This project works with students to trial the use of video collaboration software for enabling reflective practice. This software provides an opportunity to record behaviour and interactions in any practice-based setting. It is often used to capture classroom-based teaching and learning.  Practitioners can then use the video collaboration tools to reflect on their own teaching, give peer feedback or gain feedback from a mentor or tutor.  The viability of the software is explored within Initial Teacher Training (ITT) as students co-create video content with postgraduate education students.  We then look at how it  might inform practice based reflection within other university courses.

This is an innovative project in that it uses video software to provide an opportunity to build critical reflection skills in the context of authentic teaching and learning scenarios.  It also addresses various issues connected with placement-based observation, such as limited placement opportunities, remote mentoring, and training new mentors. Increasingly in ITT we are seeing students electing to complete their work placements near to their parental home. In addition, the consequence of COVID-safe practices means that allowing assessing tutors into school can be problematic. There is strong evidence from Iris Connect’s previous research that video collaboration software can have a powerful impact on the quality of reflection and feedback, and lead to improved practice. A project output is a set of resources that exemplify high quality modelling and feedback on teaching practice using use local partners that represent the issues faced by our local young people.  The use of undergraduate and postgraduate students to co-create examples of reflective practice and analyse the interactions that stem from sharing practice demonstrates a commitment to the university’s strategic plan and research ethic.

IRIS Connect is a collaborative teacher development tool that allows users to tag videos with customised observations and that automatically collects data on teaching behaviours. It is often used in lesson observations, for sharing strategies and for supporting teacher development. It also has applications to other practice based contexts such as health. This project sees postgraduate students working with undergraduate students to create a set of materials that can be used in an active blendd learning (ABL) context to support ITT students, mentors and partner school staff to develop their teaching and mentoring skills, yielding a set of resources and strategies that embrace features of ABL such as personalised learning, sense-making, knowledge construction, developing critical thinking skills and student centredness. The videos are created along common pedagogic themes or UK government priorities, such as questioning, dialogic talk, behaviour management, or working with children with additional needs. Both the novice and the expert teachers will annotate the videos and will then be filmed engaging in reflective professional dialogue. The result will be a set of student created, real life scenarios that can scaffold discussion and dialogue in teaching activities, and facilitate metacognition and actualisation of learning and teaching theory in practice.

A professionally designed project blog which gathers the outputs and deliverables and makes them publicly accessible, including: A bank of student-created themed video resources and reflective dialogues that can be used as a model for creating similar ABL opportunities. A training package for university lecturers to embed similar examples of ABL in their courses An evaluation of the professional dialogue that accompanies the videos A Case study research on the impact of video collaboration software in ITT

Bennett, R. (2010) The Role of Technology in the Mentoring and Coaching of Teachers. IrisConnect [online]. Available from: https://www.irisconnect.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3//2014/08/the-role-of-technology-in-mentoring-and-coachingfinal-1-33.pdf [Accessed 17th December 2020]. Lofthouse, R. and Birmingham, P. (2010) The Camera in the Classroom: Video Recording as a Tool for Professional Development of Student Teachers. Teacher Education Advancement Network Journal [online]. 1(2), pp.1-18. Available from: http://ojs.cumbria.ac.uk/index.php/TEAN/article/view/59 [Accessed 18th December 2020]. Burns, E. and Koskinen, M. (2020) Introduction. In: Burns, E. and Koskinen (eds) Video-supported Collaborative Learning: Teacher’s Manual. JAMK University of Applied Sciences: Jyväskylä, Finland, pp.16-17. Cattaneo, A. (2020) Pedagogical Model for Video-supported Collaborative Learning. In: Burns, E. and Koskinen (eds) Video-supported Collaborative Learning: Teacher’s Manual. JAMK University of Applied Sciences: Jyväskylä, Finland, pp.21-24. Boldrini, E. (2020) Video Annotations to Support Feedback on Teaching Practice and Teachers’ Reflective Capacity. In: Burns, E. and Koskinen (eds) Video-supported Collaborative Learning: Teacher’s Manual. JAMK University of Applied Sciences: Jyväskylä, Finland, pp.35-40. Davis, P., Perry, T. and Kirkman, J. (2017) IRIS Connect: Developing Classroom Dialogue and Formative Feedback Through Collective Video Reflection: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary. Education Endowment Foundation [online]. Available from: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Projects/Evaluation_Reports/EEF_Project_Report_IRIS.pdf [Accessed 22nd December 2020].