKERS

District leaders need to communicate across the school district

and to the community that VPD is not a “big brother” form of
strong-arm accountability but a form of professional
development founded on a recognition of the professionalism
of teachers. Additionally, system leaders need to establish clear
policies that address most situations in which video recording
might be implemented as a part of professional learning,
including teachers recording themselves, coaches or
administrators recording teachers and sharing video with them,
teams of teachers watching video, and video being shared on
the Internet for the general public to see.

TO SUM UP
Video will be introduced much more successfully when leaders:

• Establish trust before implementing video

• Make participation in video a choice
• Focus on intrinsic motivation and avoid pressure and
embarrassment
 • Establish boundaries for conversations to create a positive learning
environment
• Walk the talk by using video for their own professional learning
• Increase success by starting out carefully, going slow to go fast

To set up a successful video-enhanced professional learning, leaders

should consider

• The best type of camera to meet their educators’ learning needs

• Where the camera should be pointed when lessons are recorded
• Who should record the class
• Recording at least 20 minutes of the class
• Setting up video so that it doesn’t distract students
• Establishing district policy for the sharing of video

GOING DEEPER
Amy Edmondson’s (2012) Teaming: How Organizations Learn,
Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy is a great book about
teams in general, but she especially makes the case, based on her
research, that psychological safety is a vital component for any learning
team. I think anyone leading groups of people will find the book helpful,
and in High-Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013), I discuss how her ideas
might be applied to leading groups of students.
Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider’s (2005) Trust in Schools: A
Core Resource for Improvement is recognized as a classic text on the
importance of trust in schools. Based on their study of 12 Chicago
schools over a 3-year period, the authors conclude that trust both
between staff and parents and between administrators and staff is
essential for improvement in schools.
Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer’s (2011) The Progress Principle:
Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work is
another excellent research-based description of the characteristics of
effective teams. The book describes how to set up a learning
environment in which continuous progress fuels a self-reinforcing cycle
of growth, both within each individual and within an organization. This
thought-provoking book also contains many practical suggestions for any
leader.
 Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s (2004) Boundaries: When to Say
Yes, When to Say No—To Take Control of Your Life is a classic work on
boundaries in personal life and relationships. While the book is written
from an explicit Christian point of view that some will find inconsistent
with their worldview, its major merit lies in its presentation of a
commonsense perspective that is consistent with most perspectives on
life. If you are interested in establishing boundaries, this is an important
book to read.
The researchers at the Harvard Negotiation Project have written many
useful books about negotiation and interpersonal communication,
including a clear articulation of the importance of autonomy within
interactions. Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro’s (2006) Beyond Reason:
Using Emotions as You Negotiate and Roger Fisher and Scott Brown’s
(1989) Getting Together: Building Relationships as We Negotiate both
make the case for respecting autonomy while also offering excellent
suggestions for improving any kind of interactions.
Several websites have been established to make it easier for educators
to share video. Some sites to consider include the following:

http://sibme.com
https://www.beasmartercookie.com
http://www.edthena.com
https://www.teachingchannel.org
Chapter 3: Instructional Coaches
 3
INSTRUCTIONAL
COACHES

Coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human
performance.

—Atul Gawande
Using video during coaching is like the gas in the car. Video helps you move forward,
and it’s easier and quicker. If you don’t have gas in the car, you can’t move forward at
all. Video is like stepping on the accelerator.

—Amanda Trimble, Instructional Coach, Noblesville, Indiana

hen Melissa Hickey was offered the chance to be an instructional

W coach, she didn’t think she wanted the job. “I really didn’t want to
be an instructional coach. I didn’t want to be out of the classroom,”
she said. Melissa “absolutely loved” working with the children in her
school, but the miles she had to drive to work were too long, and when
an instructional coaching position “kind of presented itself . . . closer to
home,” she decided to take the job at a new school, the Greater Hartford
Academy of the Arts Elementary Magnet School in Hartford,
Connecticut.
Melissa “was a little scared about starting a new job.” At first, she
said, “I had no idea what I was doing. For the first month and a half at
the new school, I opened a lot of boxes and delivered a lot of supplies
until we all got our feet on the ground. I thought I was a pretty good
teacher, but I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to do my job.”
Melissa went to a workshop on video and coaching during her second
month on the job. She thought video was interesting and decided to try it
at her school. At first she met “resistance from a couple of teachers.
Nobody wants to be videotaped. Nobody wants to see it,” she
commented. But Melissa made sure teachers knew, as she expressed it,
“that they were going to have all the power.” Teachers had the option to
keep or delete the video. “It wouldn’t go further than me or them. There
were times when a teacher didn’t want me to video-record them, so I
would offer to video-record the students.”
Melissa was very surprised at “how quickly the teachers all came
around to agreeing to be video-recorded.” At first she worked one on one
with teachers. “I would have them view the video by themselves, and
then we would meet the next day and talk about it.” Video helped
teachers see many things that they would not otherwise have noticed.
“One teacher,” Melissa said,
spoke very, very fast, but until she saw the video of herself, she never realized how fast she
spoke. Once she saw it, though, she was able to correct it immediately. I think it only takes
seeing yourself on video once or twice to get over the initial shyness or reluctance. After
that you can kind of let it go and really focus on the teaching. They all loved the fact that
they could see themselves. I think video breaks down a lot of walls.

For Melissa, it was important to ensure that the teachers knew they
could trust her. “Initially, I think they were all a little apprehensive, and
they thought it might become a punitive thing,” she said.
The big thing I learned as a coach is that you have to let the teachers decide what they want
to work on, what happens to the videos, what videos to take, etc. Give them options so they
don’t feel this is being imposed on them. Make it clear that this is confidential, not
evaluative, but for best teaching. It can’t be that today is a videotaping day and I have to put
on my high heels and best dress.

After a few weeks, teachers started sharing snippets of video at grade-

level team meetings. Eventually, everyone was willing to let Melissa
show the videos, and using them deepened the quality and meaning of
the collaborative conversations and built a true community among the
staff. “I think it has brought them all closer,” Melissa concluded,
“because they were able to see their good and their not-so-good teaching.
Everyone saw everyone else being courageous in showing video. They
were willing to be vulnerable with each other, which brought the grade-
level teams together.”
The collaboration opened up a lot of lines of communication. We were all just kind of in it
together for these deep conversations. Best of all, the teaching got much better. Video
allowed us to see ourselves as we truly were. It allowed us to collaborate. It allowed us to
focus on certain aspects of our teaching and go a lot deeper with that. We all saw each other
improve. Seeing a brand-new teacher get better at classroom management throughout the
year and getting better at teaching—that was big. We had many new teachers in the school.
 Video was a really effective way to meet the needs of a lot of teachers at a lot of different
levels.

Now, after a year coaching, Melissa reports that she is much more
comfortable being a coach. “What I didn’t expect was that I would learn
as much as I did coaching. Sometimes I think I learned a lot more than
the teachers I’m supposed to be coaching. I’m really excited to be a
coach now. I’m excited to keep going with what we have started. I’m
excited to get better at it. We can move forward and get even better.”
Instructional coaches like Melissa Hickey have been the focus of study
for my colleagues and me at the Kansas Coaching Project for the past 15
years. Our interest in coaching has grown out of a basic understanding
and recognition: Without follow-up, professional learning likely won’t
change instruction.
Over more than a decade, we’ve conducted studies to refine and
validate instructional coaching. Using a variation on design research,
which we refer to as lean design research, we are continuously trying to
simplify and improve our model for coaching. The most significant
finding we have uncovered so far is that video recording makes
instructional coaching easier and more effective. Video recording was
not a part of coaching when we started studying it, but in the course of
our work we have learned that it can have a huge, positive impact on the
whole process.

Video 3.1
An Overview of Coaching Using Video
www.corwin.com/focusonteaching

Video-Enhanced Instructional Coaching

Using video as part of coaching involves much more than simply turning
the camera on and later talking about what the video shows. If they want
to make an impact, coaches using cameras must understand how
complex it is for teachers to watch themselves do what they do. A few
years back a teacher in Alberta, Canada, helped me understand why it is
often difficult at first for teachers to watch themselves teach. He told me
that when he was on the wrestling team in college, he and his coach used
to go over video of him wrestling almost every week. “Watching that
video of myself wrestling wasn’t a big deal,” he said. “In fact, I looked
forward to it. But watching video of myself teaching, that is an entirely
different thing.”
What is the difference between watching yourself playing a sport and
watching yourself teaching? The answer is likely the complexity of the
work.1 When we get feedback on technical skills, such as how to
position ourselves while playing a sport, we are less inclined to take the
feedback personally. However, when we get feedback on more complex
or artful practices, we are more inclined to be defensive about what we
hear. For example, suggestions on classroom management are usually
harder to listen to than suggestions on how to use a computer program.
When the topic turns to complex skills, the conversation becomes more
difficult. Talking about messy problems usually is messy.
More than a decade ago, Heifetz and Linksy (2002) enhanced our
understanding of the complexity of tasks. They explained the importance
of distinguishing between simple and complex challenges, which they
referred to as “technical” and “adaptive” problems, respectively.
Every day, people have problems for which they do, in fact, have the necessary know-how
and procedures. We call these technical problems. But there is a whole host of problems that
are not amenable to authoritative expertise or standard operating procedures. They cannot be
solved by someone who provides answers from on high. We call these adaptive challenges
because they require experiments, new discoveries, and adjustments from numerous places
in the organization or community. (p. 13)

According to Heifetz and Linksy (2002), “the single most common

source of leadership failure . . . is that people, especially those in
positions of authority, treat adaptive challenges like technical problems”
(p. 14).
When we ignore the difference between simple and complex problems
by, for example, suggesting that teachers simply listen to instructional
coaches the way athletes listen to athletic coaches, we risk creating a
coaching model that is twice doomed for failure: first, because
addressing complex challenges as if they were simple skills increases the
likelihood of resistance, and second because technical solutions for
adaptive problems likely won’t work.
 Video recording addresses both of these issues. First, when we video-
record a class, the video captures the rich complexity of the classroom.
As middle school English teacher Lea Molzcan told us, “looking at a
recording of your class is like looking into a kaleidoscope because there
are so many things happening. What you see keeps changing and
evolving.” Additionally, instructional coaching that employs video
responds to the complexities of teaching by adapting to that complexity
over time. Coach and teacher set a goal based on the picture of reality
revealed in video of the class. They monitor progress toward the goal by
recording and watching video of teaching and learning, adapt their
strategies for hitting the goal based on what the video reveals, and then
continue learning together until they hit the goal.

Video 3.2
A Coach’s Process
www.corwin.com/focusonteaching

Instructional coaching is not a one-size-fits-all approach; instructional

coaches adapt solutions to the unique opportunities and challenges each
teacher experiences.

Video Increases Trust

Perhaps the most frequent comment we heard in the interviews
conducted for this book is that teachers need to trust their coaches in
order to agree to being recorded. As instructional coach Melissa Hickey
explained, “There has to be a certain amount of trust between the coach
and the teachers. Teachers have to be able to say, ‘No, I don’t want to be
videotaped’ or, ‘No, today is just not a good day.’ They have to be
comfortable with video.” Of course, if teachers don’t trust their coaches,
coaching of any sort will most likely be unproductive anyway.
However, one of the surprise findings from our interviews is that
coaches and teachers both reported that video actually strengthens
colleagues’ relationships and increases trust. Instructional coach
Courtney Horton said she felt that using video during coaching “helped
strengthen my partnership with teachers because it is something we are
going through together. It’s a growth process for us both to watch video
and talk about it together. Video is a great nonevaluative, reflective tool
that has deepened my partnerships with my teachers.”
Courtney’s comments suggest two reasons video might increase trust.
First, when coaches and teachers base their conversations on video, they
work from a shared understanding of current reality in the classroom. If
teachers haven’t seen a video of the classroom, they may understand the
classroom differently than the coach does. As I have pointed out
throughout this book, we usually have a poor understanding of what it
looks like when we do what we do. As a result, if teachers haven’t seen
video recordings of their lessons, they may not see the relevance of their
coaches’ comments and dismiss what a coach says. When coach and
teacher both see the lesson the same way, however, they can engage in
real, meaningful dialogue about learning.
“Video,” Kristen Shrout Fernandes, an instructional coach from
Central Falls, Rhode Island, said, “is a really important tool for building
shared understanding. It helps ensure that both the coaches and the
teachers are on the same page. Sometimes you may be talking about
something and the other person may not fully understand what you are
trying to say. Watching video changes this. Now people say, ‘Oh, so that
is what you’re talking about.’”
A second reason video increases trust is that when coach and teacher
set a goal based on video, collaborate to implement a teaching practice,
monitor progress by viewing video recordings of a class, and eventually
hit the goal based on clear evidence from video, both have a shared sense
of accomplishment based on real-life evidence. Coaching based on video
is coaching that is real, and coach and teacher feel a real sense of
accomplishment when their collaboration leads to better learning for
students.

Video Facilitates Partnership Coaching

Video also enables an important change in the way coach and teacher
interact. For some, coaching involves top-down interactions with an
expert giving feedback and advice to an apprentice. During such a top-
down approach, the coach observes the teacher, identifies what is going
well and what the teacher needs to do to improve, and then makes
suggestions. Essentially, during top-down coaching, the coach does most
of the thinking, decides what the teacher needs to do, and then tries to get
the teacher to agree to do it.
There are a number of problems with this top-down model. First, as
Kegan and Lahey (2001) have explained, top-down interactions are
grounded in two problematic assumptions:
The first [assumption] is that the perspective of the feedback giver (let’s call him the
supervisor)—what he sees and thinks, his feedback—is right, is correct. An accompanying
assumption is that there is only one correct answer. When you put these two assumptions
together, they amount to this: the supervisor has the one and only correct view of the
situation. (We call this “the super vision assumption”; that is, the supervisor has super
vision). (p. 128)

When coaches work from “super vision assumptions,” they limit how
much they learn from the person who knows most about the classroom:
the teacher. The classroom teacher is in class every day and usually
knows an enormous amount about each student. Coach and teacher
arrive at better solutions when the teacher’s knowledge, insights, and
ideas are a part of the coaching conversation—that is, coaching leads to
better solutions when teachers have a voice in coaching.
An equally significant problem with top-down feedback is that it often
engenders resistance. As I have written elsewhere in this book and in
Unmistakable Impact in particular (Knight, 2011), when teachers are
told, explicitly or implicitly, that their opinion doesn’t matter, that
coaching is compulsory, and that they must implement practices that
have been chosen for them, they resist. A more effective model is one
that positions teachers as equal partners in the coaching process (see
Figure 3.1; Knight, 2007, 2011).2
Instructional coaching based on partnership is an alternative to top-
down coaching (see Figure 3.2). During this approach, which is much
easier to implement using video recordings, the coach is not positioned
as an expert with “super vision” but as a partner who engages in dialogue
with teachers about what they see on video and what they want to do to
move forward. Video recordings, much like Thinking Prompts in the
classroom, described in High-Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013), become
what Parker Palmer (2009) refers to as “third things”:

Figure 3.1 Top-Down Coaching

 “[T]hird things” . . . represent neither the voice of the facilitator nor the voice of the
participant . . . Rightly used, a third thing functions a bit like the old Rorschach inkblot test,
evoking from us whatever the soul wants us to attend to. (pp. 92–93)

Video functions as a third thing throughout the coaching process,

representing, to paraphrase Palmer, neither the voice of the instructional
coach nor the voice of the teacher. Teacher and coach equally interpret
video, identify a goal (sometimes looking at video of others teaching the
practice to be implemented), monitor progress by watching video, and
use video as a point of departure for all coaching conversations. As
Amanda Trimble, an instructional coach from Noblesville, Indiana, told
us, “Using video made it so that the conversation wasn’t about me and
what I thought; it had more to do with the teacher and what she felt was
good for her students.”

Using video recording is a way to see things clearer, but it is also a

tool that brought me closer to some of the teachers. It was
something we could use together. It wasn’t their view or my view; it
was something we could share. It was a way to connect.

—Tara Strahan, Instructional Coach, Orange City,

Florida
 Figure 3.2 Partnership Coaching

Video and the Components of Instructional

Coaching
For more than a decade, I have worked with researchers, coaches, and
educators to refine the process instructional coaches use when they
collaborate with teachers. Although each coaching session is different
depending on the teacher, a coach can increase the chance that there will
be lasting impact by undertaking certain activities.
The instructional coaching process is pretty straightforward. Once a
teacher is enrolled in coaching, the coach and teacher collaborate to
identify a goal (a measurable change the teacher would like to see in
student achievement, behavior, or attitude). Then coach and teacher
identify a teaching strategy the teacher will implement to try to hit the
goal, usually a strategy drawn from a collection of effective teaching
practices such as those described in High-Impact Instruction (Knight,
2013). Following this, the coach precisely describes the practice, often
using a checklist, and works with the teacher to modify the practice to
tailor it to the teacher’s unique strengths and her students’ unique needs.
The teacher then observes a model of the practice, perhaps by watching
the coach teaching in the classroom, watching a video, or observing
another teacher using the practice.

Components of Instructional Coaching

1. Enroll
2. Identify
3. Explain and mediate
4. Model
5. Observe
6. Explore

After the teacher has set a goal, identified a teaching strategy to try,
and learned the strategy, she tries it out. The coach observes the teacher
implementing the practice and gathers data on what the teacher does and
whether that will lead to reaching the goal. Then coach and teacher meet
to discuss the data. If the goal has been met, teacher and coach can start
another goal or take a break from coaching. If the goal has not been met,
on the other hand, teacher and coach explore how to refine the practice
so that it will better enable the teacher to hit the goal or choose another
practice, repeating the whole process until the goal is reached.
Video increases the effectiveness of each of the components of
instructional coaching and turns the focus of the conversation away from
the coach’s opinion and toward what matters most: students’ experiences
in the classroom. In the rest of this chapter, I detail how video can be
used at each step of the coaching process.3

1. ENROLL
During the “enroll” component of coaching, coaches use several
strategies to enlist teachers for coaching. For example, they have one-to-
one conversations, give presentations to small groups of teachers or the
entire school, hold informal conversations, write articles/announcements
in school/district newsletters, or follow up on principal referrals. (More
about this component of coaching, and all others, is found in
Instructional Coaching [Knight, 2007].)
 Generally, people embrace coaching when they are convinced that it
will lead to changes that are rewarding and that they think they can
easily implement (Knight, 2011; Patterson et al., 2013). When coaches
are enrolling teachers for coaching that involves video, there are some
additional issues to talk about. First, coaches should explain that the
main purpose of the video is to ensure that coaching focuses on what is
most helpful to the teacher and the students. “If we get a clear picture of
what’s happening in the class through the use of video,” the coach can
explain, “we’ll have a better chance of doing what will have the biggest
impact.”
Coaches should also emphasize that the video will not be shared with
anyone other than those whom the teacher chooses. Instructional coach
Melissa Hickey told us that “there has to be trust between the coach and
the teacher, and that means the teacher has to be able to say “I want the
video” or “I don’t want the video shown to anyone.” Teachers also have
to be able to say “Today is just not a good day.”
To build trust, coaches need to reinforce that the video is only being
recorded to help the teacher accomplish her goals; the teacher chooses
where to point the camera, who views the video (usually only the coach
and teacher), and what happens to the video after its immediate use.
Collaborating teachers are much more at ease when they know that video
is only for their use.

2. IDENTIFY
During this component of coaching, the teacher collaborates with the
coach to set a goal and select a strategy to try to meet that goal. This is
the most important component of instructional coaching, because if
teacher and coach do not pick a goal that can make a difference for
students, a lot of time will be wasted. To be worth the effort, coaching
must lead to real improvements in students’ lives, and without an
appropriate goal, significant changes may not come about.

The Components of Coaching

• Enroll teachers in coaching.
• Explain the purpose of the video.
 • Clarify that the teacher chooses who will see the recording—
usually only the teacher and coach.
• Let the teacher choose where to place the camera, what to do
with the video, and which camera to use.

To ensure that teachers identify a useful goal and appropriate

strategies, coaches follow a series of simple steps during this component
of coaching. First, the coach helps the teacher get a clear picture of
reality, often by video-recording the teacher’s class. Then, together,
coach and teacher identify a change the teacher would like to see in
student behavior, achievement, or attitude and set a measurable goal.
Following this, they identify a teaching strategy the teacher will try out
to hit the strategy.

Get a Clear Picture of Reality. A shared, accurate view of reality is

necessary to identify a meaningful goal. This is more difficult than it
might seem because, as Bossidy and Charan (2004) have written,
“avoiding reality is a basic and ubiquitous human tendency” (p. 26).
When coaches use cameras, they video-record a teacher’s class to
capture what is happening during a lesson. “The video,” as coach
Amanda Trimble told us, “helps the teacher reflect because it is real,
authentic evidence. You can’t disagree with a video of what happened in
your class.”
Usually the coach asks the teacher to choose the class he wants
recorded, encouraging the teacher to suggest the class that will yield the
most useful information. Most coaches we interviewed video-recorded
both the teacher and students, moving the camera back and forth—
focusing on the teacher when he led discussion and on the students when
they were doing most of the talking.
After the video is recorded, the coach and teacher watch the video. In
our research, we have found that it is best that they watch the video
separately because that way (a) the teacher watches the video without
concern for what someone else thinks of the video; (b) the teacher can
watch the video at his own pace, stopping and starting whenever he
wishes; and (c) coach and teacher can engage in more meaningful
conversations when they have both watched the video ahead of time and
don’t have to divide their attention between the video and their
colleague.
 We have created three documents that coaches can share with teachers
to help them get the most out of their video. The first document, Figure
3.3, gives teachers some pointers on what to look for when they watch
their video. To help teachers get a clearer picture of how their students
are learning, coaches can share Figure 3.4, the Watch Your Students
form. Finally, to help teachers get a clearer picture of how they are
teaching, coaches can share Figure 3.5, the Watch Yourself form.

Identify a Change the Teacher Wants to See and Set a Measurable

Goal. After the coach and teacher have watched the video separately,
they meet to talk about what they noticed in the video. The goal of this
conversation is to identify a goal (outcome) that the teacher would like to
see in the students. We recommend selecting as a goal a measurable
change in student achievement, behavior, or attitude. To guide the
teacher to identifying such a goal, the coach might pose the following
questions:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how close was the lesson to your ideal?

2. What would have to change to make the class closer to a 10?
3. What would your students be doing?
4. What would that look like?
5. How would we measure that?
6. Do you want that to be your goal?
7. Would it really matter to you if you hit that goal?
8. What teaching strategy will you try to hit that goal?

Figure 3.3 How to Get the Most Out of Watching Your Video

Goal

Identify two sections of the video that you like and one or two
sections of video you’d like to further explore.

Getting Ready

Watching themselves on video is one of the most powerful

strategies professionals can use to improve their performance.
However, it can be a challenge. It takes a little time to get used to
seeing yourself on screen, so be prepared for a bit of a shock. After
a while, you will become more comfortable with the process.

• Find a place to watch where you won’t be distracted.

• You may find it helpful to read through the Watch Your
Students (Figure 3.4) and Watch Yourself (Figure 3.5) forms
to remind yourself of things to keep in mind while watching.
• Set aside a block of time so you can watch the video
uninterrupted.
• Make sure you’ve got a pen and paper ready to take notes.

Watching the Video

• Plan to watch the entire video in one sitting.
• Take notes on anything that you find interesting.
• Remember to write the time from the video beside any note
you make so that you can return to it if you wish.
• People tend to be hard on themselves, so be sure to watch for
things you like in the video.
• After watching the video, review your notes and circle the
items you will discuss with your coach (two you like and one
or two you would like to further explore).
• Sit back, relax, and enjoy the experience.

Figure 3.4 Watch Your Students Form

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.
Figure 3.5 Watch Yourself Form

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.

 Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.

Choose a Teaching Strategy to Use to Hit the Goal. Once a

measurable goal has been established, coach and teacher need to select a
teaching strategy that the teacher will implement to achieve the goal. The
strategy may be drawn from books such as Marzano’s (2007) Art and
Science of Teaching, Saphier, Haley-Speca, and Gower’s (2008) The
Skillful Teacher, Lemov’s (2010) Teach Like a Champion, or my High-
Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013).
In High-Impact Instruction, 16 teaching strategies are organized
around the Big Four Framework:

• Content Planning
Guiding Questions
Learning Maps

• Formative Assessment
Identifying Specific Proficiencies
Choose a Way to Assess the Proficiency
Modify Teaching

• Instruction
Thinking Prompts
Effective Questions
Cooperative Learning
Stories
Authentic Learning

• Community Building
Learner-Friendly Culture
Power With, Not Power Over
Freedom Within Form
Expectations
 Witness to the Good
Fluent Corrections

3. EXPLAIN AND MEDIATE

Video helps us stay grounded and pay closer attention to what is

going on. We think about what changes we can make rather than
me just sharing my observations and suggestions for how to change
things. Since we are both looking at the same thing, it’s not just me
talking about what I noticed, it’s “let’s share what we both
noticed.”

—Kirsten Shrout Fernandes, Instructional Coach,

Central Falls, Rhode Island

The goal during this component of coaching is for the coach to explain
the new teaching practice and then help the teacher plan how to
implement it. Thus, if a coach was explaining learning maps (for more
information, see Chapter 2 of High-Impact Instruction [Knight, 2013]),
the coach likely would need to explain the characteristics of a quality
learning map, how to introduce the map at the start of a unit, how to use
it to open and close daily lessons, and how to use it during an end-of-unit
review.
During the explaining part, instructional coaches must make sure their
explanations are precise and clear. If they cannot explain something
clearly, the teacher they are coaching won’t be able to implement it.
Teachers can implement only what they hear and understand.
One way to increase the clarity of an explanation is to use checklists.
A checklist is not a dumbing down of the explanation; instead, it distills
an explanation to its essence. Indeed, if a coach cannot describe a
practice through the use of a checklist, chances are that he does not
understand the practice clearly enough.
Using a checklist to explain a practice does not mean that a coach
expects the teacher to do it exactly as explained. As Eric Liu (2004)
wrote, “Teaching is not one-size-fits-all; it’s one-size-fits-one” (p. 47).
Expecting a practice to always work the same way in every class is
unrealistic given the complexity of the classroom.
For that reason, we suggest that coaches be precise but provisional
when explaining a practice. That is, they explain the elements of the
checklist clearly but ask the teacher how she might want to modify it to
best meet the needs of her students or to best take advantage of her
strengths as a teacher.
If the teacher wants to modify a practice, that is her decision. She
knows her students best, and she is the one who will be using the
teaching strategy. Further, if the teacher hits the goal, then whether she
modifies the practice is irrelevant. Indeed, using her experience and
understanding of students, she may have improved the practice.
However, if the goal is not met, coach and teacher can revisit the
checklist to see if the implementation of the practice needs to be refined
to better meet the goal. That way, the coach does not end up being in the
one-up position of telling the teacher what to do.
In the mediation part of this component, the coach helps the teacher
get ready to teach the chosen practice. In other words, the coach serves
as a mediator between the practice as it is written down in a manual,
book, or checklist and the teacher’s classroom.
For a learning map, this might involve the following. First, a coach
might use a checklist as a guideline to help the teacher create a learning
map for a unit she is about to teach. Then the coach might use a checklist
to help the teacher get ready to introduce the map at the start of the unit.
Subsequently, the coach could use additional checklists to prepare the
teacher to introduce and close lessons and to lead an end-of-unit review.
Throughout this component of coaching, the coach can also use video
that has previously been recorded to show the teacher what a given
practice looks like. Some coaches, with the permission of their
colleagues, gather a library of practices from recordings. Similarly, some
districts are creating central libraries of video for all faculty to view.
Online sites such as the Teaching Channel also provide video that can be
used.

4. MODEL
 In most cases, to learn a practice, teachers need to see it. In Influencer,
Patterson (2013) and his colleagues summarize research that shows “how
powerfully our behavior is shaped by observing others” (p. 18). My
research on coaching has led me to the same conclusion. During one
study in which I interviewed 13 first- and second-year teachers in a
middle school, every teacher told me that modeling was an extremely
helpful part of coaching. One teacher spoke for the group when she said,
“When she [the coach] came into the classroom, that’s what helped me
most. I could see that my students could be managed, not controlled, but
managed . . . It was just one hour, but since I’ve had that experience, I
know what to look for.”4
The coaches in our coaching cohort research study taught us that
modeling can occur in at least five different ways.

In the Classroom. Most commonly, the coach demonstrates the chosen

practice in the collaborating teacher’s classroom. Teachers have told us
that they prefer that coaches don’t teach the whole lesson but only the
practice itself. Instructional coaches who model practices may want to
video themselves teaching and then share the recording with the teacher.
If time permits, they may wish to watch the video with the collaborating
teacher.

In the Classroom With No Students. Some teachers prefer that the

coach model a practice in the classroom without students being present.
In that case, the coach shares the practice in the way he would if he was
teaching the lesson. For example, the coach might use the “I do it, we do
it, you do it” approach and show the teacher exactly how to teach it.
Again, video may be used to make a record of the lesson that the teacher
could review or that coach and teacher could discuss, perhaps right after
the model lesson.

Co-Teaching. In some cases, such as when the lesson involves a content

area that is unfamiliar to the coach, coach and teacher may co-teach.
Again, video can be used to record the lesson so coach and teacher can
explore how the teacher taught the practice and whether it worked. More
information on how to discuss video is included in the Explore section
below.

Visiting Another Teacher’s Class. In some cases, especially if the goal

is to learn a procedure (such as how to set students up for learning
circles) or a management technique (such as how to correct or reinforce
students), teachers may choose to see a practice by visiting another
teacher’s classroom. This is best when the teacher being observed has
had a prior conversation with the visiting teacher and they have
discussed a checklist that summarizes the practices.
Under such circumstances, the instructional coach may not be able to
observe the class, and even if the coach observes the class with the
teacher, the coach and teacher will be able to have only limited
conversations while the class is being taught. For that reason, if the
teacher being observed consents, the coach or teacher might video-record
the lesson so they can review it later and get a deeper understanding of
how to teach the practice. Even if the coach is unable to visit the
classroom with the teacher, they can still discuss the video after the class
if the presenting teacher agrees.

Watching Video. A final way to see a model of how to teach a practice

is to watch a video. Sometimes the video is available on a video-sharing
site like teachingchannel.org. At other times, the video is one the coach
took of himself or of another teacher (with explicit approval of the
teacher). What matters is that the teacher gets to see an example, or
several examples, of how to teach the practice. After that, it is time for
the teacher to try out the practice herself.

5. OBSERVE
Video makes it much easier for coaches to gather data on how a
teacher implements practice or strategy. Without video, a coach has to
take copious notes or gather specific data such as those described in
Chapter 4, including time on task, ratio of interaction (praise vs.
correction), instructional and noninstructional time, and so forth. The
biggest problem with this approach is that since many teachers don’t
know what it looks like when they teach, they may not see how data,
notes, or comments relate to the way they teach. When the class is
recorded, however, both teacher and coach have an accurate, shared
understanding of what happened in the classroom.
There are many ways a coach can record a class. In most classrooms,
as coach Courtney Horton told us, students quickly forget there is a
camera in the room. Nevertheless, a coach must make every effort to
avoid causing distractions by standing or sitting out of the students’ sight
lines. What the coach records is the teacher’s decision; it’s her data, but
often the coach records the teacher while she is teaching and the students
while they are interacting. Thus, the coach moves the camera back and
forth between teacher and students.
We recommend that the coach record the class, since no matter how
much information a camera gathers, the coach is bound to miss
something if not present in the classroom. Watching a video of a class
without having been there is like watching a sporting event on television
vs. watching it live in the stadium. There is much more to see and feel
when your view extends beyond the scope of a lens.
Additionally, sometimes the coach must be in a teacher’s class to
gather data that show whether the teacher has met her goal. For example,
if a teacher has set the goal of achieving 90% time on task, the coach has
to be in class to gather the data.
Despite the advantages of observing a class, sometimes it is
impossible for a coach to record a class, perhaps because of a schedule
conflict, lack of time, or because the teacher prefers otherwise. In such
situations, the camera can either be held by a student or set up and turned
on to record a class before the students arrive. In this way, even if not
optimal, cameras make it easier for coaches to meet the needs of larger
numbers of teachers and students.

6. EXPLORE
During the “explore” phase of coaching, the coach and teacher talk
about what happened when the new practice was implemented to
determine what the teacher’s next action should be. As depicted in
Figure 3.6, action is based on whether the teacher has hit the identified
goal.

Figure 3.6 Exploring What Happened

 As explained in the section on identifying a goal, it is most effective
when the coach and teacher watch the video separately. Both should
watch the video with the surveys in mind and come to the conversation
prepared to discuss their answers. If checklists exist for looking at the
behavior, they should be completed by both coach and teacher.
Additionally, the coach might look for sections of the video that went
very well as well as sections that she would like to explore separately. To
make this process as simple and fast as possible, both coach and teacher
need to keep track of the minute mark at which each of the sections
occurs.
When teacher and coach meet, they should discuss each of the
questions above. Many coaches like to begin by asking the teacher what
he thought went well. Following this, the coach and teacher often discuss
whether the goal was met. Sometimes this means that the coach shares
data that she gathered in the classroom; at other times this means that
coach and teacher look over student work or students’ responses on
formative assessments or compare notes on what they saw in the video.
(If they are looking at a goal related to student responses, it is important
that the sound quality of the video allows coach and teacher to hear all
the student responses.)
If the teacher has reached the goal, the coach and teacher discuss
whether he wants to set and pursue another goal or take a break from
coaching. For example, a teacher who is about to take on coaching the
basketball team may want to hold off on another goal. Similarly, near the
end of the year, a teacher may want to wait until after the holidays to
take on a new goal.
 Explore Questions
• What are you pleased about?
• Did you hit the goal?
• If the goal was hit, do you want to identify another goal, take
a break, or keep refining the current new practice?
• If the goal was not hit, do you want to stick with the chosen
practice or try a new one?
• If you stick with the chosen practice, how will you modify it
to increase its impact? (Revisit the checklist.)
• If you choose another practice, what will it be?
• What are your next actions?

If the teacher has not hit the goal, she has many options. For example,
she can continue to modify her use of the original practice. This usually
means revisiting the checklist with the coach to discuss how the practice
might be adapted to better meet the needs of the students. If the teacher
chooses to modify the teaching practice in significant ways, she and the
coach can discuss teaching the practice with more fidelity. In some cases,
the teacher may want to see a model or models of the practice being
implemented.
Another option is to stop implementing the original practice and try
another one. If this is the teacher’s choice, usually the coach and teacher
discuss options and then the coach repeats the “explain,” “mediate,” and
“model” components of coaching to ensure the teacher is ready to
implement the new practice.
Finally, the teacher may choose to continue with the practice as it is
being implemented. In some cases, it may take time for the practice to
have the desired impact. In other words, sometimes changing nothing is
the best practice.
Coaching is a very powerful way to support teachers as they strive to
find ways to better meet the needs of their students. Integrating video
into coaching increases the power of coaching in significant ways.
Michelle Harris, who was one of the first coaches in our research cohort
to use a camera, summed it up beautifully: “Coaching with video is like
coaching on steroids.”

I think using video made my coaching more strategic. It’s one thing
to set a goal, write it down on paper, and talk about it. But having
evidence on the video to show that there is growth and we’re on
track is powerful. We stay on the track to hit the goal.

—Christa Anderson, Instructional Coach, Missoula,

Montana

Turning Ideas Into Action

STUDENTS

Students can become a type of coach and be extremely helpful

to a teacher as he pursues a goal for instructional improvement.
Teachers can share their goal with students, explain why it is
important, and ask students for suggestions on how to reach it.
A teacher who is trying to increase authentic engagement, for
example, might talk with students about the difference between
authentic engagement and strategic compliance and ask
students to suggest how he can make learning more
authentically engaging.

TEACHERS

Coaches need to keep in mind that the video belongs to the

teacher and that, therefore, the teacher decides everything
related to the recording—where the camera is pointed, who
sees the video (which may mean only the teacher views it),
who does the recording, and what happens to the video after it
has been reviewed.

COACHES
 One way coaches can model the power of video is to use it to
improve their own practices. Indeed, the coaches in our design
study found that watching themselves on video was the most
effective way to improve their practice. Coaches can ask their
collaborating teachers for permission to video-record coaching
sessions, explaining that the sole purpose is for the coach to
improve practice. Recording conversations and reviewing the
video afterward can be powerful learning. For example, I have
recorded conversations with my wife Jenny and learned a great
deal about how I communicate when I went back and reviewed
the recording.

PRINCIPALS

In our interviews, teachers and coaches told us that teachers

want to be reassured that their video is theirs alone. Thus,
principals need to agree that teacher video will not be shared
without teacher agreement and repeat that message until
teachers believe that they and they alone determine what gets
recorded and what happens to the recording.

SYSTEM LEADERS AND POLICY MAKERS

When budgets are tight, the positions of instructional coaches

are sometimes considered the easiest to cut. However, if
schools want to improve, cutting coaches is shortsighted.
System leaders need to look carefully at budgets to determine
how funds can be found to ensure that coaches are not viewed
as an add-on luxury but a permanent way for schools to
establish cultures of continuous improvement.

TO SUM UP
• Coaching using video is like coaching on steroids.
• Video captures the rich complexity of the classroom.
• Instructional coaches can use video to adapt solutions to the
unique challenges and opportunities each teacher experiences.
 • Use of video increases trust.
• Video turns the focus of coaching away from the coach’s opinions
and toward what matters—students’ learning and teachers’
instruction.
• Using video has implications for all components of coaching.
Enroll. Clarify that using video is a choice and that the teacher
owns the video and, therefore, decides how it is recorded, who
sees it, and what happens to the recording.
Identify. Use video to get a clear picture of reality and use
video as a point of departure for setting a goal for coaching.
Explain and Mediate and Model. Consider sharing a video or
videos of teachers implementing the practice to be learned.
Observe. Use the camera to record how a teacher implements
a practice.
Explore. The coach and teacher should watch the video
separately and then meet to determine if the goal has or has not
been met and what the teacher’s next action should be.

GOING DEEPER
In two previous books that discuss coaching, Instructional Coaching
(Knight, 2007) and Unmistakable Impact (Knight, 2011), I have
mentioned several books about coaching in schools, including Bloom,
Castagna, Moir, and Warren’s (2005) Blended Coaching: Skills and
Strategies to Support Principal Development, Costa and Garmston’s
(2002) Cognitive Coaching: A Foundation for Renaissance Schools, Jane
Kise’s (2006) Differentiated Coaching: A Framework for Helping
Teachers Change, Joellen Killion and Cindy Harrison’s (2006) Taking
the Lead: New Roles for Teachers and School-Based Coaches, Stephen
G. Barkley’s (2010) Quality Teaching in a Culture of Coaching, Nancy
Love’s (2009) Using Data to Improve Learning for All: A Collaborative
Inquiry Approach, Lucy West and Fritz Staub’s (2003) Content-Focused
Coaching: Transforming Mathematics Lessons, Jan Miller Burkins’s
(2009) Practical Literacy Coaching: A Collection of Tools to Support
Your Work, and Mary Catherine Moran’s (2007) Differentiated Literacy
Coaching: Scaffolding for Student and Teacher Success. Finally,
Coaching: Approaches and Perspectives (Knight, 2008), which I edited,
contains chapters by several coaching authors on many of the coaching
approaches listed here.
Additionally, three books are especially useful in explaining the
practices we see instructional coaches using:

• Atul Gawande’s (2011) The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get

Things Right explains the importance of precise explanations of
practices.
• Chip and Dan Heath’s (2010) Switch: How to Change Things
When Change Is Hard provides, among other things, an excellent
description of what is required to begin and change initiatives like
coaching.
• Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, David Maxfield, and Ron
McMillan’s (2013) Influencer: The New Science of Leading
Change (2nd ed.) explains the importance of modeling as a part of
change and learning.

1For an insightful discussion of the complexity of a task and the quality of performance, see
Chapter 3 in Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (2011).
2Sadly, a recent survey conducted by the Gallup organization of more than 100,000 employees in
a wide variety of occupations found that teachers are the “least likely” to say, “at work my
opinion seems to count” (http://www.gallup.com).
3For more information on the components of instructional coaching, see Instructional Coaching
(Knight, 2007).
4You can read a download of these interviews at
http://www.instructionalcoach.org/images/downloads/research-pubs/TeacherInterviews.pdf.
Chapter 4: Teachers Using Cameras to Coach Themselves
 4
TEACHERS USING
CAMERAS TO COACH
THEMSELVES

Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless
momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies. The
exercise of voluntary attention in the schoolroom must therefore be counted one of the
most important points of training that take place there; and the first-rate teacher, by the
keenness of the remoter interests which he is able to awaken, will provide abundant
opportunities for its occurrence.

—William James, Talks to Teachers

What has been true for me (without exception) is that the problem I’m actually taping
in order to solve always turns out to not be my problem at all. Something ELSE is my
problem, and the video reveals that. It’s like the device of the “MacGuffin” in
Hitchcock movies—the thing the characters are after or searching for is not as
important as what is revealed about the characters while on the hunt for that thing.

—Sharon Thomas, High School English Teacher, Elkton,

Maryland

n my younger days, I went on a hike with two friends in Jasper

I National Park in the Canadian Rockies. At one point, we stopped for a
while at the base of a beautiful range of mountains on the continental
divide in the Tonquin Valley and soaked up the spectacular view. After a
few minutes, one friend, who spent all his spare time climbing
mountains, said, “It’s funny, whenever I see a view like this, I always
look at the mountain to see the best route up to the top.” My other friend,
who worked on a trail crew clearing brush to create hiking paths in the
park, laughed and said, “That’s funny. Whenever I look at a valley like
this, I look at the trees to see the best way to cut them down.”
That conversation illustrates an important aspect of learning and
experiences in general. We see what we look to see, and prior knowledge
and intentional focus shape how we interpret what we see. When it
comes to watching ourselves on video, this is good news because, if we
are intentional about how we focus our attention, if we teach ourselves to
focus our attention, we can learn a lot from what we see.
I learned about the power of focused attention while studying English
literature, in particular John Keats. When I read Keats’s poetry, I decided
to supplement the experience by reading Walter Jackson Bate’s (1979)
wonderful biography of the poet. As it turned out, the more I read Bate,
the more I saw in the poems. Bate’s analysis of Keats’s verse helped me
know what to look for in order to appreciate the beauty of Keats’s
language. Bate’s explanation that Keats wrote many of his great poems
by the sea gave me insight into the imagery, and especially the rhythm,
in Keats’s poems. Bate’s description of Keats’s short life and his tragic
experience with tuberculosis (he watched his brother die from the disease
and then saw the same symptoms in himself before dying from it)
deepened my insight into one of Keats’s greatest themes—how beauty
can help us transcend the impermanence of experience. Each bit of
knowledge focused my attention and helped the poems come alive as I
read them. In short, focused attention helped me see more.
A journalist once visited my family in Toronto. She spent the day
walking the streets of the city, going from appointment to appointment
conducting interviews for a story about theater in Toronto. When she
came back to our house at the end of the day, I asked her what she had
learned. “Well,” she said, “I mostly learned a lot about shoes.” Then she
went on to explain that she had set out that morning wearing a new pair
of shoes that turned out to be too tight. As the day progressed, her feet
got more and more uncomfortable, and that pain caused her to look at
everyone else’s shoes. She suddenly noticed things about people’s shoes
that she had never before paid much attention to—they were worn out or
unpolished, some looked very uncomfortable, some looked like bedroom
slippers, and some shoes she wanted for herself. She learned all she did
about shoes because the pain in her feet focused her attention. It’s a
shame that her article wasn’t about shoes!
 Video 4.1
Teachers Using Video to Learn
www.corwin.com/focusonteaching

The point of these stories is that if teachers focus their attention, they
can see and learn more about things around them. Teachers will gain a
much deeper insight into the video recording of their lesson, as I did
reading Keats, by focusing their attention on specific aspects of their
teaching and their students’ experiences. Watching a recording of a
lesson with focused attention can be one of the most powerful forms of
professional learning a teacher will ever experience. And it is easily done
by employing a few simple strategies. This chapter details how to get the
most out of watching a video for that purpose.

Decide Where to Point the Camera

When teachers record their class, they should use whatever camera they
have available, an iPhone or other smartphone, iPad, GoPro, Flip, or
whatever they have on hand. Once they have a camera, the next step is to
determine where they want to point it. Teachers may want to turn the
camera toward their students or toward themselves. Teachers who are
mostly interested in student engagement or behavior will likely want to
point the camera at their students. Teachers who are interested in how
they praise or correct students, ask questions, or use their instructional
time may want to record themselves. Teachers who are especially
ambitious may want to use two cameras and record their students and
themselves at the same time.

Film a Class
Teachers will probably need to record at least 20 minutes of video. If
they use an iPad, they simply fold the cover, prop up the device, and hit
Record. They can also set whatever type of camera they are using against
something, such as a stack of books, or use a tripod. Alternatively, they
could ask a student to film the class (when they are sure it won’t interfere
with any student’s learning) or ask another teacher or instructional coach
to do the filming. When teachers use a GoPro with a fish-eye lens or
attach a fish-eye lens to their smartphone, they just need to set the
camera on a shelf.
After they record the video, they’ll likely need to watch it at least
twice—once to get used to seeing themselves on video and once to focus
their attention on an aspect of teaching or learning taking place.

First Watch
The first time teachers watch their video, they need to keep at least two
goals in mind. First, they should use the first watch to get used to seeing
themselves on a screen. The first few times they see themselves on video,
they may find it difficult to focus on their teaching and their students’
learning. Most of us have had the experience of hearing our voice on a
recording and being surprised at what we sound like. Seeing yourself on
video can be like that—but to the power of 10.
Part of the problem is that most people don’t like the way they look
(including their clothes, voice, hair, movements). I have watched many
people watch themselves on video and interviewed many people after
they have had that experience, and so far, I have never heard anybody
say, “You know what, I’m much younger and thinner than I realized.”
Video does seem to add 10 pounds and 10 years, and part of the first
watch is just allowing teachers an opportunity to get comfortable seeing
themselves.
A second goal of the first watch is to identify what teachers want to
focus on when they watch the video for the second time. Watching a
class can be overwhelming—do I watch the students and look at their
level of engagement, their responses, or their behavior? Or do I watch
myself to get a clearer picture of how I reinforce or correct students, how
I deliver content, how I interact with students, or ask questions?
Clearly seeing and understanding all of these different variables at
once is impossible. However, when teachers choose one area to watch
carefully, they will see and learn a lot. After they choose an area of
focus, they are ready to conduct the second watch.

Second Watch
During the second watch, the real learning happens as the teacher’s
focused attention reveals a clearer picture of what is happening in a
classroom. When they watch the video the second time, teachers can
choose to either watch themselves or watch their students. How to do
that is described below.

What to Watch for When You Watch Yourself

• Ratio of interaction
• Growth vs. fixed mindset
• Consistent corrections
• Interactions

Opportunities to respond
Type, kind, and level of questions

• Instructional vs. noninstructional time

• Teacher vs. student talk

WATCH YOURSELF
Reinforcing Students
Effective teachers encourage students by making sure students realize
that they see them acting in ways that will help them learn. Teachers can
learn a lot about the way they guide learning by watching how often they
praise students for appropriate behavior and how often they correct
students for inappropriate behavior. The ratio of times a teacher lets
students know she sees them doing what they are supposed to be doing
vs. the number of times a teacher corrects students is usually referred to
as ratio of interaction (Reinke, Herman, & Sprick, 2011; Sprick, 2009) or
positivity ratio.1 For more information on ways to encourage students,
see High-Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013).
A learning form such as the one in Figure 4.1 (all the forms in this
chapter are available for download at the companion website,
www.corwin.com/focusonteaching) may be used to record ratio of
interaction, but you can also score the ratio on a blank piece of paper.
 To score ratio of interaction, put a + on the paper every time you
notice yourself reinforcing students with positive comments or nonverbal
gestures and put a – on the paper whenever you see yourself correcting
students. You may want to replay some parts of your video to be
confident that you have coded the data correctly.
One way to think about ratio of interaction is to think of your attention
as a flashlight. When you shine the flashlight—your attention—on a
student because he or she is acting appropriately, record a plus on the
paper. When you shine your flashlight—your attention—on a student
who is acting inappropriately, put a minus on the paper. After you have
watched the complete video thoroughly, add up your pluses and minuses
and estimate your ratio of interaction. A general guideline is to strive for
an average of five praises for every one correction.2

Figure 4.1 Ratio of Interaction

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.
Possible goal: If your ratio is less than 5:1 and you think student
behavior or learning might improve if you increase the number of
positive interactions, you might want to set a goal to increase your ratio
of interaction to 5:1 or higher. (Chapter 15, “Be a Witness to the Good,”
in High-Impact Instruction [Knight, 2013] contains many suggestions on
how to increase the number of positive comments.)

Note: Behavior that interrupts learning or violates norms or

expectations has to be corrected, so trying to change ratio of
interaction by decreasing corrections is not a good plan. The best
strategy is to increase positive attention.

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset

In Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2007), Carol Dweck
writes about her research showing that people generally adopt one of two
ways to approach the world: a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. If you
have a fixed mindset, Dweck explains, you believe “that your qualities
are carved in stone” (p. 6). If you have a growth mindset, on the other
hand, you believe that “your basic qualities are things you can cultivate
through your efforts” (p. 7). According to Dweck, people with growth
mindsets are generally more successful than those with fixed mindsets.
With regard to teaching, Dweck found that the way teachers praise
students can cause students to think in fixed or growth ways. Teachers,
she says, should not praise students for being “smart” or “bright,” since
this encourages a fixed mindset. Instead, teachers should praise students
for working hard, being persistent, or showing grit to encourage the
development of a growth mindset (see Figure 4.2).
Teachers concerned with the quality of their praise can code how often
their positive statements reinforce a fixed mindset: “You’re so smart,
gifted, awesome, amazing . . .” vs. a growth mindset: “You clearly
worked hard, your effort paid off, you’ve really demonstrated grit here,
you are really showing progress thanks to your hard work . . .” A
growth/fixed mindset form is available in Figure 4.2 to help teachers
gather these data.
Figure 4.2 Growth/Fixed Mindset Chart

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.

Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
 Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.

Possible goal: Teachers may set a goal to use only growth statements or
strive for 90% growth statements.

Consistent Corrections
If teachers increase positive attention but fail to correct students,
chances are they will not see students acting the way they hope to see
them acting. Praising student behavior without correcting when
appropriate is a bit like planting and watering a garden but not pulling
the weeds. Eventually, the weeds take over. If teachers want to create a
learner-friendly culture in their classrooms, they must correct students
consistently.
When teachers issue corrections inconsistently (for example, allowing
side conversations to go unchecked one day and correcting them the
next), students become confused about what they can and cannot do, and,
as a result, complain that their teacher is being unfair. In short, using
corrections consistently is just as important as knowing what to correct,
maybe even more important.
One thing teachers can observe, then, is how consistently they correct
students. To develop the habit of correct corrections, they first need to
clarify what behaviors need to be corrected. For example, they may want
to correct students when they engage in side conversations, speak or act
rudely, bother other students, move around the room when they are
supposed to be in their seats, ridicule others, swear, or exhibit off-task or
other disruptive behaviors. If the teacher and students have established
norms, the teacher must consistently correct anyone who violates the
norms; otherwise they will be norms in name only.
Teachers who observe their video for correct corrections are looking to
see how often students should be corrected and how often they correct
students when they act in such a way. To keep track of these data,
teachers should note every time they see a correctible behavior and every
time they correct the behavior. Educators may find it helpful to use the
consistent corrections form in Figure 4.3. As a general rule, corrections
should be consistent at least 90% of the time.
Possible goal: 90% correction of correctible behaviors.

Figure 4.3 Consistent Corrections Chart

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.

 Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.

Some teachers find it is useful to watch the video of their lesson once
to identify what behaviors need to be corrected—by watching students.
Then, once they have made their list of behaviors that must be corrected,
they watch the video again to count how often students exhibited that
behavior and how often they corrected or failed to correct behaviors.

Interactions
Opportunities to Respond. Another important variable teachers can
watch for is how many times they give students opportunities to respond
to what they are learning. This variable is meaningful only when teachers
are engaged in what I refer to as intensive-explicit instruction—others
used different terms, including direct instruction (Hattie, 2011; Roehler
& Duffy, 1984), explicit instruction (Archer & Hughes, 2011), explicit,
direct instruction (Hollingsworth & Ybarra, 2008), and strategic
instruction (Ellis, Deshler, Lenz, Schumaker, & Clark, 1991).
During intensive-explicit instruction, as John Hattie (2008) has written
about direct instruction, “the teacher decides learning intentions and
success criteria, makes them transparent to students, demonstrates them
by modeling, evaluates if they understand what they have been told by
checking for understanding, and re-telling them what they have told by
tying it together with closure” (p. 206).
Studies of intensive-explicit instruction recommend that teachers
maintain engagement and confirm student learning by prompting
students to respond at least four times per minute. Responses can include
asking students to answer questions; prompting students to use checks
for understanding such as whiteboards, response cards, or thumbs up,
thumbs down (see pp. 62–65 in High-Impact Instruction [Knight, 2013]
for a list of 19 checks for understanding); asking students to turn to their
neighbor; or other forms or response. Offering a high number of
opportunities to respond is likely not a good idea for teachers taking a
constructivist approach to learning. (See pp. 12–16 in High-Impact
Instruction [Knight, 2013] for more information on intensive-explicit
and constructivist instruction.)
 Gathering data on opportunities to respond (OTR) is quite simple: Just
note the time at the start of your lesson, put a tally on a piece of paper
every time you give students an opportunity to respond, note the time at
the end of the lesson, count the number of OTRs, and then divide the
number of OTRs by the number of minutes to determine OTRs per
minute (see Figure 4.4).

Possible goal: An average of four opportunities to respond per minute.

Figure 4.4 Opportunities to Respond

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.
Type, Kind, and Level of Questions. One of the easiest and most
powerful adjustments that teachers can make is to reconsider the type,
kind, and level of questions they ask. As I explain in High-Impact
Instruction (Knight, 2013), it is important to choose the right questions
for the kind of learning teachers wish to foster in the classroom.

• Type. Questions can be either open or closed. I define open

questions as those that have an infinite number of responses. For
example, if I ask you, “What do you think of Hemingway?” you
might not say much or you might go on for hours. There is no
limit to what you could say, and that is why this is called an open
question.

For closed questions, a finite number of responses are possible.

For example, if I ask, “What was Hemingway’s first novel?” there
is only one answer—The Sun Also Rises. Some closed questions
may produce lengthy responses such as, “What are all the novels
Hemingway wrote?” but the essential characteristic of a closed
question is that eventually you run out of answers.

• Kind. There are basically two types of questions: opinion or

right/wrong. Opinion questions don’t have a right or wrong
answer. Opinions are personal and individual, so a person
answering an opinion question can only answer it correctly, giving
his opinion. For example, if I ask what you think of the Mango
Chicken at Little Saigon, your answer cannot be wrong.

Right or wrong questions, as the name suggests, have correct or

incorrect answers. Teachers usually ask right or wrong questions to
confirm whether students know the content or can demonstrate the
skills they have been learning.

• Level. In many school districts around the world, teachers use

Bloom’s classification of educational goals, sorting questions into
six levels—knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis,
synthesis, and evaluation (Bloom, 1956). Others use taxonomies
by Marzano, Erickson, or others.

We have found it helpful to use a simpler method, which

involves sorting questions into three categories: knowledge, skill,
and big ideas. Knowledge questions prompt students to
 demonstrate that they can remember information. Skill questions
prompt students to explain how to do something. Big idea
questions prompt students to talk about the themes, concepts,
ideas, and content structures that recur throughout a course.
Teachers can use the form in Figure 4.5 to assess the type, kind, and
level of their questions. Generally speaking, for intensive-explicit
instruction, teachers usually ask a lot (four per minute) of closed,
right/wrong questions to confirm student understanding and ensure
student engagement. For constructivist learning, teachers generally ask
more open, opinion questions to prompt students to explore learning
from their own perspective.

Possible goal: For constructivist instruction, 90% open, opinion

questions.

Instructional vs. Noninstructional Time

During any period of instruction, there will be times when students are
engaged in activities that promote learning (such as listening to direct
instruction, cooperative learning, classroom discussion, reading, writing)
and times when students will be doing things that do not directly lead to
learning (transition activities such as settling in at the start of class,
getting textbooks or other curriculum materials out, taking roll, lining up
to leave class at the bell).
Obviously, the more students are engaged in learning activities, the
more they will learn, so increasing the amount of time students are
engaged in learning is a worthy goal. You can keep track of instructional
and noninstructional time by using the stopwatch function on your
smartphone (or use a stopwatch). Regardless of the tool used, the first
step is to time each transition. Then subtract the total transition time
from the total time of the class to see how much time was spent on
learning activities (see Figure 4.6). For example, in a 45-minute class, if
transition time was 15 minutes, then 30 minutes would be spent on
learning activities.

Possible goal: Transition time less than 5%.

Teacher vs. Student Talk

 One thing that surprises teachers when they watch their lessons is how
much of the time they are doing the talking and how little of the time
their students are talking about what they are learning. I am not aware of
any clear guidelines for what percentage of time students and teachers
should be talking; besides, the percentage would vary depending on what
kind of learning is occurring. Each teacher, therefore, will need to make
his or her judgment about how much talk is “enough.”
Teachers can record teacher talk and student talk data in much the
same way they record instructional and noninstructional time (see Figure
4.7). That is, the teacher notes the start and end of the class to determine
the total time, records when students are talking about learning, and
subtracts student time from total time to determine the amount of time he
talked.

Figure 4.5 Question Chart

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.
Figure 4.6 Instructional vs. Noninstructional Time

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.

 Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.

Figure 4.7 Teacher vs. Student Talk

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.
Possible goal: As mentioned above, there is not clear evidence to
support a specific percentage of teacher vs. student talk, but many
educators strive for at least 50% student talk.

WATCH YOUR STUDENTS

If you choose to focus your attention on your students during the
second watch of your video, there are many different data points you
may want to monitor, including various focal points related to student
responses, engagement, and behavior.

Responses
Number of Responses. As mentioned previously, during direct,
intensive-explicit instruction, research suggests that students should
make a large number of responses (at least four responses per minute). I
discussed opportunities to respond (OTR) in the Watch Yourself section
since teachers prompt opportunities to respond. However, OTR may also
be the focus when you are watching your students.

Possible goal: As mentioned in the Watch Yourself section, an average

of four opportunities to respond per minute is recommended in the
literature.

Number of Different Responders. Achieving a high number of

responses is not effective if the responses are all coming from the same
three or four students. For this reason, when recording OTR, it is a good
idea to also note who responded to prompts. This is easily done by
putting a tally under a student’s name each time he or she responds in
some way. If the students respond to the same prompt, as in choral
response, you can simply put a tally at the side of the page. Using a
seating chart, you can record the total number of responses and the total
number of different students responding.
One challenge is that teachers may not be able to see all the students
on the video. However, if teachers listen carefully, they should be able to
determine who responds to each prompt, or at least get a clear picture to
see what is actually happening in the class.
Possible goal: At least 70% of students respond to at least one question
during a lesson.

Number of Correct Answers. You can gain deeper insight into your
students’ responses by noting how many students give correct or
incorrect answers, often referred to as correct academic responses. The
right number of correct answers will vary depending on your
instructional goals. For example, if students have 100% correct academic
responses, that may be because they have learned the material, or it may
be because the questions are too easy.
Students can learn much by making mistakes, so some incorrect
responses can be a good thing. However, when students are giving many
incorrect academic responses, likely some modifications to teaching are
necessary. You can find suggestions on possible modifications to
teaching in High-Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013, pp. 73–77).
To record the number of correct responses, using the seating chart for
your class, put a + under a student’s name when he or she gives a correct
response and a – when the student gives an incorrect response.

Possible goal: Classroom management expert Wendy Reinke suggests

that when students are learning new material, they should provide at least
80% correct academic responses. When students are reviewing content
they have already learned, a reasonable goal is 90% correct responses
(Reinke, Herman, & Sprick, 2011).

Number of Thoughtful Responses. The level of thinking students bring

to any task may be observed in many ways. For example, you might
want to use Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom, 1956) to look at how many
student responses reflect one of Bloom’s six levels of thinking:
knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, or
evaluation. Or you might want to use the levels of questions included in
High-Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013)—knowledge, skills, and big
ideas—or some other taxonomy of thinking.
One simple but powerful way of analyzing the thinking (or lack of
thinking) underlying students’ responses is to record whether a given
response required original thought. If students are simply retelling what
they see in a text, repeating others’ responses, or merely guessing at what
they think the teacher wants to hear, they are not demonstrating original
thought. However, if students respond in a way that requires analysis,
synthesis, creativity, or evaluation, then they are demonstrating original
thought.
You can record the percentage of comments that involve original
thought simply by drawing a line down the middle of a piece of note
paper and designating one side as “Thought” and the other as “No
thought.” Then, as students respond, put a tally on the appropriate side of
the paper.

Possible goal: At least 80% of responses involve original thought.

Doing It All
You can fairly easily record all of these forms of data while watching a
video. First, use a seating chart for the class you are watching, code
responses as + for correct and – for incorrect, and then circle the
responses that involved original thought and leave the nonthinking
responses alone. In this way, you can keep track of opportunities to
respond, the number of different students responding, the number of
correct academic responses, and the number of responses involving
original thought.

Engagement
Phil Schlechty (2011) has identified three levels of engagement:
authentic engagement, strategic compliant, and off task. When students
are authentically engaged, they are doing a task because they find it
inherently worthwhile, meaningful, or enjoyable. When the bell sounds
to end a class, students who are authentically engaged would like to
continue doing whatever they are doing.
When students are strategically compliant, they do a learning task
because they have to do it, not because they want to do it. Students who
are strategically compliant want to finish a task as quickly as possible so
that they can spend their time on something that is authentically
engaging.
Finally, students who are off task are not doing the task they have been
asked to do by their teacher. They might be having side conversations,
doing work for another class, texting, or looking out the window.
Regardless of what they are doing, it is not what their teacher wanted
them to do. You can learn a lot about student learning by observing
students’ level of engagement.

Authentic Engagement. The most valuable engagement data involve

determining how many students are authentically engaged. A well-
planned lesson that keeps all students engaged is one that should lead to
learning. Unfortunately, it is hard to know just by watching whether a
student is authentically engaged or strategically compliant. Any measure
of authentic engagement, therefore, is fairly subjective. Nevertheless,
much can be learned by watching students and estimating whether they
are authentically engaged.
You can record authentic engagement using the document you would
use for other forms of data gathering: a seating chart for the students in
your video. There are many ways to record these data, some of which are
discussed in High-Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013). One suggestion is
to record engagement every 5 minutes during your lesson. To do this,
watch your video for 5 minutes, pause the video, and then count how
many students appear to be authentically engaged. Put a + on the seating
chart under the name of every student who appears to be authentically
engaged and a – under the name of every student who appears to not be
authentically engaged. You may need to go back and forth on the video a
few times as you focus on each student to determine whether he or she is
authentically engaged. Once you have assessed each student, move your
video recording ahead 5 minutes and repeat the process.
If, after viewing the video, you determine that students are not as
engaged as you would like, review Part II of High-Impact Instruction
(Knight, 2013) for teaching practices and learning structures you can use
to increase engagement.

Possible goal: At least 80% of students are authentically engaged.

Time on Task. Teachers who are interested in a more objective measure

of engagement could observe for time on task. When you measure time
on task, you are measuring whether students are doing what they are
expected to be doing; that is, are they doing the task they have been
given to do? Stated differently, when you measure time on task, you
don’t distinguish whether students are authentically engaged or
strategically engaged; you simply measure whether they are doing what
they are supposed to be doing.
 You can measure time on task in the way suggested for measuring
authentic engagement—gathering data at 5-minute intervals.
Additionally, as with authentic engagement, if you wish to increase
students’ time on task, you will find many teaching practices and
learning structures designed to increase engagement in Part II of High-
Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013).

Possible goal: At least 90% of students are authentically engaged.

Figure 4.8 Engagement Chart

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.
 Behavior
One advantage of using video is that you get a second chance to
observe student behavior. Two items are especially helpful to consider:
disruptions and respectful interactions.

Disruptions. When you are measuring disruptions, you are tallying each
time a student disrupts another student’s learning or your teaching. This
is easy to do—just watch the video and put a tally on a piece of paper
each time a student is disruptive. If two students are disruptive at the
same time, score that as two disruptions. You can find many suggestions
on how to reduce the number of disruptions in High-Impact Instruction
(Knight, 2013), Part III: Community Building.

Possible goal: According to classroom management expert Randy

Sprick, there should be no more than four disruptions every 10 minutes.

Respectful Interactions. Another easy-to-measure but important data

focus is respectful interactions. Simply put, you are determining whether
students are treating others in ways that are appropriate and acceptable in
your classroom. Often this means they are not doing something—not
shouting, swearing, touching, interrupting, and so forth. As with
disruptions, watch the video and put a tally on a piece of paper each time
a student says or does something that is not respectful. If two students
are not respectful at the same time, score that as two disruptions.

Possible goal: Many teachers believe students should be respectful at all

times.

The approaches for gathering data presented in this chapter are just
suggestions. You may choose other methods. What matters is that you
focus on something you think is important and observe it systematically.
Then, after you watch the video, identify an area on which you would
like focus your attention (increasing engagement, increasing correct
academic responses, increasing your ratio of interaction) and set a goal,
perhaps one of the possible goals listed in this chapter.
Once you have identified a goal, experiment by implementing various
teaching practices, including those in High-Impact Instruction (Knight,
2013). Monitor your progress by recording and viewing more video, and
keep at it until you hit your goal. Then, if time permits and you are ready,
set another goal and go for it.

Turning Ideas Into Action

STUDENTS

When Cheektowaga middle school English teacher Lenette

Braddock watched video of her class during the review cycle
of her reading class, she saw clearly that students were not
engaged in her lesson. To increase engagement, she asked the
students for suggestions. Her students did not disappoint her.
They told her they wanted to use their wireless chalkboards
and write on chart paper using “stinky markers.” They also
said they loved candy. Lenette said she would not be giving
them candy all day every day, but she did add a little incentive
component to her lesson and gave out random prizes at the end
of the week based on student work. She also added wireless
chalkboards, chart paper, and markers as part of the lesson.
The result was dramatic. Students were much more engaged.
By simply asking students for advice, Lenette learned a great
deal about how to increase engagement and learning in her
class.

TEACHERS

Video is a powerful way for teachers to get a clear picture of

their teaching and their students’ learning. In addition, it is a
great way to monitor progress. Many teachers choose to keep
early video recordings of their lessons so that they can clearly
see how much they have progressed. Most people are
encouraged and motivated when they see their progress vividly
depicted in video recordings.

COACHES

Instructional coaches can benefit in at least two ways from the

data-gathering methods discussed here. First, coaches can
 explain the various approaches to data collection to teachers
and help them use them to deepen their understanding of their
videos. Second, coaches can propose the variables as measures
for goal setting with teachers.

PRINCIPALS

Perhaps the most important thing a principal can do to support

teachers recording and watching their lessons is to clarify,
again and again, that the video recorded in teachers’
classrooms is the sole possession of the teacher who is
recorded. Additionally, principals can encourage teachers to
take the risk and use video by leading by example in using
video to improve the way they lead meetings, workshops, or
other forms of presentation or facilitation.

SYSTEM LEADERS AND POLICY MAKERS

As mentioned in earlier sections of this book, teachers’ most

pressing concern about using video is that it will consume a
great deal of time. Policy makers should think carefully and
creatively about finding ways for teachers to do this work.
Additionally, teachers cannot do this work without technology,
so schools should strive to have a camera in every wing and,
ideally, in every classroom.

TO SUM UP
Teachers should watch their video at least twice: first to get used to
seeing themselves on video and a second time to focus their attention on
a variable that is important for increasing student learning. Suggested
variables include the following.

WATCH YOURSELF FOR . . .

• Ratio of interaction, which is a way of assessing how you praise
and correct students
 • Growth vs. fixed mindset
• Consistency of corrections
• Questions (type, kind, level)
• Instructional time vs. noninstructional time
• Teacher talk vs. student talk

WATCH YOUR STUDENTS FOR . . .

• Number of responses
• Number of different responses
• Number of thoughtful responses
• Authentic engagement
• Time on task
• Disruptions
• Respectful interactions

GOING DEEPER
I was introduced to the power of gathering data as a part of coaching by
Randy Sprick and Wendy Reinke. Specifically, Randy and Wendy taught
me how to gather data on ratio of interaction, opportunities to respond,
correct responses, time on task, and many other variables. Randy lists a
library of excellent resources at his website,
http://www.safeandcivilschools.com. All of Randy’s books are extremely
helpful, but teachers might benefit most from reading CHAMPS: A
Proactive and Positive Approach to Classroom Management, 2nd edition
(2009). Motivational Interviewing for Effective Classroom Management:
The Classroom Check-Up (2011), which Wendy wrote with Keith
Herman and Randy Sprick, is packed with valuable observation tools. In
addition, it contains information on the importance of motivational
interviewing to make change happen. In my opinion, motivational
interviewing is one of the most powerful ways for coaches and other
change agents to partner with teachers in coaching relationships.
The following books are also very relevant and helpful to the current
discussion. Carol Dweck’s (2006) Mindset: The New Psychology of
Success summarizes her research on growth and fixed mindset. Martin
Seligman’s (2011) Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and
Well-Being summarizes the research on positivity ratio and places that
research in the broader context of positive psychology. Barbara
Fredrickson (2009) summarizes her original research on positivity ratio
in Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will
Change Your Life.

1Randy Sprick and Wendy Reinke taught me about ratio of interaction and many forms of data
collection when I collaborated with them to write Coaching Classroom Management: Strategies
and Tools for Administrators and Coaches (Sprick, Knight, Reinke, Skyles, & Barnes, 2010).
2The 5:1 ratio is not a hard-and-fast rule. I suggest that ratio based on Gottman and Silver’s
(1999) research, which showed that a 5-to-1 ratio is typical in healthy relationships (The Seven
Principles for Making Marriage Work).
Chapter 5: Video Learning Teams (VLTs)
 5
VIDEO LEARNING TEAMS
(VLTS)

One of the big things you have to do is confront your reality. The next thing is you have
to give up the dream of who you thought you were. That awareness is the beginning of
all growth.

—Jean Clark, Instructional Coach, Cecil County, Maryland

I think that the bond that our team had stemmed from stripping everything away and
starting over. We all wanted to get better. We put ourselves out there over and over
again and talked through all that we do. And that was important to us.

—Michelle Harris, Instructional Coach, Beaverton, Oregon

uman conversation,” Margaret Wheatley (2002) wrote, “is the

“H most ancient and easiest way to cultivate the conditions for
change . . . If we can sit together and talk about what’s important
to us, we begin to come alive” (p. 3). In schools, teams can be the setting
for such conversations, and video, I firmly believe, can be the catalyst
that helps us “begin to come alive.” “We humans,” Wheatley wrote,
“keep wanting to learn, to improve things, and to care about each other”
(p. 8). Video learning teams (VLTs), properly structured, can be the place
where such an authentic community flourishes.
Teams can use video to accelerate learning in many different ways. I
discovered several approaches to VLTs when Marilyn Ruggles and I
conducted interviews for this book. To paint a picture of how video can
be employed within teams, I will start by describing three different
approaches to team learning and then discuss strategies leaders can use
to set up VLTs for success.

Team One: Coaches Improving Their Coaching. When Michelle

Harris and her coaching colleagues first sat down with our research team
to discuss coaching, she had no idea what might happen. As it turns out,
Michelle’s interactions with her team ended up producing a profound
learning experience. But it wasn’t easy. When I asked Michelle what it
felt like the first time she watched herself on video with a team of
people, she promptly and succinctly replied: “Humbling is the word that
comes to mind.”
Michelle, now an excellent administrator, was an excellent coach.
When she joined our study, she had 5 years of experience coaching. She
told me, “I felt like I knew what I was doing and that I kind of had it
down. But when I watched the video with the other coaches, it became
extremely clear to me that I was no model coach. It was mind-blowing!
When I watched the video, I realized how many changes I needed to
make.”
The biggest issue Michelle realized when watching her interactions on
the video was her need to focus on the teacher she was coaching—she
needed to change the way she communicated.
I didn’t know what it looked like when I coached. If I had known, I certainly wouldn’t have
been shuffling papers, pretending I was listening when I wasn’t, ignoring her [the teacher’s]
suggestions, and charging through and interrupting her—all the things I watched myself do
on that video. I didn’t know that’s what it looked like when I was coaching.

As is often the case when professionals watch themselves on video,

Michelle was overly critical of her practice. She is extremely
accomplished, emotionally intelligent, and smart, and she has coached
teachers to make very meaningful improvements in children’s learning.
In fact, I describe some of Michelle’s coaching successes in High-Impact
Instruction (2013). And yet, even this highly accomplished coach
learned a great deal from participating in a VLT. Most important,
Michelle decided that she needed to improve the way she listened.
Listening was a big one. Truly listening. I thought I was listening. I was nodding and doing
all the things you learn about listening from books and workshops. But I was just pretending
I was listening. I wasn’t hearing anything she [the teacher] was saying. My body wasn’t
turned toward her completely. I was looking for what I needed to suggest instead of listening
and letting her talk. I wasn’t silent at all. I never shut up.

Michelle’s decision to work on her listening is one of the most

common communication goals people set after watching recordings of
themselves. That is, out of the more than 100 people who watched
themselves communicating as part of our global communication project,
more than half identified listening as a skill they wanted to improve. Best
of all, many of them, like Michelle, used their experience watching
themselves on video as a catalyst for growing and learning.
Michelle told me that improving as a listener “didn’t happen
overnight. It was something that I really had to figure out how to do.”
But ultimately, learning to listen by watching herself, Michelle said,
“changed the way I interact with people,” and that change had a positive
impact on her life:
I think that my career has taken off since then. The feedback that I get is that I do listen and
that I do care and people do get that feeling from me. And I think that at home, too, I have
learned to listen so much better to my husband, my kids, and my outside family.

Michelle’s colleagues on her VLT were “instrumental” to her growth.

They were trusted colleagues, and I knew they were working on the same kind of things as I
was. So to have them give me feedback was extremely helpful. That kind of feedback from
colleagues who understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it is essential. And you
usually don’t get that kind of feedback in education.

In addition to improving her communication skills, Michelle made

important friendships with the other coaches on her learning team, Lea
Molzcan, Jenny MacMillan, and Susan Leyden. “There is a bond that I
share with everyone in that group that I don’t share with anyone else,”
she said, adding,
Having video to review and talk about took everything deeper. You’re talking about what
you are doing as a person, and it’s like therapy. We really hammered through some personal
and philosophical thoughts. I know that if I ever, ever had some sort of conundrum or
dilemma related to work I could call on any of these women and they would listen to me and
try to help or coach me. We still get together every single month to catch up and talk about
work.

The structure for the VLT meetings was simple. The team discussed
each coach’s progress on the components of coaching by answering four
simple questions: What worked? What didn’t work? What accounts for
the difference? What should we do differently next time? Those
questions, originally developed for U.S. Army After-Action Review,1
became a conversation template for analyzing how coaching was
working (see Figure 5.1), and through those conversations, the team
refined goal setting, exploratory conversations, and other coaching skills.
In fact, ultimately, they refined the way the coaches employed video as a
part of the coaching process. What the coaches and our research team
learned as a team contributed to the description of coaching I include in
Chapter 3.
 I still crave that honest feedback—honest work around our work
that you just don’t get normally. There is no time for it; there is no
space for it, or we don’t make time for it, for whatever reason. That
was truly the highlight of my professional career thus far.

—Michelle Harris, Instructional Coach, Beaverton,

Oregon

Team Two: Teachers Learning New Practices. Jean Clark, an

educational leader from Cecil County, Maryland, has taught me a lot
about how video can accelerate learning on teams. Jean, an instructional
coach at Bohemia Manor Middle School in Cecil County when I first met
her, believes deeply in the power of video. For Jean, “video is core
because it forces people to go back and look at what they’ve done.
Without video, we can’t remember. We’re bombarded with all these
stimuli. We have to go back and see what we did.”
Jean first realized how powerful video could be when she used it to
help struggling students improve their communication skills. “I had a
really difficult eighth-grade class, students who treated each other like
crap. I started videotaping whenever we did any dialogue sessions
because that was the time when they were most likely to come to blows.”
Jean was using the Touchstones Curriculum
(http://www.touchstones.org). “The students,” Jean said, “began to
realize they had to collaborate with one another. I finally got them to the
leadership stage, and I got them there quicker than normal because I was
using video. Video kept students honest, and it kept them engaged.”

Figure 5.1 After-Action Report

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.
 Jean then turned the camera on herself and her colleagues because she
realized video could accelerate professional learning. She brought
teachers together into teams so that they could watch and discuss video
recordings of themselves using a specific instructional practice, The
Concept Mastery Routine (Bulgren, Schumaker, & Deshler, 1993). This
teaching practice involves a graphic organizer and instructional
procedures teachers can use to ensure students master important
concepts.
Jean established VLTs so that teachers could watch each other trying
out the routine. Participation on the teams was not compulsory but was
one of several options for professional learning offered to teachers on
late-arrival days once a month in the school year. Only teachers who had
chosen this learning experience participated.
Prior to each monthly meeting, one teacher volunteered to prepare and
share a video for the next session. The volunteer recorded herself using
the teaching routine in the classroom. After recording the class, the
teacher loaded the video into iMovie and edited the film to find clips that
depicted what she thought went well and what she wanted to improve.
When they edited their films, volunteers had to watch their lesson many
times, and those repeated viewings led them to see many details of their
lessons that wouldn’t have been obvious after just one viewing.
When the VLT met, the volunteer shared her video clips with the
group, showing each section and asking for comments. At the very first
meeting, Jean guided her team to collaborate and identify values they
would work from while discussing each other’s videos. They decided
that comments about lessons should be positive, honest, constructive,
and useful. “I think I went to video,” Jean told me, “because I wanted
everyone to have ongoing dialogue about what we are doing. That’s the
only way to change practices.”
During the meetings, the volunteer usually shared two positive clips
first. Then she talked about what she saw in the video clips and asked her
colleagues for their insight into the lesson. During the final video, the
volunteer asked questions as much as she commented. Eventually, each
teacher in the VLT hosted a conversation about his or her lesson.

It is painful to realize that what we thought is reality isn’t reality,

that who we thought we were is not who we are. That’s a powerful
 realization that changes the direction of where we are going. This is
very hard to do because you have to be vulnerable. But it’s
authentic. You have to say what you mean, and that’s the way we
become adults.

—Jean Clark, Special Consultant, Cecil County,

Maryland

Team Three: Teachers Improving Their Practice. At Red Hawk

Elementary in Erie, Colorado, principal Cyrus Weinberger and clinical
professor Rychie Rhodes are using video as a catalyst so teachers can
have powerful and meaningful discussions about the way they are
teaching. Each teacher on each grade-level team is video-recorded at
some point in the school year, and an edited version of the recording of
the lesson is used for discussion around teaching and learning during
grade-level team meetings.
Cyrus and Rychie do a few simple things to make the teams work. At
Red Hawk, when teachers agree to be part of a learning team, they agree
to have 20 to 60 minutes of one of their lessons recorded. Cyrus and
Rychie record the lesson and then edit the video down to about 15 to 17
minutes. Then they burn the edited video to a DVD and send the DVD to
the appropriate grade-level team.
Each teacher on the team watches the video in preparation for the team
discussion. While watching the video, they take notes using a template
(see Figure 5.2) that focuses their attention on (a) the learning activity,
(b) what the teacher is doing, (c) what students are doing, and (d)
feedback they would like to provide. The use of video and the template,
Rychie said, has led to practical, deep dialogue. “It is amazing how much
more objective and richer the dialogue is after teachers have had time to
think about the video.”
Team conversations about the DVDs last from 45 minutes to an hour.
The person who was video-recorded usually starts the conversation, but
eventually other team members talk about what they see and have seen.
The group works through the questions on the template, with Rychie
taking notes on her iPad. At the end of the dialogue, the person who was
video-recorded summarizes what he learned, and then the next volunteer
explains how he or she will build on what has been learned. Everyone
gets Rychie’s notes about an hour after the meeting.
 The staff at Red Hawk are very energetic about learning. They realize
the importance of the teams, and they know the importance and value of
this kind of dialogue. As a result, they have begun to share their teaching
practices in a way that has not happened before. For example, Rychie
explained that a team might watch the way a teacher and student interact
and tell the teacher, “Wow, that really worked. I could see that student
really light up.” Then, Rychie said, the team might start to ask more
questions, such as, “Do you do that daily? How do you keep track of
progress? What’s your management system for gathering data? Is it a
weekly collection?”

Figure 5.2 Lesson Study Observation Questions

Source: Created by Rychie Rhodes and Cyrus Weinberger, Red Hawk
Elementary in Erie, Colorado.
This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
 VLTs have led to “a lot of really rich aha moments.” Teachers share
ideas and learn how to implement what their colleagues are doing. For
Rychie, perhaps the most important part of the team learning is how it
promotes reflection. “During this rich dialogue, self-reflection is
extremely important. During the meetings, teachers can talk about their
reflection and reflect on how to implement new learning in their planning
and then use it with their students. Reflection is an important step to get
there.”
VLTs have proven to be valuable for at least four important reasons.
First, educators learn a great deal by watching themselves teach or
coach, especially when watching themselves several times. Second,
VLTs provide powerful follow-up to professional learning by increasing
the likelihood and quality of implementation after workshops, since
members of a VLT commit to implementing a practice and then explore
different ways to use the practice by watching other teachers. Third,
during the dialogue that occurs during VLTs, teachers learn powerful and
often subtle teaching practices while watching others teach and listening
to team members’ comments. Finally, when teachers come together for
such conversation, they form a meaningful bond, just as Michelle’s team
did, simply because the structure of a VLT compels them to stand
vulnerably in front of their peers and engage in constructive, supportive,
and appreciative conversations.

By videotaping students as they are doing independent study, we are

able to go to students and ask them what they are learning and why
they are learning it. Having conversations with students is another
powerful piece of this video lesson study. That’s a formative
assessment to take back to our debrief with teachers.

—Rychie Rhodes, Clinical Professor, Red Hawk

Elementary School, Erie, Colorado

Setting Up Video Learning Teams: Creating

Psychologically Safe Environments
Amy Edmondson, mentioned in Chapter 2, has studied teams in
corporations, hospitals, and government agencies, and she has found that
teams need to be psychologically safe if they are to make an impact. In
her book Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in
the Knowledge Economy (2012), Edmondson writes that in
“psychologically safe environments, people are willing to offer ideas,
questions, concerns. They are even willing to fail, and when they do,
they learn” (p. 125). Edmondson includes a simple diagram (see Figure
5.3) that illustrates the importance of psychological safety and how it
interacts with accountability.
Psychological safety is especially important when team members
share video of themselves teaching because our identity is so interwoven
with our professional practice. How we teach, truly, is part of who we are
as persons, and that complicates interactions. Stone, Patton, and Heen
(1999) highlighted three identity issues that seem particularly common
and often underlie what concerns us most during difficult conversations:
“Am I competent? Am I a good person? Am I worthy of love?” (p. 112).

Figure 5.3 Psychological Safety and Accountability

Source: Edmondson (2012)

For Stone and colleagues (1999), identity is “the story we tell
ourselves about ourselves” (p. 112). Like many good narratives, our
story can contain both fiction and nonfiction. Our identity is grounded in
accurate and inaccurate assumptions that define us to ourselves. When
those assumptions are proven to be false, it can be very difficult. Stone,
Patton, and Heen (1999) write that an identity conversation can be
“profoundly disturbing” (p. 112) and “cause you to relinquish a
cherished aspect of how you see yourself. At its most profound, this can
be a loss that requires mourning just as surely as the death of a loved
one” (p. 114).
The emotional complexity most of us experience when watching
ourselves on video involves much more than disappointment about our
physical appearance or the way our clothes fit. Watching video of our
practice brings us face to face with a clear picture of what we do, and
that picture can threaten “the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.”
For that reason alone, asking teachers to watch themselves is very
challenging. But asking them to watch themselves in front of their
colleagues, ask for feedback, and give feedback to their colleagues, that’s
asking a lot more! This kind of conversation can take place only when
there is a trusting relationship among the teachers watching the video.
Coming face to face with a new way of understanding “the story we
tell ourselves about ourselves” can be very difficult. However, if we are
to improve our practice, we need to get a clear picture of how we
perform. VLTs are one setting in which this important learning can occur.
Leaders who want to create psychologically safe environments for
learning teams should consider following six suggestions, each of which
will be explored further below.

1. ESTABLISH TEAM LEADERSHIP

Talking about a video recording of you teaching or someone else
teaching is emotionally complex work. For that reason, it is important
that a leader be identified to guide the team through the rewarding but
complex interactions that surround learning from video. Such a leader
could be a principal, instructional coach, teacher, or other educator.
Leadership could also rotate on the team. Regardless of who leads the
team, a few things need to be in place.

Creating Psychologically Safe VLTs

1. Establish team leadership.
2. Select team members carefully.
 3. Establish team values.
4. Develop a learning process.
5. Use effective communication strategies.
6. Set goals.

Adopt a Servant Leadership Orientation. When we think of leaders,

we often think of powerful, charismatic personalities who take charge
and make things happen. In settings like VLTs, however, the best leaders
are not those who drive change through charisma and dominance but
those who are most skilled at unleashing the potential in others. Robert
Greenleaf in Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of
Legitimate Power and Greatness (2002) identified this kind of leader as a
servant leader:
It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious
choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader-
first, perhaps because of the need to assume an unusual power drive or to acquire material
possessions . . . The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them
there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature. (p. 27)

Effective leaders, Michael Fullan reminds us, are designers or

architects who create an optimal culture and setting for learning. In The
Six Secrets of Change (2008), Fullan writes that “Perhaps the best way to
view leadership is as a task of architecting organizational systems, teams,
and cultures—as establishing the conditions and preconditions for others
to succeed” (p. 118).

Video 5.1
Video Learning Teams in Action
www.corwin.com/focusonteaching

Leaders can position themselves as servant leaders by seeing

themselves as partners with their colleagues. When leaders take this
stance, they don’t ignore the important responsibilities of leading, but
they see themselves as equals with their peers. That is, they go into
learning situations expecting to learn from their peers. When leaders are
partners, they ensure that colleagues’ autonomy is respected, they
encourage dialogue between team members, and they ensure that team
participants have choices, including whether to participate in a team.

Encourage a Safe Culture. To create a safe learning environment in

which dialogue can flourish, team leaders need to monitor and shape the
culture of the team. Effective leaders understand the personalities
represented on their teams, and they intervene when necessary to ensure
that conversation remains psychologically safe. Sometimes this means
having to mediate conversations to build bridges between comments; at
other times it means having to step in to ensure that everyone is free to
speak and that comments are productive, not destructive.

Keep the Emphasis on the Positive. Marti Elford, a researcher

colleague at the University of Kansas Coaching Project who spent 5
years as a member of our coaching team, told me that she felt it was
critical that her team leader, Devona Dunekack, “always kept positive
comments at the forefront.” “Devona,” Marti said, “began every meeting
asking everyone to take 30 seconds to say something positive about what
was happening at school.” As a leader, Marti said, “Devona kept the
emphasis on the positive, so we were affirmed and supported by each
other, and that made it much easier to open up.”

Monitor Competition. According to Michael Fullan (2010) and others,

healthy competition can be good for a school or a team. Healthy
competition occurs when team members push each other forward while
also supporting each other. Healthy competitors work from an abundance
mentality, assuming that everyone can succeed and that another’s success
is a good thing, not an indication that they are losing. In short, healthy
competition is win-win.
Unhealthy competition arises when team members frown on their
colleagues’ successes and hoard knowledge and resources so that they
will look better themselves. Unhealthy competition works from a
scarcity mentality, assuming that only one person can succeed and that
another’s success is a bad thing because it indicates that I am losing. In
short, unhealthy competition is win-lose. When unhealthy conversation
surfaces, leaders need to intervene to keep it from interfering with
learning or damaging team morale.

Walk the Talk. Team leaders also need to be sure to do what they
suggest other team members do. For example, if a principal is a team
leader, she needs to record herself teaching, even if this requires doing a
model lesson in a teacher’s classroom. The team leader must go through
the same reflective activities as the other members of the team.

2. SELECT TEAM MEMBERS CAREFULLY

Teams may fall apart if they are put together carelessly. Talking about
the way we teach requires psychological safety, so members on VLTs
must to be committed to constructive, supportive conversation. An
overly critical, defensive, negative, or self-centered team member can so
severely damage the culture of a team that meaningful dialogue becomes
impossible. As one educator told me, “You don’t want to bare your soul
to Debbie Downer.”
One way to ensure that the right people are on the team is to make
VLTs a choice rather than a compulsory form of learning. This was the
case at Cecil County when Jean Clark established VLTs. The participants
on her team freely chose the VLT learning experience, while other
colleagues chose other formats for learning.
As I have emphasized in this book and other publications,
professionals should have a lot of choice about what they learn and how
they learn, in part because independent decision making is a defining
characteristic of professionalism. At the same time, continuous
improvement is an essential characteristic of professionalism. That is,
while professionals should have a lot of choice about what and how they
learn, choosing not to learn is unprofessional because, by definition,
professionals continuously improve. As part of such continuous
improvement, one important choice is whether to participate on a VLT.
One way that team leaders can explain the VLT process and clarify
that the team is a choice is to meet with potential team members
individually. During such a conversation, in addition to emphasizing that
the team is important and powerful but not compulsory, team leaders can
help potential team members better understand what will happen during
VLTs, explaining how VLTs are structured, answering questions about
VLTs, and asking potential team members what kind of team values they
think should be established. Such feedback will be the point of departure
for the first meeting.
Meeting one to one to establish team membership may seem like
overkill, but after close to two decades of work in schools, I have found
that one-to-one conversations are one of the most powerful strategies for
leading change. In my experience, when people meet one to one, they are
very honest and candid. However, when people meet in groups, they are
sometimes guarded with their comments and shaped by an organization’s
cultural values. In addition, one-to-one conversations give team leaders
an opportunity to deepen their connection with team members.

3. ESTABLISH TEAM VALUES

After team membership has been established, each team should
identify team values,2 the norms for behavior that everyone chooses as
guidelines for how to interact on the team. In their classic book on
professional learning communities, Richard DuFour and Robert Eacker
(1998) write about the power of shared values:
The most effective strategy for influencing and changing an organization’s culture is simply
to identify, articulate, model, promote, and protect shared values. When school personnel
make a commitment to demonstrating certain attitudes and behaviors in order to advance the
collective vision of what their schools might become, they are, in effect, describing what
they hope will be the visible manifestation of their school’s cultures. Furthermore, shared
values provide personnel with guidelines for modeling their day-to-day decisions and
actions. (p. 134)

To create a safe environment for learning before anyone ever shows a

video from their classroom, team leaders should set aside time so that all
participants can identify the team values they want for their VLT. As
mentioned, this process begins during one-to-one conversations when
each member is asked to describe the values that they think are important
for a safe learning environment. Then when the VLT first comes
together, the team leader, while respecting the anonymity of members,
can report generally what was heard during interviews.
As a next step, the team leader can move the conversation forward by
asking a simple question: “What kind of team do you want to be?” As
team members talk about the topic, all ideas are recorded on chart paper.
The simple act of discussing values, which often addresses such issues as
respect, listening, risk taking, encouraging diverse points of view, and
caring for one another, gives each participant a chance to create the kind
of culture they need to feel safe and ready to learn.
Before the next meeting, the team leader reviews the comments about
team values on the chart paper and types them up in bullet form.
(Repeated comments aren’t typed again and again.) At the start of the
second session, the leader shares the list of values and asks members to
suggest what to add, remove, or modify.
Leaders should provide time for participants to rewrite the values
every meeting until the group arrives at a fairly static document.
Subsequently, the team leader can start each meeting by sharing the
values statement with the group and asking, “Do we still agree with these
values, or should we change anything?” This activity gives team
members a chance to shape their team’s culture, and the values remind
everyone to act in a manner consistent with those values. See Figure 5.4.

4. DEVELOP A LEARNING PROCESS

One way to create a safe environment for a VLT is to establish a
process for learning that members on the team understand before they
start. In part, this involves certain nuts-and-bolts issues. For example, the
team has to decide how much video will be shown, what kind of video
will be shown (examples of effective or ineffective learning), who will
speak when, what questions will be asked, and who will lead the
discussion.
One way to structure the team learning is for the person showing a
video of his or her teaching to host the discussion about the video. The
team then follows a process each time someone shares a video, with each
teacher/host showing a video clip, team members giving positive
feedback, and the host asking specific questions to get ideas about how
to address a particular issue.
Other formats are possible. For example, at the University of Kansas,
our team agreed to use the After-Action Review, so collectively we
responded to the same questions after viewing each video: What was
supposed to happen? What happened? What accounts for the difference?
What should we do differently next time?

Figure 5.4 Sample Team Values

Purpose: To develop and integrate a course sequence, teaching

strategies, formative assessments, and lesson plans that help kids
learn and enjoy mathematics.
Values

Respectful: We are honest; we listen carefully to each other, we

demonstrate the courage to confront each other, and we resolve our
conflicts constructively.

Efficient: We don’t waste time.

Productive: We produce useful materials and tools that are teacher

friendly and that help kids learn.

Supportive: We support each other and have fun together.

Validating: We value the expertise of everyone on the team.

Positive Thinking: We work together until we find solutions.

Consistent: We teach the same things, at the same time, in

classrooms across the district.

Risk Taking: We are committed to implementing the materials

developed by this group.
 In Cecil County, Jean prompted teachers to video-record their lessons,
identify two parts that they liked and one part they weren’t happy with,
and then share those clips with their teams. At Red Hawk, an edited
DVD of a lesson was created and shared with a grade-level team. Then
everyone viewed the lesson using a template and eventually explored the
following questions: What is the learning activity? What is the teacher
doing? What are students doing? What feedback would you give this
teacher? What are the next steps?
These teams often used templates or learning forms to enable learning.
“Groups,” as Bruce Wellman (2004) has written, “need templates to
guide purposeful inquiry . . . collective focus is often difficult where
there is no focus to the conversation” (p. 43). VLTs can get more out of
watching video by using templates to focus their discussion.
In addition to the After-Action Review used at the Kansas Coaching
Project and the Learning Study Observation Form used at Red Hawk
Elementary, teams might also consider using a SWOT form such as the
one included in Figure 5.5; more details about the process follow in
Figure 5.6.
When teams use the SWOT template, specific guidelines need to be
established for how to use it. Often, teams agree that the teacher in the
video will identify or at least initiate conversation about the weaknesses
and threats, with members collectively identifying strengths and
opportunities and then, as a team, discuss ways to address the
weaknesses and threats. My colleagues and I have used the SWOT
template to discuss our presentation skills, and it has prompted a lot of
powerful learning. However, the discussion prompted by the SWOT is
direct and can be difficult to hear, so only teams that have a lot of
psychological safety should use this template, especially at first.
One additional structure for VLTs is to employ an adapted version of
the instructional rounds procedure described by City, Elmore, Fiarman,
and Teitel in Instructional Rounds in Education (2009) and Troen and
Boles in The Power of Teacher Rounds (2014). The process involves
many of the components of high-functioning, high-impact teams as I’ve
described them in this chapter.
Instructional rounds, City and her colleagues (2009) write, is “an
adaptation and extension of the medical rounds model . . . [I]n the most
commonly used versions, groups of medical interns, residents, and
supervising or attending physicians visit patients, observe and discuss the
evidence for diagnosis, and, after a thorough analysis of the evidence,
discuss possible treatments” (p. 3).

Figure 5.5 SWOT Form

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.
Figure 5.6 SWOT Learning Analysis

A completed SWOT form might include information such as the

following:

Strengths. Characteristics/aspects of a teacher’s methods or

learning structures that increase learning.

• Teacher Example: A teacher’s clear explanation of the

rationale for learning increases student engagement.
• Learning Structure Example: The use of the think-pair-share
cooperative learning structure made it easier for English
language learners to find the words they needed to express
their understanding of what they were learning.

Weaknesses. Characteristics/aspects of a teacher’s methods or

learning structures that decrease learning.

• Teacher Example: Tried to tackle too many outcomes and, as

a result, students were unclear on what they were to learn.
• Learning Structure Example: Students didn’t have the
prerequisite skills to successfully complete the learning
activity.

Opportunities. Student characteristics/interests that might be

exploited to increase students’ learning.

• Example: Students’ interest in baseball provides an

opportunity to teach statistics concepts through baseball
statistics.

Threats. Student characteristics/interests that might interfere with

their learning.

• Example: Students’ learned helplessness about math means

that they come to class expecting to fail.
 Instructional rounds, according to Troen and Boles (2014), involve the
following components:

1. Identifying a rounds facilitator who moves the rounds process

forward, keeps participants on task, and reduces friction.
2. Establishing norms.
3. Identifying a problem of practice. For example, “Teachers do not
regularly facilitate critical thinking among and between students to
make the subject matter meaningful.”
4. Identifying guiding questions for observations that flesh out the
problem of practice. For example, “How can we . . . encourage all
students to ask critical questions and consider diverse perspectives
about subject matter?”
5. Identifying a host teacher for every round whose class will be
observed.
6. Having the host teacher complete a Host Teacher Preparation
Form (see Figure 5.7), which is shared with others so that they
know the topic of a lesson, the context, and so forth so they can
better observe the class.
7. Observing the class.
8. Debriefing the observation by exploring three focus areas:
observations, wonderings, and learnings. (p. 14)

Video can be integrated into instructional rounds in many ways. For

example, rather than having seven teachers observe one teacher in a
classroom, possibly creating an artificial experience, host teachers can
video-record their lessons, load them on to a video sharing site, such as
the Teaching Channel (www.teachingchannel.org), and each member of
the team can then view the recorded lesson rather than the live lessons.
A more powerful form of instructional rounds might be for video to be
added, as Troen and Boles (2014) suggest. Thus, teachers would observe
the actual lesson in the classroom, and the lesson would be recorded so
all team members could view it afterward but prior to the debrief during
the team meeting.
Finally, host teachers could bring tight focus to the discussion of their
lessons by sharing specific aspects of the lesson and asking for feedback.
This approach would be very similar to what Jean Clark and her
colleagues did in Cecil County when they discussed how to teach the
concept mastery routine.

Figure 5.7 Host Teacher Preparation Form

Source: Troen & Boles (2014)
5. USE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
Since talking about teaching is personal and complex, especially when
it involves video of our teaching, two barriers can arise that interfere
with the effectiveness of any VLTs. In some situations, we may avoid
talking about touchy topics for fear of upsetting our colleagues. Avoiding
the truth, in this way, inhibits group learning, since a team cannot learn
when team members don’t know what others are really thinking. As
Susan Scott has written in Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at
Work and in Life, One Conversation at a Time (2002):
Many work teams as well as couples have a list of undiscussables, issues they avoid
broaching at all costs in order to preserve a modicum of peace, to preserve the relationship.
In reality, the relationship steadily deteriorates for lack of the very conversations they so
carefully avoid. (p. 6)

However, the opposite—saying whatever is on our minds—can also

inhibit learning. When people are blunt and careless with their
comments, they can deeply offend the people who bravely share their
videos. Careless, critical comments, therefore, can create defensiveness,
resentment, anger, and even tears. Speaking the blunt truth isn’t much
help if it is demoralizing and destructive and may not even be heard.
What we need to do is speak the truth in such a way that it can be heard.
Instructional coach Michelle Harris from Beaverton, Oregon,
effectively summarizes why communicating clearly is so difficult and
important:
When you set yourself up for something like a Video Learning Team, you need to be open to
everything that’s being talked about. You’re putting yourself in a position of growth, and
growth can be scary; growth can be sweaty; and growth can be nerve-wracking. But growth
is oh, so important. You should be willing to have a trusted group of colleagues say, “You
know, Michelle, right there, did you see what you did right there?” I feel that if you are not
willing to talk about what everybody sees on the video, you are not ready to be on a VLT.

To create an optimal setting for learning conversations, a team on

which people say what they think and others hear what is said, requires
that many of the practices described in this chapter and book be
addressed. Briefly, learning teams will be more effective when values are
established and followed, guidelines and procedures are implemented,
learning templates are used, and the “right” team leader is in place. In
addition, the simple strategies described next can dramatically increase
the power of learning conversations on any VLT.
Avoid Judgmentalism. Harsh, negative comments are especially
destructive to a team because they divide people rather than unify them.
When one teacher belittles another teacher’s practice—“How could you
let those kids get so out of control?”—his pejorative judgment shows a
lack of empathy, sets him up as superior and the other teacher as inferior,
and consequently erodes trust. As Michael Fullan has written in The Six
Secrets of Change (2008), there are serious dangers to “judgmentalism”:
One of the ways not to develop capacity is though criticism, punitive consequences, or what
I more comprehensively call judgmentalism. Judgmentalism is not just seeing something as
unacceptable or ineffective. It is that, but it is particularly harmful when it is accompanied
by pejorative stigma, if you will excuse the redundancy. The advice here, especially for a
new leader, is don’t roll your eyes on day one when you see practice that is less than
effective by your standards. Instead, invest in capacity building while suspending short-term
judgment. (p. 58)

In A Hidden Wholeness (2004), Parker Palmer offers a concise and

powerful suggestion that can help us control negative judgmentalism. We
should commit, he suggests, “to act in every situation in ways that honor
the soul” (p. 170).

Adopt an Experimental Stance. Another factor that interferes with

conversation about teaching is that people tend to be overconfident about
how easy it is to improve instruction in another teacher’s class.
Effectively teaching a group of students is one of the most complex acts
a human being can perform, and simple or glib comments fail to
recognize that complexity. Talking about teaching, like talking about
parenting, is easy until you have to apply the suggestions to your own
students/children.
Team members can promote learning conversations by acknowledging
the complexity of teaching and offering suggestions tentatively. The truth
is that no strategy works 100% of the time in every situation, so we are
more helpful when we admit up front that our suggestions are guesses at
best. When we propose strategies to be tried by a teacher, we can
propose them as experiments, acknowledging that they may or may not
work. Thus, rather than saying, “You should do this,” we can say, “I
wonder what would happen if you tried this.”

Focus on Students. One finding from our research at the Kansas

Coaching Project is that coaches and teachers accomplish more
sustainable change when they develop student goals rather than teacher
goals. A student goal might be that “80% of students’ responses during
classroom discussion show original thought.” (A teacher goal might be,
“I am going to integrate more technology into my lessons.”) When teams
focus on measurable changes in student achievement, behavior, or
attitude, they will have more impact on students’ lives.
Teams that focus on students often set common goals for
improvements in student achievement or behavior. Thus, a team might
decide that everyone will strive to increase student time on task to 95%.
Such a goal establishes an objective standard for excellence that guides
everyone’s work. More important, the goal compels team members to
keep striving for improvement until the goal is met in a way that makes a
difference for children. If a team establishes a teacher goal to use graphic
organizers more often, for example, they might hit the goal but never
know whether the goal had any positive impact on students. I include
more about team goals later in this chapter.
A focus on students also has the advantage of providing a third point
for conversations between two or more teachers, turning attention away
from individual teachers and toward student growth. A focus on students
depersonalizes discussion and increases impact. Parker Palmer (2004)
wrote about the power of this kind of conversation, which “represent[s]
neither the voice of the facilitator nor the voice of the participant(s)” (A
Hidden Wholeness, pp. 92–93). Further, a student goal, instructional
coach Sarah Coons said, “really takes the pressure off teachers. They
think, OK, it is not a goal I am setting for myself, but it is a goal to
improve for my students. It’s about students and helping them improve.”

Take a Dialogical Stance. Dialogue, according to Bohm (1996), is

“thinking together.” Dialogue is a way of communicating whereby team
members are equal, share ideas, and respect each other’s ideas. Dialogue
is a conversation in which the focus is learning rather than winning.
Dialogue is not about convincing another to adopt our solution to a
problem. Rather, it is everyone listening to all opinions so that the best
solution can be uncovered.
In his short, wise book On Dialogue (1996), Bohm uncovers the
etymology of the word “dialogue,” explaining that the original Greek
meaning of “logos” is “meaning” and that the original Greek meaning of
“dia” is “through.” Thus, “dialogue” is a form of communication in
which meaning moves back and forth between and through people.
Bohm explains:
 The picture or image that this derivation suggests is of a stream of meaning flowing among
and through us and between us . . . out of which will emerge some new understanding. It’s
something new, which may not have been in the starting point at all. It’s something creative.
And this shared meaning is the “glue” or “cement” that holds people and societies together.
(p. 1)

When teams take a dialogical stance, they self-monitor to ensure they

are concerned with learning rather than winning. More than anything
else, this involves each member believing that everyone has something
to contribute to everyone’s learning; that is, each member respects the
other members of the team. William Isaacs describes respect in his book
Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together (1999):
Respect is not a passive act. To respect someone is to look for the spring that feeds the pool
of their experience . . . At its core, the act of respect invites us to see others as legitimate. We
may not like what they do or say or think, but we cannot deny their legitimacy as beings. In
Zulu, a South African language, the word Sawu bona is spoken when people greet one
another and when they depart. It means “I see you.” To the Zulus, being seen has more
meaning than in Western cultures. It means that the person is in some real way brought more
fully into existence by virtue of the fact that they are seen. (p. 111)

Listen. Some simple strategies can dramatically increase a team’s

effectiveness and, perhaps most important, team members’ need to
improve their listening skills. Listening improves learning because each
member learns more when they listen and because stopping to listen
provides others with a chance to speak up and share ideas. In short, we
learn more when we let others speak and when we hear what is said.
As I wrote in Unmistakable Impact (2011), effective listening involves
three strategies: (a) committing to respectfully hearing what others have
to say, (b) letting others be the focus of the conversation at least for some
of the conversation, and (c) pausing before we respond to any comment
to consider whether what we are about to say will open up conversation
or shut it down.
A fourth simple strategy can also dramatically improve how we
communicate if the three strategies mentioned above are too difficult:
Don’t interrupt. When we interrupt, the tacit message is that we believe
that what we have to say is more important than what the other person
has to said. Interrupting keeps us from learning from others; besides, it
makes us look like jerks!

Be Empathic. Empathy, which Jeremy Rifkin (2009) describes as “the

mental process by which one person enters into another’s being and
comes to know how they feel and think” (The Empathic Civilization, p.
12), improves communication because our knowledge of others’
thoughts, feelings, and experiences helps us better understand their
messages. Additionally, when we understand others’ perspectives, we are
better able to shape our words so that others understand them.
Empathy also improves trust and builds bonds between team
members. Well-known psychologist Carl Rogers explains the unifying
power of empathy as follows:
[W]hen a person realizes he has been deeply heard, his eyes moisten. I think in some real
sense he is weeping for joy. It is as though he were saying, “Thank God, somebody heard
me. Someone knows what it is like to be me.” (from Rifken, The Empathic Civilization,
2009, p. 14)

Continuously Improve. On a VLT, the emphasis is on learning, but that

learning will not happen as productively as we would like if the team
members don’t communicate effectively. Teams that wish to implement
the strategies described here, therefore, should commit to continuously
improving their team communication skills. Jean Clark talked about this
when I interviewed her for this book:
We need profound growth in education, but we have been very content with just little teeny
bits of growth. We have to figure out a way in which more people are engaged in significant
change. But the heart of change can be painful and risky. You have to let go of a dream you
have and sometimes accept a painful reality. When you start to change, you realize you and
everyone around you bought into a bad set of goods. So you have to say what you mean and
risk the wrath of others. You have to do that because change is so important.

One way to improve everyone’s communication skills quickly is to

adopt the strategy of a VLT—that is, video-record meetings. I suggest
recording team meetings and sending a copy of the video to each
member on the team. Team members can then assess their
communication skills using an evaluation form such as the one presented
in Figure 5.8 and set a goal for how they will improve their
communication strategies during the next meeting. At the VLT, team
members can start the meeting constructively and positively by sharing
what their communication goal is for the upcoming meeting.

6. SET GOALS
Unfortunately, even when a team speaks the truth respectfully and
honestly, there is no guarantee that the team will do anything that makes
a positive change in students’ lives. High-functioning teams can have
enjoyable and pleasant conversations, but those conversations don’t
always lead to actions that make an impact. Elisa MacDonald (2013)
writes about high-functioning, low-impact teams in her book The Skillful
Team Leader:
High-functioning, low-impact is deceiving to the untrained eye because it is extremely
productive, yet what it produces yields little to no measurable gains for student learning. The
team is efficient. Members utilize all the tools necessary for a high-functioning team such as
group agreements, roles, templates, and agendas. Their collaboration enables them to
accomplish any task; however, the task on which they choose to collaborate has little to no
impact on student learning. For example, the high-functioning, low-impact team might walk
away with a better system for filing kids to lunch, a teacher coverage schedule for
administering midterms, or even an instructionally related task such as an efficient way to
collect homework, but the learning challenges students had when the team started
collaborating remain. (p. 32)

Figure 5.8 Video Learning Team Self-Assessment Form

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.
 VLTs that are truly high functioning and high impact need to focus on
action rather than talk. Action begins with the team’s values. That is,
teams are more likely to make a difference when every member makes
an explicit commitment to act to improve the quality of children’s lives.
This commitment may even be written into the team’s values. Team
leaders can encourage norms of action by explaining during one-to-one
conversations why it is important that everyone commit to an action
focus. Also, during one-to-one conversations, leaders could explain that
a commitment to action is a requirement for joining the VLT.
Perhaps the most powerful way teams can commit to action is by
setting goals. Often we speak of SMART goals, which are variously
understood to be specific, measurable, attainable (or
actionable/assignable), realistic (relevant), and timely (or time bound)
(Doran, 1981).
I suggest that teams consider a different acronym, PEERS, which
highlights a few additional factors that teams should consider when
setting goals. Teams that create goals that address the PEERS factors will
likely find that their goals will have more impact. Each of the factors is
described below.

Effective Team Goals

• Powerful
• Easy
• Emotionally compelling
• Reachable
• Student focused

Powerful. VLTs that want to make an important difference in students’

lives should sort through every possible goal by asking a simple
question: Will this goal make a real difference in students’ lives? Thus, a
team might list several possible goals, such as increasing student time on
task to 95%, increasing students’ vocabulary quiz scores to a 90% or
higher average, decreasing student disruptions to fewer than 4 per 10
minutes, improving the quality of students’ writing, and so forth. The
team should then use the impact form in Figure 5.9 to determine which
goal will have the most impact on student achievement. Being powerful,
however, is only one characteristic of high-leverage goals.

Easy. Powerful goals that are difficult or impossible to implement are not
as helpful as powerful goals that are easy to implement. Difficult-to-
implement goals, no matter how powerful, often end up on the scrap
heap of unrealized good intentions. The best goals are goals that are
powerful and easy, because they have the greatest likelihood of being
implemented, and because they provide more time for teachers, who are
very busy, to work on other important tasks.

Figure 5.9 Impact Goal Form

This form is available for download at www.corwin.com/focusonteaching.
Copyright © 2014 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Focus on
Teaching: Using Video for High-Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwin.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local
school site or nonprofit organization that has purchased this book.
 In Influencer: The Power to Change Anything (2008), Patterson and
his colleagues explain why easy and powerful goals are so important:
When it comes to altering behavior, you need to help others answer only two questions.
First: Is it worth it? . . . And second: Can they do this thing? . . . Consequently, when trying
to change behaviors, think of the only two questions that matter. Is it worth it? . . . Can I do
it? (p. 50)

Emotionally Compelling. In their book Switch: How to Change Things

When Change Is Hard (2010), Heath and Heath suggest that effective
goals need to be more than SMART; they need to compel people to
action by moving them emotionally. According to the authors, effective
goals “provide a destination postcard—a vivid picture from the near-
term future that shows what could be possible” (p. 76).
To illustrate the power of emotionally compelling goals, Heath and
Heath (2010) compare two reading goals for a kindergarten class. The
first, the authors say, is “a way not to do it”:
With respect to reading for the school year, I administered three diagnostics: WWT,
Assessments of Comprehension, and Monster Test. Using CWT, I identified my classes’
average as grade level 1.5 in September. My goal is to increase my classes’ word
identification so as to ensure a class average of 3.0. Upon analyzing the results of the
Assessment of Comprehension, I identified my classes’ average as a 41% in September. My
goal is to increase my students’ comprehension so as to ensure a class average of 80%.
Using the Monster Test, I identified my classes’ average score as Semiphonetic/Phonetic.
My goal is to increase my students’ phonics and spelling skills to Transitional. (p. 74)

Such a goal, the authors write, might help the teacher with her
planning, but it won’t “light . . . a fire in the hearts of the first graders.”
In contrast, the authors describe an emotionally compelling goal created
by a teacher of a first-grade class in Atlanta, Georgia:
Crystal Jones . . . knew if she wanted to motivate the kids she had to speak their language.
At the beginning of the school year, she announced a goal for her class that she knew would
captivate every student: By the end of this school year you’re going to be third graders . . .
That goal was tailor-made for the first-grade psyche. First graders know very well what third
graders look like—they are bigger, smarter, and cooler. You know the feeling you get when
you’re admiring the grace and power of an Olympic athlete? That’s the feeling first graders
get about third graders. (Heath & Heath, 2010, pp. 74–75)

Crystal Jones’ goal worked because it moved her students to action.

Her goal “was inspirational. It tapped into feeling . . . [it] ‘hit you in the
gut’” (p. 76). And it worked. “By the end of the year, over 90% of the
kids were reading at or above a third-grade level” (Heath & Heath, 2010,
p. 75).
Reachable. Few things are more unifying for teams than achieving
important goals together. Not achieving goals can have the opposite
impact and damage team morale. For that reason, teams need to consider
whether their goal, however admirable, is one that can actually be
reached. A reachable goal is one that builds hope.
Shane Lopez, a researcher at the University of Kansas and the Gallup
Organization, has been described as the world’s leading expert on hope.
In Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and
Others (2013), Lopez writes that hope requires three elements. First,
hope requires a goal that sets out an idea of “where we want to go, what
we want to accomplish, who we want to be” (p. 24). Second, to feel
hope, we need agency, our “perceived ability to shape our lives day to
day . . . [our knowledge that] . . . we can make things happen” (p. 25).
Finally, hope requires pathways, “plans that carry us forward” (p. 25).
A goal that fosters hope is a goal that has a reasonable chance of being
achieved because (a) team members believe they can achieve it (agency)
and (b) it includes a strategy or strategies that can help them achieve it
(pathways). Increasing student achievement by 20% on the state reading
assessment is an admirable goal, but it isn’t helpful unless the team can
identify a strategy that will help them reach the goal. Decreasing
noninstructional time from 22% to 5% by teaching students expectations
for transitions, for example, is a more effective goal because it shows the
destination as well as the pathways that teachers can realistically expect
will get them there.

Shane Lopez’s Elements of Hope

• Goals
• Agency
• Pathways

A reachable goal also has to be one that people will know they have
reached. That is, as SMART goals have shown for years, the goal has to
be measurable. Having students read more effectively is not a
measurable goal, but having students read as well as third-grade students
is one that teachers can know they have reached.
Student Focused. Finally, as we have found with our research on
coaching, and as mentioned in Chapter 3, effective goals are student
rather than teacher focused. When teams choose teacher goals (“Let’s
use graphic organizers at least twice a week”), they may implement the
goal but have no idea whether it made a difference for students.
Additionally, no measure of excellence is built into the goal, so people
may implement the goal poorly and still meet the goal.
A student-focused goal, on the other hand, provides clear feedback on
whether changes make a difference for students. Additionally, student-
focused goals carry with them a built-in measure of quality. If a teacher
ineffectively implements the teaching practice the team has chosen, it is
unlikely that he will achieve the goal. The teacher will have to keep
refining his use of the practice until he is able to implement it effectively,
so that its use can lead to achievement of the goal. Often, an instructional
coach is invaluable as a support for this kind of professional learning.

Turning Ideas Into Action

STUDENTS

Students’ voices can help VLTs stay grounded and focused on

student growth when students are a part of VLT work. This can
happen in many ways. For example, students can be video-
interviewed in a class or outside of class on topics such as
motivation, school culture, school learning, obstacles to
learning, school relevance, and so on. Video-recording students
while asking them to describe their most valuable learning
experience and then sharing those interviews during VLTs can
be very enlightening. Interviews may be conducted by
teachers, instructional coaches, principals, or students. Another
suggestion is to invite students to VLTs and get their insights
into videos of lessons. Students likely will have important
thoughts to share about what it means to be a learner.

TEACHERS

Teachers’ most important contribution is to commit to the VLT

process. A team will not have any impact on students unless
 each member commits to improving practice for students. This
means that team members commit to at least experimenting
with the entire VLT process, video-recording themselves,
watching the video, setting goals, and learning strategies to
achieve the goals. Teachers can also contribute to the greater
good of the school by sharing their experiences on the VLT
with other teachers and encouraging them to participate in their
own VLT.

COACHES

Coaches can be extremely helpful in making VLTs work. First,

coaches can lead VLTs, supporting teachers as they learn how
to use technology, establish team values, and learn the VLT
process. Second, since instructional coaches usually have a
deep understanding of instructional practices, they can help
teams by suggesting practices they might adopt in order to
reach a goal. Finally, once a team has picked a strategy, an
instructional coach can help the team implement it by meeting
to explain, model, observe, and explore (see Chapter 3 for
more information) the practice as it is learned and refined.
Instructional coaches should also consider using the PEERS
approach to goal setting during one-to-one coaching.

PRINCIPALS

Like coaches, principals can also lead VLTs or participate in

VLTs led by instructional coaches or teachers. As leaders,
principals must be careful to embrace the servant leadership
approach. As participants, principals must be full partners in
the process, video-recording themselves and following the
team processes and values. Most important, perhaps, principals
must ensure that VLTs are led in a way that will work, with
team leaders, processes, values, and so forth. When teams are
left to fend for themselves without support, there is a strong
likelihood that they will encounter crippling roadblocks that
keep them from being effective.

SYSTEM LEADERS AND POLICY MAKERS

 District leaders can help make VLTs a reality by striving to
find funds that will give teachers time to meet. VLTs that are
added on to an already packed day—meetings from 6:45 to
7:30 a.m., for example—are hard to sustain. Leaders should try
to do everything they can to make it easier for teachers to
meet, watch video, identify strategies, and implement those
strategies to make a difference for children. Leaders should
consider reading DuFour and Fullan’s Cultures Built to Last:
Systemic PLCs at Work (2013) to get insight into how they can
better support teams and coaches in their system.

TO SUM UP
VLTs are more successful when the following issues are addressed:

• Team participants should feel psychologically safe, since watching

video can lead us to question our assumptions about ourselves.
• Team leaders should carefully pick team members to ensure a
psychologically safe environment.
• Participation in a VLT should be voluntary.
• Team members should establish team values.
• Someone (often an instructional coach or principal) should be
identified to lead the team by adopting a servant leadership
approach.
• Teams need to adopt a clear, effective process for learning that
often involves the use of templates that promote reflection.
• Team members need to use communication skills that allow them
to speak the truth in a way that can be heard.
• Teams should set goals that are powerful, easy, emotionally
compelling, reachable, and student focused.

GOING DEEPER
Rick DuFour and his colleagues have created a library of helpful
resources for popularizing and explaining effective teams, referred to as
professional learning communities (PLCs). DuFour’s classic work,
Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for
Enhancing Student Achievement (1998, with R. E. Eaker), provides a
great introduction to PLCs, but all of his books will help you create a
positive, effective learning team. In addition, Rick DuFour and Michael
Fullan’s Cultures Built to Last: Systemic PLCs at Work (2013) deals with
how PLCs (and, I think, any approach to learning, such as instructional
coaching) can be successfully supported with a system.
Elisa MacDonald’s The Skillful Team Leader: A Resource for
Overcoming Hurdles to Professional Learning for Student Achievement
(2013) is a sophisticated but accessible manual on how to create and lead
high-functioning, high-impact teams. In addition, Bruce Wellman has
written or co-authored many books that would benefit teams and
coaches. In particular, his Data-Driven Dialogue: A Facilitator’s Guide
to Collaborative Inquiry (2004) greatly influenced my thinking about
using templates during the discussion of video.
My favorite communication book, and I have read many, is Margaret
Wheatley’s Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore
Hope to the Future (2009). This book beautifully makes the point that
respectful, deep communication is essential for a life filled with love,
learning, and hope. In every book I write, I also mention Stone, Patton,
and Heen’s Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters
(2010) because those authors do such a great job of describing how our
identity interferes with our ability to communicate and learn. Parker
Palmer’s The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a
Teacher’s Life (2007) is my favorite book about teaching. I especially
like his description of how who we are is intimately a part of what and
how we teach.
Finally, Heidi Grant Halvorson’s concise book 9 Things Successful
People Do Differently (2011) is the best summary of goal setting that I
have read. Heath and Heath’s Switch: How to Change Things When
Change Is Hard (2010) explains why goals need to be emotionally
compelling and a lot more about leading change.

1According to The U.S. Army Leadership Field Manual (2004), “An AAR is a professional
discussion of an event, focused on performance standards, that allows participants to discover for
themselves what happened, why it happened, and how to sustain strengths and improve on
weaknesses” (p. 6).
2I have written more detailed strategies for establishing team values in Chapter 6 in
Unmistakable Impact (2011).
Chapter 6: Principals
 6
PRINCIPALS

Having the video as a snapshot in time of what actually happened in the classroom
gave us a discussion that was rooted in the “real” as opposed to what I think I may
have experienced. Our conversation starts from the same place—this is what we saw on
tape.

—Chad Harnisch, Principal, Rice Lake, Wisconsin

hen Chad Harnisch looked ahead to his duties as principal at Rice

W Lake High School in Wisconsin, he wasn’t especially happy about
having to complete 60 teacher evaluations. “I hated it,” he said.
“Years ago, I heard some advice that made a lot of sense to me: Do the
minimum number of evaluations required by the contract and spend the
rest of the time having professional conversations with teachers about
student growth.”
Chad is a dedicated professional, deeply committed to achieving the
best for the students and adults in his school. The reason he hated “the
management task of having to complete 60 evaluations” was that, as far
as he could see, it was “nothing more than that—a management task.”
Chad elaborated on his thinking:
The discussion is only about perceptions; my perceptions as a principal and her perceptions
as a teacher, going back and forth between those two positions, trying to come to some
negotiated middle ground about what happened.

What happens is that I do an observation in a class and take notes, but I don’t have an
opportunity to summarize notes right away—it can be two, three days, and sometimes as
long as a week, before I get to sit down to do the actual evaluation. I don’t have perfect
recall, so when I write it, I know it’s not perfect because it is based on my memory of what I
think happened as opposed to what actually happened.

The evaluation conversation “was not effective professional

development, and it was not coaching in the way that I would want it to
be,” Chad continued. “The conversation always has an element of
confrontation because the teacher is remembering what she thinks
happened from her perspective, and I am remembering what I think
happened from my perspective, and there can be a disconnect between
those two remembrances.”
When talking about evaluation, principal and teacher simply attempt
to arrive at a compromise decision about what really happened. But Chad
wanted to find a way to make teacher evaluation something that actually
made a difference for students and teachers. He decided to use video.
Chad met with one of his teachers, Amy Pelle, an “amazing
professional,” whom he described as “maybe the best teacher I have
worked with,” and asked her if she would try an experiment that
involved video-recording her class as a part of teacher evaluation. Chad
knew Amy wasn’t interested in professional learning unless it had
practical application, so he proposed they integrate video into the
teacher-evaluation process. “I was curious about how critical Amy would
be about her teaching as well as her reflections when talking about
video.” But Chad was most interested in what would happen when his
conversations with the teacher were based on “what really happened in
the classroom rather than what you think you remember happening in the
classroom.”
Chad and Amy decided they would focus their attention on the
instruction domain of Danielson’s framework (Danielson, 2007). First,
they went over the assessment tool together and agreed on how to use it
to analyze what was recorded on video. Then Chad used his iPad to
video-record a lesson.
During the class Amy chose for recording, her students were doing
independent practice, and Amy circled around the room working with
individual students. While recording the class, Chad moved the camera
as Amy moved around. Since he used his iPad in the classroom to do
walkthroughs, the students were “used to seeing it in his hands, so they
didn’t even notice the camera.” After the class, he shared the video with
Amy through Google Docs.
Chad and Amy watched the video and completed the evaluation form
separately before meeting twice. The first time, Chad said, they met “just
to talk through our evaluation and how we ended up making our
notations on the form.” Chad gave Amy a copy of High-Impact
Instruction (Knight, 2013) and asked her to read it before they met a
second time to talk about more specific goals for teaching. That
conversation turned out to be totally different from any Chad had ever
had about evaluation. “The conversation we had was much more rooted
in the real as opposed to being rooted in this is what I think I have
experienced.”
The video gave us a snapshot in time of what actually happened and provided a discussion
point that wasn’t theoretical. It was about this is what actually happened, not what I saw, not
what I experienced, but what actually happened. What the video did was to eliminate the
conversation about our different remembrances, and instead of that disconnect we had an
indisputable this-is-what-happened moment. So, our conversation started from a place of
commonality as opposed to a position of diversion. The video is what really happened. We
were talking about what was on the video right in front of us, and that allowed the
conversation to be a much more focused conversation about teaching and learning.

Chad further commented that he “couldn’t believe the difference in the

conversation” he had with Amy after they watched the recording,
explaining,
If I had gone in and done it the old way—just gone in with the form and then later marked
down my evaluation—it would have been “distinguished, distinguished, distinguished.” It
still was that after watching the video, but the video allowed us to have specific things to
talk about. It allowed us to have a more professionally rich conversation. I’m going to offer
it to all the teachers.

Principals lead the way when video is introduced in a school, and as

with any initiative, their actions can make or break it. To foster
widespread productive use of video, principals must play at least two
essential roles. First, as the primary evaluator of teachers, they can, as
Chad Harnisch did, dramatically increase the power of conversations
about teacher evaluation by making video an optional part of teacher
evaluation—I call this video-enhanced teacher evaluation. Second, as the
principal leader in the school, principals can help create settings in which
teachers, coaches, and teams can all successfully implement VPD. Both
of these roles are critical, and both are discussed below.

Video 6.1
Principals Using Video
www.corwin.com/focusonteaching
Video-Enhanced Teacher Evaluation
Principals today are evaluating teachers more than ever before (Popham,
2013). Principals dedicate enormous amounts of time and worry to
teacher observations, but unfortunately, the truth is that despite all these
efforts, teacher observations may have no impact on teaching. In worst-
case scenarios, teacher observations and evaluations make things worse
rather than better by decreasing teacher morale.
The sad state of teacher observation and evaluation is summed up by
the words of a young principal I met during a Texas workshop: “If the
teacher doesn’t cry or get angry,” he said, “I feel the evaluation
conversation has been a good one.”
Video can dramatically improve the impact of teacher evaluation.
Video-enhanced professional learning changes teacher evaluation from
being a task to be endured to becoming a powerful reflective
conversation that ultimately leads to improved student learning.
A simple four-part process for video-enhanced teacher evaluation can
solve these problems efficiently. First, the principal meets with a
volunteer teacher and explains the observation system. Second, the
principal observes the teacher’s class and video-records a lesson. Third,
the principal and teacher watch the video and complete the observation
system. Finally, the principal and teacher get together to compare and
contrast what they found when they conducted the observation. Each of
these parts of the process is described in more detail.

Video-Enhanced Teacher Evaluation

1. Principal meets with teacher and explains the observation
form.
2. Principal observes and video-records a lesson.
3. Principal and teacher watch the video and complete the
observation form.
4. Principal and teacher meet to discuss what they found.
Determining Who Participates. As I’ve stressed throughout this book, I
do not feel that teachers should be forced to participate in video learning
teams (VLTs). This also applies to video-enhanced teacher evaluation.
Telling people they have to participate in video-enhanced teacher
evaluation will likely increase resentment more than learning. My advice
is that video be an alternative that teachers can choose if they wish.
Principals can explain to teachers that any video recordings will be seen
only by the participating teacher and the principal and that the goal
behind videotaping is to ensure that they have a meaningful conversation
about what happened during the lesson.

Meeting to Discuss the Observation Framework. Most schools have

adopted some kind of observation form or process. Many schools utilize
Charlotte Danielson’s Enhancing Professional Practice: Framework for
Teaching (2007). Others use the 20-minute high-impact survey included
in High-Impact Instruction (Knight, 2013),1 the Marzano Teacher
Evaluation Model (http://www.marzanocenter.com), or some other
framework. Whatever observation tool or framework is being used, for
video-enhanced teacher evaluation to work, both principal and teacher
need to understand the evaluation tool.
To ensure that everyone understands the evaluation tool, principals
and teachers need to attend professional development sessions in which
they can learn about the tool and practice using it by watching video of
teachers and students until they are able to gather data reliably.
Additionally, the principal and the participating teacher need to get
together to review the form to ensure that they agree on all the items on
the form.
I suggest going through the observation tool line by line to ensure they
will complete the form the same way. In some cases, this may include
discussing how to address aspects of the class that are hard to see on
video. For example, principal and teacher may need to come to
consensus about how they will observe engagement. Before the end of
this conversation, the principal should check to ensure that the
collaborating teacher is completely confident about applying the
evaluation tool to her class.
One option is for principal and teacher to go through the form and
revise it based on the teacher’s concerns. When teachers have real input
into what is observed, they tend to be more receptive to the data. Also,
since teachers work with students every day, there is a great chance that
they have good insight into what data would be most helpful to consider.

Recording the Class. Once teacher and principal are confident that they
both understand the observation tool, the principal should observe a
lesson and video-record it. I suggest giving the participating teacher a
choice about which class she would like to have observed, asking, “What
class do you think you would learn the most from me observing?”
The principal can use whatever recording device is at hand.
Frequently, that is an iPad, but any device that records the class and has
reasonably good sound is acceptable. I suggest that the principal hold the
camera and point it toward the teacher when the teacher is talking and
point toward students when they are talking. The goal of video-recording
the lesson is to get as much useful information as possible.
While recording the lesson, it is important to keep in mind the items
on the evaluation form and ensure that the recording captures data that
will enable the form to be completed. For example, if the form calls for
an assessment of engagement, the principal might focus the camera on
each student at the 10- and 20-minute point during the lesson. Of course,
the principal will want to be as unobtrusive as possible.
The principal should record at least 20 minutes of a lesson and, if time
permits, consider recording more—perhaps an entire 45-minute lesson.
(The longer lessons that are typically used in block scheduling may be
too long for many since it will take so long to watch the entire video.)
After the observation, the video is shared with the teacher. This may
be done in many ways, including downloading a video from the
recording device directly onto the collaborating teacher’s computer,
using a file-sharing site like Dropbox, using one of the commercial
video-sharing sites mentioned in Chapter 2, or loading the video onto a
jump drive or external drive and sharing the recording that way.

Watching and Evaluating the Lesson. Our research on coaching

suggests that it is important that people have an opportunity to watch
their video by themselves before discussing it with others. Otherwise, the
conversation may be inhibited by the playing of the video and by the
teacher’s concerns about what the other person is thinking. A better plan,
therefore, is for teacher and principal to watch the video separately and
then come together to discuss what they saw.
 While watching the video, both teacher and principal use the
evaluation tool to focus their observation of the lesson. For example, a
teacher using the 20-minute high-impact survey would look at student
engagement, how time was used, type, kind, and level of question, ratio
of positive to negative interactions, and all other items on the form.
The evaluation tool gives teacher and principal a shared perspective on
what happened in the class and focuses their perception. However, the
evaluation is not limited to that. When Tony Mosser sat down to view his
lesson, he was interested in looking at engagement, but he discovered
that the engagement was far higher than he expected. So, as his principal
Bill Sommers explained to me, they ended up talking about something
much different than they had planned.
Tony planned to talk about student engagement, but the video showed students were very
engaged, so we ended up talking about behavior management, especially about a couple of
students who were roaming around the room. We talked about concepts of chemical and
physical changes, and we got into several other discussions.

Meeting to Discuss the Video. Once teacher and principal have viewed
the recording, they can get together to discuss their perspective on what
happened. I suggest letting the teacher lead this conversation. The easiest
way is simply to have the teacher talk about each item on the observation
form. In Unmistakable Impact (2011), I list a number of questions that
might help principals move through this discussion (see Figure 6.1).

Determining the Next Action. After principal and coach have discussed
the observation, they should establish a next action. Productivity guru
David Allen has written (2001) about the importance of clarifying
exactly what you are going to do to bring about any form of
improvement:
In training and coaching thousands of professionals, I have found that lack of time is not the
major issue for them (though they themselves may think it is); the real problem is a lack of
clarity and definition about what a project really is, and what the associated next-action steps
required are. (p. 19)

Some principals may want to use the questions coaches use. Also,
principals may want to use the PEERS criteria to develop goals with
coaches.
Teachers could be given the option to coach themselves or work with
an instructional coach if one exists in the school.
Figure 6.1 Sample Questions

• Given the time we have today, what is the most important thing
that you and I should be talking about? (Susan Scott)

• What if nothing changes? So what? What are the implications

for you and your students? (Susan Scott)

• What is the ideal outcome? (Susan Scott)

• What can we do if we resolve this issue? (Susan Scott)

• Tell me about what you felt.

• Tell me a little bit about this . . .

• What leads you to believe . . .?

• What would we see and hear that would be evidence of this?

(Bruce Wellman; Lucy West)

• What went well? What surprised you? What did you learn?
What will you do differently next time?

• What do you think about what the students are doing here?

• On a scale from 1 to 10, how close are you to your ideal

classroom? (Steve Barkley)
 • What are you seeing that shows that the strategy is successful?
(Steve Barkley)

• What impact would _____ have? (Steve Barkley)

• When have you seen ________? Can you make a connection

between that time and this time? (Steve Barkley)

Why Video-Enhanced Teacher Evaluation

Works
Ensures Observations Are Reliable. One reason traditional teacher
evaluations fail is that some teachers think principals didn’t get it right
when they observed a class; that is, that principals’ observations are
unreliable. In some cases, that is true—any human being’s observations
can be unreliable or incorrect. For example, the principal might not
understand what an evaluation form asks her to see (for example, not
understanding type, kind, and level of question) because she didn’t
receive sufficient training, because she is careless, or for some other
reason. When teachers don’t think their principals use evaluation forms
correctly, they are less likely to learn from conversations with their
principals about the evaluation.

Video 6.2
Advantages for Administrators
www.corwin.com/focusonteaching

As we have seen, when video-enhanced teacher evaluation is used, the

process begins with the participating teacher and principal meeting to
ensure they both understand the form being used. I suggest principals
consider asking teachers if they want to modify the form to gather other
data so that they have a voice in deciding what is being observed.
Ensuring that both teacher and principal have an accurate and shared
understanding of the evaluation form goes a long way toward improving
the evaluation conversation. Besides, if they disagree on what they saw,
they can always go back to the video and check what the video reveals.
Bill Sommers, principal and author, Minnetonka, Minnesota, says
I’m going to suggest that in the high-stakes cultures in the urban centers, etc., where you
have got to demonstrate certain competencies or whatever, you could throw that out with the
teacher in the room a lot differently. Inter-rater reliability is always a problem. One principal
comes in and evaluates a teacher and says, and I followed him—I am thinking of a guy in a
middle school years ago, who said, “This is the worst teacher and we have got to get rid of
him.” I went in and said, “He is the most creative person I have ever seen.” So, there is still
that possibility, and with a video recording and having a conversation around it, I think there
is going to be less of that.

Prevents Teacher Misconceptions About a Lesson. A second reason

teachers and principals may not have a meaningful conversation about
teacher evaluation is the reality, as I’ve noted throughout this book, that
people don’t know what it looks like when they do what they do. Even if
a principal’s observation is correct, the teacher may not believe it
because he has a different understanding of what it looks like when he
teaches. For example, a principal might accurately observe the ratio of
interaction (a teacher’s number of positive vs. corrective interactions)
and tell the teacher that the ratio was 1:3. However, since she doesn’t
have a clear picture of how she teaches, the teacher might find this hard
to believe and assume the principal got it wrong.
Teachers, like other professionals, don’t have a clear picture of what it
looks like when they teach. This means that when a principal and teacher
get together to discuss a class, they are talking about two different things
—what the principal observed and what the teacher observed.
Using video solves this dilemma because the observation is based not
on the principal and teacher’s imperfect memory of the lesson but on the
clear evidence of the video. In our experience, when a principal conducts
an observation that doesn’t involve video, he ends up spending a lot of
time trying to convince the teacher that his view of reality is more
correct than hers. When a principal uses video-enhanced professional
learning, on the other hand, no convincing is required because the reality
is right there on the film.
 I want to do more evaluations using video. I think it increases trust.
I think it increases accuracy. You have the potential to deepen the
conversations about instruction without focusing on “this is my
opinion and this is what I saw. I don’t care how it felt to you; this is
what I saw.”

—Bill Sommers, Author and Principal, Minnetonka,

Minnesota

Allows Principals to Focus on the Class. One of the benefits of using

video is that it releases observers from the need to take notes. As
Winifred Gallagher (2009) explained in her book about attention, Rapt:
Attention and the Focused Life, “science has determined that
multitasking is for most practical purposes a myth, and that heeding its
siren call leads to inefficiency and even danger.” She goes on to say:
You may think you’re multitasking when you’re listening to your boss’s report while texting
your lunch date, but what you’re really doing is switching back and forth between activities.
Despite your fond hopes, the extra effort involved actually makes you less rather than more
productive; your overall performance will be inefficient, error-prone, and more time-
consuming than if you had done one thing at a time. As one attention expert ruefully
observed after writing a book, “if your train of thought is interrupted even for a second, you
have to go back and say, ‘Where was I?’ There are start-up costs each time as you reload
everything into memory. Multitasking exacts a price, and people aren’t as good at it as they
think they are.” (pp. 151–152)

When principals take notes during observations, they are forced, as

Gallagher says, to “switch back and forth between activities,” and this
means that they inevitably miss important events when they’re taking
notes. Video-recording frees principals to focus their attention on
teaching and complete the evaluation form later while watching the
video. Further, once a lesson has been recorded, a principal can review
the same event multiple times if he wishes to make sure he has gotten it
right. In the words of principal and author Bill Sommers, “Writing takes
me away from paying attention. If I have to write down notes, it splits
my attention and you can only attend to one thing at a time. And, I can
rest assured knowing that there is a backup for accuracy.”

Captures More Than an Evaluation Form Can. Evaluation forms can

gather a lot of important data, and they provide great data for setting
goals and monitoring progress. But each classroom is a rich, complex
environment, and no form can ever capture the full complexity of the
classroom. Reading an evaluation form about a lesson is like reading the
box scores after a ballgame. Sure, it gives you important data, but you
see a lot more when you watch the game.
Using video allows you to see so much more about what happens
during a lesson. Granted, recording ratios of interaction gives you
valuable information, but seeing how a teacher shares positive
information with students and how students respond to that praise shows
you a lot more. Additionally, video often reveals important information
that does not show up on a form. This was another aspect of video that
Bill Sommers saw as helpful:
The other piece that was really nice about the video was that I could see how many students
were engaged at the time, how they were responding to transitions, how they were
responding to opportunities to share among themselves and give feedback. I could see all of
those groups whereas from the teacher’s spot, I am willing to choose my location in the
room, the scan of my vision in terms of who am I making eye contact with at the specific
moment as I am asking questions, or walking around, or specific interactions with students
or a specific student at a time—that video gives you an entire encapsulation of what was
going on. That was a real valuable piece. Otherwise you are limited to your physical being.

Makes Conversations More Collaborative, Reflective, and Real. For

all the reasons mentioned, one of the problems with traditional
conversations about teacher evaluation is that they often end up being
arguments about different views of what happened in the classroom.
Traditional teacher evaluation puts principals in the position of being
experts, passing judgment on teachers. In some cases, the fact that
principals are one up and teachers are one down leads to a conversation
that looks more like a power struggle than a meaningful conversation.
The principal tries to convince the teacher of his evaluation, and the
teacher tries to explain why the observations miss the mark.
Professionals don’t want to be put in a one-down position (Schein,
2009), and consequently the conversation about an observation can turn
into a meaningless power struggle. Video changes all of this.

Fostering Implementation
As seen, video-enhanced teacher evaluation is one way whereby
principals can have a significant positive impact on professional learning
in schools. Another way is by leading their schools in a manner that
increases the likelihood that educators want to use video as a part of their
professional learning. In the following, we will look at five strategies
principals can use to accelerate implementation of video-enhanced
professional development.

Fostering Implementation
1. Walk the talk.
2. Shape culture.
3. Fight for resources.
4. Develop deep knowledge.
5. Employ partnership leadership.

1. WALK THE TALK

The most high-impact strategy principals can use to encourage
teachers to use video is probably also the simplest: Walk the talk. As
President Kennedy said in 1960, “what we are speaks louder than what
we say” (Senator Kennedy at Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Utah,
September 23, 1960). Principals can’t expect teachers to courageously
step up, take the risk, and learn from video if they are not willing to do
the same. There are many ways for principals to “walk the talk.”
People who choose to learn from video must be committed to learning,
so principals who want their teachers to use video must first promote a
learning culture. The easiest way to encourage others to be learners is
simply to be a learner oneself. If we want students to be learners,
teachers need to be learners, and if we want teachers to be learners,
administrators need to be learners.

Video 6.3
A Principal’s Process
www.corwin.com/focusonteaching
 When principals are “first learners,” they communicate what and how
they are learning. To do this, they read books, articles, and blogs, watch
videos, attend conferences, and so forth. Additionally, principals need to
find ways to share their learning with the educators in their systems. This
can be accomplished in many ways—by copying/sharing articles, buying
books for staff, leading book study, sharing links to blogs and
presentations, and so on.
Perhaps the most important way that leaders can encourage learning is
to embody learning in their day-to-day actions. This means that leaders
(a) listen with an intent to learn from others; (b) share ideas with
humility and an openness to hearing others’ thoughts about the ideas;
and (c) show that they are reflecting on their actions and are open to
seeing what data show about what they do and change based on what
they learn. More than anything, it means that principals recognize the
power of personal development and demonstrate a lust for learning.
Learning is a life force. When we learn, we grow and become more
alive. But in many settings, learning is countercultural, with norms of
behavior that encourage entropy rather than growth. In such cultures,
learners have to demonstrate what can only be called deviant behavior:
They have to stand up for learning, initially their own learning and then
the learning of others, even though all around them the norm may be
externalization of blame and resistance to change. If leaders want a
learning culture in their schools, they have to be the first learners. To
create learning cultures in which VPD can flourish, leaders have to
embody the assumptions inherent in the culture they wish to create. As
Mahatma Gandhi so famously stated, they need to “be the change they
want to see.”

2. SHAPE CULTURE
Edgar Schein (2010) in Organizational Culture and Leadership helps
us understand what culture is and why leaders must be skillful culture
shapers. I find Schein’s work extremely helpful because he provides
readers with a vocabulary for understanding culture and suggests how
they can interpret and shape culture. For example, Schein writes that
culture is manifest in “artifacts,” “espoused values,” and “assumptions.”
Artifacts, according to Schein (2010), “at the surface level include all
the phenomena that you would see, hear, and feel when you encounter a
new group with an unfamiliar culture” (p. 23). In schools, artifacts might
refer to newsletters, procedures for meetings, libraries of professional
literature, blogs, methods for digital sharing of ideas, and so forth.
Additionally, Schein writes,
artifacts include the physical products of the group, such as the architecture of its physical
environment; its language; its technology and products; its artistic creations; its style as
embodied in clothing, manners of address, and emotional displays; its myths and stories told
about the organization; its published list of values; and its observable rituals and ceremonies.
(p. 23)

Leaders can shape culture by considering the artifacts that people in

the school see, hear, and feel, and promote learning, especially learning
with video, by putting artifacts in a school that reinforce the importance
of learning and learning with video. For example, a school principal
might use video-recording for her own professional growth so that others
can see how video might be used successfully for other purposes.
Additionally, principals could strive to get cameras in the hands of
teachers and work with staff to develop procedures, such as those
described in Chapters 4 and 5, to create psychologically safe
environments. Principals can also shape culture by creating artifacts to
promote learning by writing and sharing blogs, making journals and
professional books widely available, and promoting the digital sharing of
ideas.
I like to say that cultural artifacts, simply put, are what you see (a
broader definition also includes what you hear and feel). Leaders who
want to create a safe environment in which educators choose to learn
from video can shape culture by considering what is seen within the
walls and the digital environment of a school.
Schein (2010) writes that “the most important point to be made about
this level of culture [artifacts] is that it is both easy to observe and very
difficult to observe . . . It is especially dangerous to try to infer the deeper
assumptions from artifacts alone because a person’s interpretations will
inevitably be projections of his or her own feelings and reactions” (p.
25). For this reason, when interpreting and shaping a culture that will
support the use of video for professional learning, leaders also need to
consider prevailing espoused values and assumptions.
Espoused values are statements people make about a culture. But as
anyone who works in an organization knows, what people say is not
always the same as what they do. As Schein (2010) writes, “In U.S.
organizations, it is common to espouse teamwork while actually
rewarding individual competitiveness” (p. 27). Further, espoused values
can be too abstract or contradictory, “as when it [an organization] claims
both highest quality and lowest cost” (p. 27).
Leaders in schools need to ensure that what they say about culture is
indeed what is done. For example, if a school wants to create a
psychologically safe environment for learning from video, team
members need to learn nonjudgmental communication skills, teachers
need to own their own video, the practice needs to be voluntary not
compulsory, team members need to be chosen with care, and leaders
need to choose their words carefully and take the time necessary to
ensure that what is said is indeed what is done. In order for an espoused
value to become a widely held underlying assumption, leaders, related to
use of video, may have to frequently repeat that video is optional not
mandatory and that video is owned by the teachers.
When a statement is said over and over and becomes an actual way of
interacting or communicating, it may be taken for granted and, according
to Schein (2010), “come to be treated as reality” (p. 27). This is what
Schein refers to as basic assumptions. “Basic
assumptions . . . [are] . . . are so taken for granted that you find little
variation within a social unit . . . [When] a basic assumption comes to be
strongly held in a group, members find behavior based on any other
premise inconceivable” (p. 28). Schein goes on to say,
Culture as a set of basic assumptions defines for us what to pay attention to, what things
mean, how to react emotionally to what is going on, and what actions to take in various
kinds of situations. After we have developed an integrated set of such assumptions . . . we
will be maximally comfortable with others who share the same set of assumptions and very
uncomfortable and vulnerable in situations where different assumptions operate because
either we will not understand what is going on, or, worse, we will misperceive and
misinterpret the actions of others. (p. 29)

What this all means is that talking about a cultural value is not enough.
For example, involving staff in establishing norms for video learning
teams can be powerful. But words that are not reflected in reality are
fairly useless. Related to the use of video, leaders need to communicate
in the school, district, and community that video is a power tool for
professional learning and growth and ensure that those words are borne
out in action.
Leaders can help translate values into assumptions by hiring for
cultural values, but they also need to monitor teams to ensure that
participants are treating each other with the openness and respect
necessary for people to take the risk to learn from video. Sometimes a
principal may even need to confront team members who are not acting in
ways that are good for teacher learning and student growth.
I saw this in action at the University of Kansas Center for Research on
Learning. I was a member of a group that met with a consultant who was
helping us do some strategic planning related to research goals. Several
times, it was very clear that one person was not embracing the process.
He wasted a lot of everyone’s time by confronting the facilitator.
Eventually, the center director met with the team member one to one,
explained that his behavior was slowing the team up, and offered to let
him leave the team. He was gracious and respectful, but also clear and
direct, and the team member changed his behavior after that 20-minute
conversation.
I know about that conversation because I was the dysfunctional team
member! The truth is that I had no idea that my behavior was such a
problem; I just didn’t get along with the facilitator. The director’s
empathetic but clear message woke me up to realizing what I was doing.
From that meeting on, I was committed to making the process work. Of
course, if I could have seen my behavior on video, my learning would
have been even more powerful and faster.

3. FIGHT FOR RESOURCES

One of the most common things I hear leaders say is that they would
like to have coaches, cameras for teachers, extra time for teachers to
meet in video learning teams, or access to video-sharing sites, but they
simply can’t afford it. In many cases, although there is no doubt that
schools could benefit from additional funding, the reality of funding is
that some districts don’t put professional learning at the top of the list.
Why else would schools cut instructional coaches before they cut athletic
coaches?
Principals who want their school to support video-enhanced learning
need to fight for the resources their teachers need to implement VPD.
Without adequate resources, many innovations will be dead in the water.
For example, trying to implement team learning without providing time
for it will almost certainly not succeed.
 To implement VPD, a few relatively inexpensive items must be
available. First, and most basically, teachers need cameras to record their
class. During our interviews, we found that iPads were most commonly
used for video recording. Regardless of what device is used, the most
important thing is having cameras that are easy to use. (In Chapter 2, I
present criteria for selecting cameras.)
One of the main barriers to implementing VPD is sharing video.
Fortunately, many sites are surfacing (see the list on page 35 in Chapter
2) that make it easy to share confidential video. When people use a
video-sharing site, they can record a class and then share it within the
hour with their collaborating teacher.
Further, VLTs won’t work unless the teams have time to meet. I
remember once sitting in a team meeting during which the principal
wanted teachers to collaborate in professional learning communities, so
she asked teachers to add extra team meetings to their already busy day.
Teachers decided to meet at 6:45 in the morning, but many were not at
their best so early in the day. To them, rather than being a way of
learning leading to productive collaboration, the meetings felt like a
punishment.
Perhaps the most important resource principals ought to fight for is a
full-time instructional coach in their school. Our research at the Kansas
Coaching Project suggests that implementation of practices rarely
happens without intensive professional support from a coach.
But hiring coaches is not enough. Coaches need professional
development so that they can make a real difference by using video to set
measurable goals with teachers, choosing teaching strategies, explaining
and modeling those strategies, using video to monitor progress, and,
ultimately, achieving the goals.

4. DEVELOP DEEP KNOWLEDGE

An often overlooked but critically important part of any instructional
improvement process is principals’ knowledge. If they are to lead any
kind of professional development, principals need certain kinds of
essential knowledge. For VPD, principals need to experience watching
themselves on video and understand how vulnerable and how important
it can be to watch yourself do work that is connected to your identity.
But there is much more that principals need to know.
 First, if a school is conducting professional learning, it always
involves some kind of teaching practice. Whether a school adopts
Marzano’s Art and Science of Teaching (2007), Saphier’s The Skillful
Teacher (2008), Randy Sprick’s CHAMPS (2009), Wiggins and
McTighe’s Understanding by Design (2005), my High-Impact
Instruction (2013), or any other approach or combination of approaches,
naturally, the principal needs to have a deep understanding of those
practices.
At the most basic level, principals need to know what practices have
been adopted. To that end, I suggest schools create a one-page document
that lists the practices being promoted. If there are too many practices to
be listed on a single page, chances are there are too many practices for
anyone to know in detail. As Michael Fullan so wisely put it in Motion
Leadership (2010), “the more you know, the briefer you get” (p. 25).
Of course, simply knowing what practices are being promoted is not
deep knowledge. Principals also need to fully understand what the
practices are and how they are to be implemented. One way to
accomplish that is through the use of checklists. Checklists take tacit
knowledge and make it explicit, providing a document that can be used
to confirm shared understanding.
Each item on the one-page list of practices may require two to four
checklists. For example, teachers who are using learning maps might
need separate checklists for describing a quality map, for the first day of
the unit, for daily use, and for end-of-unit review. A principal who is
promoting learning maps as one item on a list of practices should be able
to describe clearly each item on each of the checklists. That is deep
knowledge.
Additionally, principals who are conducting video-enhanced teacher
evaluations need to fully understand each item on the evaluation form.
All administrators in a system should be able to apply the evaluation
criteria with a high degree of reliability. Few things are more frustrating
for teachers than when administrators give them conflicting perspectives
on walkthroughs or evaluations.
Finally, principals should understand how professional development
procedures take place. For example, if their school is employing
instructional coaching, principals should understand the components of
coaching as they are described in Chapter 2 of this book or in some other
coaching model. Similarly, if their school is implementing teams,
principals should understand how learning teams (as described in
Chapter 5) or professional learning communities are best organized.
Finally, if their school is employing a school improvement process, and
almost every school is, principals need to understand how that process
can lead teachers to understand, agree with, and commit to a plan.

5. EMPLOY PARTNERSHIP LEADERSHIP

Ultimately, principals’ support for implementation of VPD hinges on
their ability to lead. Although leadership is a much talked-about but often
little-understood concept, certain tactics can help principals create the
conditions necessary for VPD to thrive and succeed.

Relationship Building. According to emotional intelligence expert

Daniel Goleman and colleagues (2002), “roughly 50 to 70 percent of
how employees perceive their organization’s climate can be traced to the
actions of one person: the leader” (p. 18). In other chapters in this book
(especially Chapter 5), I have written about communication skills that
leaders can employ to increase their emotional intelligence. Effective
communicators find common ground with others (Knight, 2011), build
emotional connections (Gottman, 2002), redirect conversations away
from unhealthy interactions such as gossip, control emotions, and truly
listen (Scott, 2002).
Perhaps the most important relationship-building strategy or approach
is for leaders to have faith in their teachers. “Faith” in other people, Paul
Freire (1970) wrote, “is an a priori requirement for dialogue; the
‘dialogical [person]’ believes in other [people] even before [meeting]
them face to face” (p. 90). Just as an excellent teacher sees potential in
his students, an excellent leader expects excellence in her staff.
According to Henry Cloud (2009), “connection happens when one
person has a true emotional investment in the other, and the other person
experiences that and it is returned. To do that requires that the character
gets out of oneself long enough to know, experience, and value the
other” (p. 57).

Integrity. “Leadership,” according to General Norman Schwartzkopf, “is

a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be
without one, be without strategy.” A leader who has vision, empathy, and
knowledge but lacks integrity is a leader who may struggle to succeed.
Integrity involves several attributes, including honesty, reliability, and
respect for others.
In Respect: An Exploration (2000), Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot notes
that “respect is commonly seen as deference to status and hierarchy; as
driven by duty, honor, and a desire to avoid punishment, shame or
embarrassment” (p. 9). At the same time, however, she presents portraits
of leaders who are “the powerful persons in . . . relationships . . . those
usually seen on the receiving end of respect,” . . . leaders who “each
believe that it is impossible to do the work that they do without offering
respect, creating a relationship with respect at the center” (p. 10).
There are no simple strategies for what Lawrence-Lightfoot calls
“creating relationships with respect at the center,” but leaders who fail to
show respect for others will struggle to succeed. At its heart, authentic
respect may be described as never failing to see people as complete
human beings. Not as objects to be moved around, but as people whose
voices matter and who should be heard. Robert Sutton (2010) has
written, “I’ve never met a boss who wants to leave people feeling
demeaned, disrespected, and de-energized. Yet many bosses are buffeted
by forces that bring out insensitivity and nastiness” (p. 220). Effective
leaders always treat others with humanity and respect.

Balance. Despite our best efforts to do otherwise, our work life becomes
a part of our home, and our home life, in turn, affects our work. Many
have spoken persuasively about keeping the two worlds separate, but in
my experience, that’s much easier said than done. If we are worried
about a family member’s health, for example, it is difficult not to be
affected by that worry on the job. And if things are highly stressful at
work, it is difficult not to bring some of it home. The opposite, of course,
is also true. When we experience joyful events at home or at work (say, a
newborn baby or a student success story), whether consciously or not,
those experiences can lift up everyone around us.
Being a principal can dramatically interfere with our ability to be
fathers, mothers, and significant others to our partners in life. To change
the future one day at a time, one child at a time, requires tremendous
energy and commitment. If we are not careful, we may find ourselves
spending too much time at work. Like other potentially addictive
substances, such as alcohol, work held in moderation is fine, but when
work becomes our only reality, it’s time to change.
 Our lives outside of school are truly just as important as our lives
inside schools. We all, teachers, principals, researchers, need to be
vigilant in making sure that a blind focus on one life doesn’t end the
other. Our students need committed, passionate educators. But our
families need us, too. We need to keep them at the heart of our lives. In
truth, chances are we never will achieve our professional goals if we try
to do them on our own anyway.

Turning Ideas Into Action

STUDENTS

The very people who have all the experience receiving

teaching—students—are seldom asked about what kind of
instruction and learning help them. Students will never have
the final say on defining good teaching, but asking students for
their opinion on what kind of instruction and learning
experiences help them learn can be very informative.
One way to do this is to video-record students talking about
their learning or circulate surveys for students to complete.
Then staff and administrators can get together to discuss
evaluation tools.

TEACHERS

Evaluation tools won’t have much impact unless teachers

understand them and agree that they are appropriate and
meaningful. For that reason, teachers should have sufficient
professional development to completely understand evaluation
frameworks. Additionally, teachers should have the
opportunity to talk about aspects of an evaluation framework
that they don’t understand or that they think is misguided.
Evaluation should be seen as a tool for growth, not a form of
top-down pressure. Involving teachers in discussing and even
co-creating an evaluation form can increase the likelihood that
they will see evaluation frameworks as tools for growth and
development rather than tools for compliance and control.
COACHES

We suggest that to protect the coaching relationship, coaches

do not perform evaluations. In part, this is because many
coaches are not certified supervisors and, therefore, lack
sufficient training to conduct evaluations or hold follow-up
debriefs about evaluations. More important, however, it is
because there is a strong possibility that their evaluative role
will damage their coaching relationship. Coaching is a peer-to-
peer conversation, one teacher talking to another. When we are
evaluated by somebody, that person assumes a supervisory role
and thereby changes the peer-to-peer nature of the relationship.
And the reality is that many people don’t speak with their
supervisors as openly as they do with their peers, primarily
since they don’t want their supervisors to give them a poor
evaluation.
Nevertheless, coaches do have an essential role in video-
enhanced teacher evaluation. Once a teacher has completed his
conversation with his principal and set a goal, the coach can
partner with the collaborating teacher to assist him in trying to
meet goals. Indeed, goal setting that doesn’t include follow-up
such as coaching seldom leads to real, meaningful change that
improves learning for students.

PRINCIPALS

The most important thing principals can do to promote

learning is to use video for their own professional growth and
then communicate to their staff what they are learning from
doing it. Additionally, when principals use video as a part of
teacher evaluation, they must have a complete and correct
understanding of the evaluation framework.

SYSTEM LEADERS AND POLICY MAKERS

First, leaders must select an evaluation framework that works

for their system. One way to ensure that the right assessment
tool is selected is to involve teachers in choosing a method of
evaluation that they see as most useful. Once a framework is
 selected, leaders must ensure that everyone who uses it,
administrators and teachers, has a complete and correct
understanding of how the assessment tool is used. Using an
assessment tool incorrectly, as happens all too often, is worse
than no assessment at all, as it damages trust and decreases
morale.
Second, leaders and policy makers must ensure that principals
receive the professional development they need to develop the
deep knowledge necessary to lead professional development.
Thus, they need to attend workshops, receive coaching, and
practice in classrooms to ensure that they understand the
practices and evaluation system in place.
Perhaps the most important thing leaders can do to support
principals is to free up time for them to do the work that most
principals want to do: be instructional leaders. To that end,
system leaders need to ensure that principals are not forced
into activities that have no impact on student learning, such as
conducting evaluations that have no impact on teacher practice
and learning, and they need to think carefully about what
meetings principals are required to attend. For example,
elementary principals shouldn’t be required to attend meetings
that apply only to secondary principals and vice versa. Also, if
a message can be handled by e-mail rather than in a face-to-
face meeting, that’s usually a better option because it saves
time. Generally, every effort should be made to provide
principals with more time to focus on actions that promote
student learning.

TO SUM UP

Principals play an essential part in ensuring that video is introduced into

schools successfully. To foster widespread productive use of video,
principals play two essential roles: (a) making video an optional part of
teacher evaluation and (b) creating settings in which teachers, coaches,
and teams can successfully implement VPD.
To make video an optional part of teacher evaluation, principals can
 • Meet with teachers to explain the observation form
• Observe and video-record a lesson
• Watch the video and complete the evaluation
• Prompt the collaborating teacher to watch the video and complete
the evaluation
• Meet with the teacher to discuss what they both found using the
evaluation form to analyze the video
• Set goals for instructional improvement, perhaps by employing the
PEERS approach to goal setting

To create a setting in which educators can successfully implement

VPD, principals can

• Walk the talk by using video to promote their own professional

growth
• Shape culture by creating artifacts that reflect a culture of safety
and learning, involving everyone in developing norms that
promote safety and learning, and intervening when necessary to
ensure that what is said about a culture is reflected in how people
act
• Fight for resources so that teachers get the technology,
collaboration time, and support, especially coaching, necessary to
enable them to implement VPD
• Build relationships
• Avoid dehumanizing practices

GOING DEEPER
There are many approaches to teacher evaluation and assessment. At the
time of this writing, the two most popular are Charlotte Danielson’s
Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching (2007) and
Robert Marzano’s Evaluation Model (www.marzanoevaluation.com).
Many systems are also using the 20-minute high-impact survey from my
High-Impact Instruction (2013).
Edgar Schein’s Organizational Culture and Leadership (2010) is the
seminal work on assessment, and if you are interested in understanding
and leading culture, you will benefit greatly from this book.
 Henry Cloud’s Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality
(2009) provides strategies that can help anyone approach work and life
with integrity. Robert Sutton’s Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best
and Learn From the Worst (2010) is maybe the best leadership book I’ve
read about the ways power corrupts and how leaders can fight to not let it
happen.
Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot’s Respect (2000) portrays five leaders—a
nurse-midwife, a pediatrician, a teacher, an artist, and a professor—who
all make respect a central part of their practice. Finally, Stewart D.
Friedman’s Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life
(2008) explains why we should strive for balance in our lives and how
we can make it a reality rather than just a dream.

1A copy of the 20-minute high-impact survey may be downloaded from the High-Impact
Instruction companion website: http://www.corwin.com/highimpactinstruction/chapters/20-
Minute_High-Impact_Survey.pdf
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 INDEX
Accountability, 8–9
Adams, J., 30–31
After-Action Review, 94, 95 (figure), 105, 107
Allen, D., 135
Amabile, T., 25–26, 34
Anderson, C., 29, 30, 58 (box)
Archer, A. L., 73
Art and Science of Teaching, The,4, 52, 145
Artifacts, 141–142
Authentically engaged students, 82–83
Autonomy, 9–12

Balance, 148
Barkley, S., 27, 60
Basic assumptions, 143
Bate, W. J., 64
Behavior, student, 85
Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate, 35
Bias, confirmation, 7–8, 18
Big idea questions, 75
Blended Coaching: Skills and Strategies to Support Principal
Development, 60
Block, P., 10
Bloom, B. S., 60, 75, 81
Bohm, D., 115
Boles, K., 107, 110
Bossidy, L., 47
Boundaries, establishment of, 26
Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No—To Take Control of
Your Life, 35
Boyatzis, R., 147
Brown, S., 35
Bryk, A. A., 24, 34
Bulgren, J., 96
Burkin, J. M., 60
Busyness of teaching, 6

Cameras
as example of disruptive innovation, 2–3
types of, 28–29
where to point, 29, 65
who should operate, 30
See also Video
Casap, J., 4
Castagna, C. L., 60
CHAMPS: A Proactive and Positive Approach to Classroom
Management, 88, 146
Charan, R., 47
Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, The, 61
Chesterton, G. K., 5
Choice
autonomy and, 9–10
participation as, 24–25
Christensen, C., 18
City, E. A., 107
Clark, F., 73
Clark, J., 91, 94, 96, 103, 107, 112
on continuous improvement, 116–117
Closed questions, 75
Cloud, H., 35, 147, 152
Coaching: Approaches and Perspectives, 60
Cognitive Coaching: A Foundation for Renaissance Schools, 60
Communication strategies, effective, 112–117
Community building, 52
Competition, 102–103
Concept Mastery Routine, The, 96
Confirmation bias, 7–8, 18
Consistent corrections, 71, 72 (figure), 73
Content-Focused Coaching: Transforming Mathematics Lessons, 60
Content planning, 52
Continuous improvement, 116–117
Coons, S., 114
Correct answers, number of, 81
Corrections, consistent, 71, 72 (figure), 73
Costa, A., 60
Co-teaching, 55
Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life,
The, 126
Culture
safe, 102
as set of basic assumptions, 143
shaping, 141–144
Cultures Built to Last: Systemic PLCs at Work, 124, 125

Danielson, C., 130, 133, 151

Data-Driven Dialogue: A Facilitator’s Guide to Collaborative
Inquiry, 125
Davenport, T., 10
Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work, 7, 18
Deep knowledge for VPD, 145–146
Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face—and
What to Do About It, 18
Deshler, D. D., 73, 96
Dialogical stance, 115
Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, 115
DiClemente, C., 5
Differentiated Coaching: A Framework for Helping Teachers Change,
60
Differentiated Literacy Coaching: Scaffolding for Student and Teacher
Success, 60
Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters, 126
Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way
the World Learns, 18
Disruptive technology, micro cameras as, 2–4
Distraction, video as, 31
District video policies, 31–32
Doing it all, 82
Doran, G. T., 119
Downer, D., 103
Dropbox, 134
Duffy, G. G., 73
DuFour, R., 104, 124, 125
Dunekack, D., 102
Dweck, C., 69, 88

Eacker, R., 104

Edmondson, A., 24, 34, 99
Eggen, P. D., 6
Elford, M., 102
Ellis, E., 73
Elmore, R. F., 107
Emotionally compelling goals, 121–122
Empathic Civilization, The, 116
Empathy, 116
Engagement, 82–83, 84 (figure)
Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching, 133,
151
Enroll component of instructional coaching, 46–47
Experimental stance, 113–114
Explain and mediate component of instructional coaching, 52–54
Explore component of instructional coaching, 56–58

Fiarman, S. E., 107

Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life, One
Conversation at a Time, 112
Fighting for resources, 144–145
First watch of video, 66
Fisher, R., 35
Fixed vs. growth mindset, 69–71, 70 (figure)
Flip camera, 28, 65
Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being, 88
Formative assessment, 52
Fredrickson, B., 88
Freire, P., 10, 147
Friedman, S. D., 152
Fritz, R., 13
Fullan, M., 24, 101, 102, 113, 124, 125, 146

Gallagher, W., 138–139

Gallwey, T., 7–8, 9
Gardner, D. P., 3
Garmston, R., 60
Gawande, A., 37, 61
Getting Together: Building Relationships as We Negotiate, 35
Goals
authentic engagement, 83
behavior, 85
easy, 119–121
first watch, 66
growth vs. fixed mindset, 71
impact, 120 (figure)
measurable, 48–52
number of correct answers, 81
open, opinion questions, 76
opportunities to respond, 73
powerful, 119
ratio of interaction, 69
reachable, 122
respectful interaction, 85
student focused, 123
student response, 80
teacher vs. student talk, 80
thoughtful responses, 82
transition time, 76
video learning team, 117–123
Goleman, D., 147
Google Glass, 4
GoPro, 28, 65
Gottman, J., 147
Gower, R., 4, 52
Greenleaf, R., 101
Grenny, J., 46, 61, 121
Growth vs. fixed mindset, 69–71, 70 (figure)

Habituation, 6–7
Haley-Speca, M. A., 4, 52
Halvorson, H. G., 126
Harnisch, C., 129–132
Harris, M., 22, 91, 92–94, 112
Harrison, C., 60
Harvard Negotiation Project, 35
Hattie, H., 73
Heath, C., 7, 18, 61, 121–122, 126
Heath, D., 7, 18, 61, 121–122, 126
Heen, S., 100, 126
Heifetz, R. A., 40, 41
Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help, 11
Herman, K., 67, 81, 88
Hickey, M., 37–39, 41, 46–47
Hidden Wholeness, A, 113, 114
High-functioning teams, 117, 119
High-Impact Instruction: A Framework for Great Teaching, 4, 14, 16,
18, 34, 45, 67, 92, 131, 133, 146, 152
on authentic engagement, 83
on behavior, 85
learning maps, 52
on number of correct answers, 81
on opportunities to respond, 73
on respectful interactions, 85
teaching strategies, 52
on time on task, 83
on type, kind, and level of questions, 75
Hollingsworth, J., 73
Horn, M. B., 18
Horton, C., 4 (box), 22–23, 41–42, 56
Hughes, C., 73

Identify component of instructional coaching, 47–52

iMovie, 96
Impact goals, 120 (figure)
Implementation of video-enhanced professional development, 140–
148
Importance of video, 4–8
Improvement, continuous, 116–117
Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, Second Edition, 54,
61, 121
Inner Game of Tennis, The, 7
Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the
Way You Do Business, 18
Intrinsic motivation, 25–26
Instructional coaching, 21–22
components of, 45–58
enroll component of, 46–47
 explain and mediate component of, 52–54
explore component of, 56–58
identify component of, 47–52
improvement in, 92–94
model component of, 54–55
observe component of, 55–56
top-down model, 42–44
video-enhanced instructional, 40–41
video facilitating partnership, 42–44
video increasing trust during, 41–42
walking the talk and, 27
Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving
Instruction, 12, 46, 60
Instructional Rounds in Education, 107
Instructional vs. noninstructional time, 76, 78 (figure)
Integrity, 147–148
Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality, 152
Interactions
opportunities to respond, 73–74, 80
ratio, 67–69
respectful, 85
teacher vs. student talk and, 76, 79 (figure), 80
type, kind, and level of questions, 75–76, 77 (figure), 81
Intrinsic motivation and safety, focus on, 25–26
Introduction to Teaching: Becoming a Professional, 6
iPad, 4, 28, 65, 97, 134
iPhone, 4, 28, 65
Isaacs, W., 115

James, W., 63
Johnson, C. W., 18
Jones, C., 121–122
Judgmentalism, 113

Kansas Coaching Project, 1, 21, 39, 102, 145

Kauchak, D. P., 6
Keats, J., 64–65
Kegan, R., 43
Kennedy, J. F., 140
Killion, J., 10, 11, 60
Kise, J., 60
Knight, J., 1–2, 4, 8, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18, 34, 45, 60, 67, 92, 135, 146,
147
on authentic engagement, 83
on behavior, 85
on enroll component of instructional coaching, 46
on learning maps, 52
on listening skills, 116
on making participation a choice, 24
on number of correct answers, 81
on opportunities to respond, 73
on respectful interactions, 85
teaching strategies, 52
on time on task, 83
on top-down feedback, 43
on type, kind, and level of questions, 75, 81
Knowledge questions, 75
Knowledge workers, 10
Kramer, S., 26, 34

Lahey, L., 43
Langton, S., 30 (box)
Larsen, Y. W., 3
Lawrence-Lightfoot, S., 147–148, 152
Leadership
partnership, 147–148
team, 101–103
Learning maps, 52–53
Learning process development for VLTs, 105, 107–112
Lemov, D., 4, 52
Lenz, B. K., 73
Lesson watching and evaluation, 134–135
Level of questions, 75
Leyden, S., 22, 24 (box), 93
Linksy, M., 40, 41
Listening skills, 115–116
Liu, E., 53
Lopez, S., 122
Love, N., 60
MacDonald, E., 117, 125
MacMillan, J., 22, 93
Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and
Others, 122
Maps, learning, 52–53
Marzano, R., 4, 52, 145, 151
Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model, 133, 151–152
Maxfield, D., 46, 61, 121
McKee, A., 147
McLachlan, G., 30
McMillan, R., 46, 61, 121
McTighe, J., 146
Measurable goals, 48–52
Micro cameras. See Cameras
Microteaching, 3
Mindset, growth vs. fixed, 69–71, 70 (figure)
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, 69, 88
Misconceptions about lessons, 138
Model component of instructional coaching, 54–55
Moir, E., 60
Molzcan, L., 21–22, 31, 41, 93
Moran, M. C., 60
Motion Leadership, 146
Motivational Interviewing for Effective Classroom Management: The
Classroom Check-Up, 88

National Board Certification, 3

Nation at Risk, A, 3
Nguyen, K., 5, 7 (box), 17
9 Things Successful People Do Differently, 126
Noninstructional vs. instructional time, 76, 78 (figure)
Norcross, J., 5

Observations
framework, 133–134
reliability of, 137
Observe component of instructional coaching, 55–56
Off task students, 82
On Dialogue, 115
Open questions, 75
Opinion questions, 75
Opportunities to respond, 73–74, 80
Organizational Culture and Leadership, 141, 152

Palmer, P., 26, 44, 113, 114, 126

Participation as a choice, 24–25
Partnership coaching, 42–44
Partnership leadership, 147–148
Path of Least Resistance, The, 13
Patterson, K., 46, 54, 61, 121
Patton, B., 100, 126
PEERS, 119, 135
Pelle, A., 130–131
Policies, district, 31–32
Popham, W. J., 132
Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will
Change Your Life, 88
Power of Teacher Rounds, The, 107
Practical Literacy Coaching: A Collection of Tools to Support Your
Work, 60
Prochaska, J., 5
Professional learning, accountability and autonomy in, 8–16
Professional learning communities (PLCs), 124, 125
Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for
Enhancing Student Achievement, 125
Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and
Creativity at Work, The, 34
Psychological safety, 25–26, 99–101
learning process development and, 105, 107–112
selection of team members and, 103–104
team leadership and, 101–103
team values and, 104–105, 106 (figure)

Quality Teaching in a Culture of Coaching, 60

Questions, type, kind, and level of, 75–76, 77 (figure), 81

Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, 138

Ratio of interaction, 67–69
Reachable goals, 122
Reality, accurate view of, 47–48
Reinforcement of students, 67–69
Reinke, W., 67, 81, 88
Relationship building, 147
Reliability of observations, 137
Resources, fighting for, 144–145
Respect: An Exploration, 147, 152
Respectful interactions, 85
Responses, student, 80–82
Rhodes, R., 97, 99
Rifkin, J., 116
Right/wrong questions, 75
Roehler, L. R., 73
Rogers, C., 116
Rounds, instructional, 107–108, 111 (figure)
Ruggles, M., 91

Safety, psychological, 25–26, 99–101

learning process development and, 105, 107–112
selection of team members and, 103–104
team leadership and, 101–103
team values and, 104–105, 106 (figure)
Sanders, B., 2, 6
Saphier, J., 4, 52, 145
Schein, E., 11–12, 141–143, 152
Schlechty, P., 82
Schneider, B. L., 24, 34
Schön, D., 10–11
Schumaker, J. B., 73, 96
Schwartzkopf, N., 147
Scott, S., 112, 147
Second watch, 66–67
Selection of team members, 103–104
Self-assessment, VLT, 118 (figure)
Seligman, M., 88
Senge, P., 13
Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power
and Greatness, 101
Servant leadership orientation, 101–102
Shapiro, D., 35
Shrout Fernandes, K., 42, 52 (box)
Six Secrets of Change, The, 101, 113
Skillful Teacher, The, 4, 52, 145–146
Skillful Team Leader: A Resource for Overcoming Hurdles to
Professional Learning for Student Achievement, The, 117, 125
Skill questions, 75
SMART goals, 119, 122–123
Smartphones, 28
Sommers, B., 135, 137, 138 (box), 139–140
Sprick, R., 67, 81, 85, 88, 146
Status, 11–12
Staub, F., 60
Stone, D., 100, 126
Strahan, T., 1, 5 (box), 44 (box)
Strategically compliant students, 82
Students
behavior, 85
engagement, 82–83, 84 (figure)
focused goals, 123
focus on, 114
off task, 82
opportunities to respond, 73–74, 80
responses, 80–82
strategically compliant, 82
vs. teacher talk, 76, 79 (figure), 80
Sutton, R., 148
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, 61, 121, 126
Switzler, A., 46, 121
SWOT learning analysis, 107, 108 (figure), 109 (figure)

Taking the Lead: New Roles for Teachers and School-Based Coaches,
60
Talks to Teachers, 63
Teacher evaluation. See Video-enhanced teacher evaluation
Teacher vs. student talk, 76, 79 (figure), 80
Teaching Channel, 3, 29, 31, 54, 110
Teach Like a Champion, 4, 52
Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the
Knowledge Economy, 34, 99
Team leadership for VLTs, 101–103
Tedlow, R., 18
Teitel, L., 107
Thinking, 10–11
Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results
From Knowledge Workers, 10
Thomas, S., 21, 22, 23, 63
Thoughtful responses, number of, 81–82
Time on task, 83
Todnem, G. R., 10, 11
Top-down coaching, 42–44
Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life, 152
Touchstones Curriculum, 94
Townsend, J., 35
Transition time, 76, 78 (figure)
Trimble, A., 37, 44
Troen, V., 107, 110
Trust, establishment of, 23–24
Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement, 34
Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the
Future, 126

Understanding by Design, 146

Unmistakable Impact: A Partnership Approach to Dramatically
Improving Instruction, 8, 9, 10, 12, 18, 43, 60, 116, 135
Using Data to Improve Learning for All: A Collaborative Inquiry
Approach, 60

Values, team, 104–105, 106 (figure)

Video, 1–2
busyness of teaching and, 6
components of instructional coaching and, 45–58
as disruptive innovation, 2–3
district policies on, 31–32
facilitating partnership coaching, 42–44
first watch of, 66
how much to record, 30–31
importance of, 4–8
increasing trust, 41–42
kept from being a distraction, 31
second watch, 66–67
watching oneself on, 55, 67–80
 See also Cameras
Video-enhanced instructional coaching, 40–41
Video-enhanced professional development (VPD)
choice to participate in, 24–25
coaching teachers in using, 21–22
developing deep knowledge for, 145–146
employing partnership leadership for, 147–148
establishing boundaries in, 26
establishing trust in, 23–24
fighting for resources and, 144–145
focus on intrinsic motivation and safety, 25–26
fostering implementation of, 140–148
getting started with, 23
going slow with, 27–28
guidelines for success, 23–28
instructional coaches and administrators walking the talk in, 27
principals walking the talk and, 140–141
setting up, 28–32
shaping culture, 141–144
Video-enhanced teacher evaluation, 132–136
allowing principals to focus on the class, 138–139
capturing more than evaluation forms can, 139–140
determining the next action in, 135
determining who participates in, 132–133
ensuring observations are reliable for, 137
fostering implementation, 140–148
making conversations more collaborative, reflective, and real, 140
meeting to discuss the observation framework in, 133–134
meeting to discuss the video, 135
preventing teacher misconceptions about a lesson, 138
reasons for success of, 137–140
recording the class for, 134
watching and evaluating the lesson in, 134–135
Video learning teams (VLTs), 91–92
after-action reviews, 94, 95 (figure), 105, 107
coaches improving their coaching using, 92–94
developing learning process for, 105, 107–112
effective communication strategies for, 112–117
establishing team leadership for, 101–103
goals, 117–123
 selecting team members carefully for, 103–104
self-assessment, 118 (figure)
setting up, 99–123
SWOT learning analysis and, 107, 108 (figure), 109 (figure)
teachers improving their practice using, 97, 99
teachers learning new practices using, 94, 96
team values, 104–105, 106 (figure)
Visits to other classrooms, 55

Walk the talk, 140–141

Warren, B., 60
Watching oneself on video
consistent corrections and, 71, 72 (figure), 73
growth vs. fixed mindset and, 69–71, 70 (figure)
instructional vs. noninstructional time and, 76, 78 (figure)
interactions and, 73–76
reinforcing students, 67–69
teacher vs. student talk and, 76, 79 (figure), 80
type, kind, and level of questions and, 75–76, 77 (figure)
Watching one’s students on video
behavior and, 85
engagement and, 82–83, 84 (figure)
responses and, 80–82
Weinberger, C., 97
Wellman, B., 107, 125
West, L., 60
Wheatley, M., 91, 126
Wiggins, G., 146

Ybarra, S., 73
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