Session 2 of our free PD series to support instructional coaches and school leaders.

Here’s the transcript:

– Okay. I have about 1:30 here Pacific time. I’m gonna give us maybe about one more minute to let some final people join us here. So if you have a last thing you need to do, go ahead and do that now. I’ll start in about one minute here. But yeah, we really appreciate you guys being here and we’ll start soon. Okay. So I’m gonna go ahead and get started. Thanks again for everyone for joining us here, whether you came last week or this is your first week on the session, we really appreciate you guys being here, appreciate your guys time. My name’s Rob. We’re on week two of our four week webinar series here called Kitchen Table Coaching. And the idea behind it is that we’re all kinda at home here working together, some of you guys may be at your kitchen table. I’m not here, I’m in a different room. But some of you guys may be. That’s the idea behind the webinar here. So again, the webinar series is four weeks. We’re on the second session here, which is all about facilitating distance teacher collaboration. So the idea is how can teachers collaborate during this time? And we have two more sessions after this, so we hope you guys do attend those as well. Before we get started here, I wanna talk a little bit about our hashtag here, #PLtogether. So if you guys are enjoying the content or wanna share it with a colleague or a friend, feel free to use this hashtag to share, #PLtogether. We’re also creating a website currently, pltogether.org. We’re going to be posting replays of these webinars, other such content that I think is really relevant. If you enjoy the content we’re producing here, I think you’ll really like this website. So we’ll give you more information as that comes out. Quickly here to kinda give an agenda before we get started, we’ll start off giving introductions. Some of you guys probably know who we are, but we’ll reintroduce ourselves. Then we’ll go into chatting about how you can go from a PLC, a Professional Learning Community, to a VLC, which is what we call a Video Learning Community. We’ll talk about the differences in dialogue between the two, PLCs and VLCs. And then we’ll talk about a facet of a Video Learning Community, a video club, and how to implement one of those. Okay. So to start here, I’ll reintroduce myself. My name’s Rob. A little bit about my background here, I am a former middle school teacher before my time here at Edthena. At Edthena I am part of the Partner Success Team, so essentially what that means is I’m a part of the team that organizes and makes sure our partners are using Edthena successfully.

– Hi, good afternoon. My name’s Heather Purzner. I was also a classroom teacher. And prior to this role, I worked in literacy consulting and coaching, and that’s really where I was able to see firsthand the power of video from both the teacher perspective and the coach perspective. And that’s why I’m really excited to be a member of the Partner Success Team. I do wanna share, if you have anything that you want to share out with the group, please feel free to use the chat. I’ve just put a quick chat in there just to welcome everyone today. Thank you so much for your time. And if you do have any questions for us, please feel free to use the question and answer as well. We definitely are here to answer questions, and we would love for you to share out your ideas as well with everyone here today. So thank you.

– Awesome. Thanks Heather. Okay. So we’ll go ahead and get started here.

– So a little bit about Edthena. Edthena helps teachers to really analyze their instruction, analyze their teaching through video and through online collaboration. I really like this piece here that we’re taking a look at because it illustrates it so well. So you’ll notice there is a teacher. She’s providing instruction, the video essentially, and then underneath you’ll notice there is some comments, or we say, an online collaboration, online conversation. And this is where it can all happen inside of Edthena. So what is a PLC? Rick Dufour discusses how a PLC is essentially a group of educators who come together with an interest in education. To me, my experience with a PLC is when I was a classroom teacher teaching third grade in New York City, the third grade team would meet every Wednesday afternoon. And really, the purpose of our meetings was to analyze our student data, and really take a look at trends across the entire third grade and use those trends to really decide our next steps and our next steps through the type of instruction that we were going to deliver.

– Okay. So what is a video club here? And so back in the early 2000s, Elizabeth Van Es and Miriam Sherin kinda came up with the concept of a video club. And I like to think of it almost like a book club. It’s a place where teachers are going to meet and watch and discuss classroom videos that they’ve made of their own classroom. So the idea is this collaborative discussion is ultimately gonna improve teacher practice. But the core concept of it is each of the teachers in the video club are gonna kinda bring a video of their classroom.

– So here are some example of PLC topics. I shared how with the PLC I was a part of, we were really focusing on analyzing student work. But there is a wide variety of other type of topics. Perhaps you’re focusing on instructional strategies, or maybe you’re looking at student behavior, or maybe you’re focusing on culturally responsive teaching. If you are a part of a PLC, feel free to share in chat, feel free to share kinda what is your schedule, how often do you meet? I shared how I met. It was really once a week on Wednesday afternoons. And feel free to share some of the topics that you covered within your PLC.

– Okay. So back to video club here. When we think about the example topics of a video club, what you hopefully noticed is that a lot of these topics are the same. So the concept of a video club may be a little different than a professional learning community in that video is gonna kinda be the core. But the topics that you could include in your video are similar to that you would have as a mission in terms of a professional learning club. So some of those topics, like Heather mentioned, you could think about instructional strategies that are happening in your video, you could focus it on student work or really look at behavior. But again, you should see that video clubs really can be one and the same as far as the topics. If any of you guys are part of a video club, maybe share in the chat for others just to kinda give that example of maybe these things are happening. We’d love to hear if that’s something that’s happening in your guy’s districts as well.

– So Rick Dufour shares that one of the big ideas of a PLC is really to ensure that student achievement increases. And so an example that I can pull, again, from my classroom and my time in a PLC was really the opportunity to collaborate with the other third grade teachers. And as we were collaborating we were all really focused on this goal. As a team, we really decided that we wanted to adopt a goal that would ensure that 85% of third grade students would grow a year and a half in their reading growth. So the goal that we had was really focused around positively impacting student achievement.

– Okay. Before we go into the big idea of a video club here, Heather, are there any, I saw there were a couple chats, were there any private questions in the Q and A that we need to answer before we kinda move on?

– I just saw a couple of chat, the chat feedback was a lot of other educators were meeting for their PLCs once a week. And it seemed like there were a lot of other common strategies or common areas of focus that we discussed.

– Awesome. Cool. Okay, so we’ll come back here to the idea of a video club and what the big idea and concept behind it is. The primary goal around a video club is to develop what we call a professional vision. And what that means is being able to spot things that are happening inside of your classroom that you may not have been able to see in that live classroom context. And then coming together to collaborate with your peers kinda enables you to see some of these trends and then discuss ways that you can improve your practice, which can impact student achievement. Okay. So bringing everything together here, what Heather and I just discussed, we have the idea of a video club and then we have an idea of a PLC. And when you combine them together what we have is called a Video Learning Community. And what that is, it’s gonna be similar people as far as it’s gonna be a group of teachers, the topics, as we’ve already shown are going to be similar, and the evidence that you’re gonna use is gonna be similar. But really, the concept is we’re using video now. We have a purpose that has been defined, and the end goal is to improve practice with the video, ultimately with the idea of impacting student achievement.

– So you’ll notice I have the “Evidence of Practice” book here. I’m constantly referencing this book as we’re providing support to our partners. There’s so many great strategies and examples here. And inside of the “Evidence of Practice” book that was written by Edthena’s CEO, Adam Geller, there is an entire chapter focused on Video Learning Communities. And inside that chapter there are some examples from students at Northwestern University, and essentially how they used Video Learning Communities. The chapter also goes into detail as to how you could possibly implement a Video Learning Community. But when we’re thinking about implementing a Video Learning Community, what really we want to focus on are three big ideas. And we’re gonna get a chance to kinda go through these big ideas. But the first is essentially the purpose. What is your purpose for implementing a video community? Also, the second would be the dialogue. How does that type of conversation look? And then also, who essentially is the champion leading the initiative? So let’s talk a little bit about find your purpose. So perhaps the purpose of your learning community could be on instructional strategies. Maybe colleagues are coming together to all focus on reading comprehension strategies. And that would be your purpose.

– Okay. So secondly we’re gonna talk about dialogue here. And that’s kind of a warning of what could feel a little different as far as a Professional Learning Community and a Video Learning Community. Heather, is there any other questions that have kinda come in that we need to reference first before we go ahead and talk about this?

– Yes, sounds good. So I just noticed a question that came in to me was about the types, to talk a little bit more about the purpose, the types of the Video Learning Communities. I said the purpose could be on reading strategies, but also essentially it could be across all content areas. Also something that some educators have shared with me is that they are focused on teaching parents very specific skills. So you could essentially do a community focused on different skills to teach with parents at this point.

– Awesome. Cool. Feel free to ask any other questions as this stuff comes up as well. Okay, so the big thing to talk about here as far as dialogue is, as I mentioned, this could feel a little bit different from that PLC that you may be used to, and now this idea of a Video Learning Community. And as Heather kinda mentioned, and what most of you guys are familiar with is the idea of a Professional Learning Community, you’re probably coming together, it could be a designated time within your classroom day, it could be the end of the day. This group of teachers comes together with a common vision. That might not be the case as far as the dialogue that’s gonna happen in a Video Learning Community. It could actually be all online. And because video’s gonna be the center of the learning that’s gonna happen, it could be dialogue that’s happening about a video. And that’s the only way and time that you’re gonna meet. That’s kind of a warning going into it, is that teachers need to be able to know how to interact with video. And the good thing about this is we have five, what we call five focusing techniques of how you need to interact with video to be successful. More information is on our blog about this if you kinda wanna dive into it. There’s also a chapter in our book that details it as well, as Heather mentioned. Our blog here is blog.edthena.com/five. That article really breaks down each of these in detail. But essentially it starts with spotting, then going to breaking down aspects of your classroom, interpreting, comparing parts of your classroom, and then ultimately coming together to discuss. I would probably say to go and really read that article if you wanna know more about all five. I’ll give an example of one, which is break down. So the idea behind break down when you’re analyzing a video after you’ve spotted trends is you really wanna look to the smaller pieces of the practice and how it relates to a whole. So what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna break down all the pedagogical components of each parts of your teaching moves, and realize that this relates to the whole of what’s happening inside of your classroom. The analogy I like to use is if you were going to teach someone to swing a baseball bat, you wouldn’t necessarily just give them a video and say here, copy that. You would have to talk about where their eyes are gonna be looking, what their stance is gonna look like, how they’re gonna follow through. All those different things combined ultimately determines how the bat’s gonna swing. That’s what I think about when I think about breaking down different elements of your classroom.

– Great. Want to just share out, please feel free, I’m just noticing some comments in the chat, please feel free when you do put in a chat, please feel free to do it to all panelists and attendees. And then also, when we’re thinking about who’s pushing the initiative forward, I did want to even just pause here to answer a question about a video length. Essentially, and that’s a great question. I’ve definitely gotten that question from our partners as well. When thinking about the length of the video, we would recommend to really think about what is the content that you want to share. Perhaps it’s a read-aloud and you’re focused on some very specific vocabulary strategies, or maybe some questioning type of strategies. So maybe you’re sharing the entire read-aloud. Or maybe it’s a video of a specific strategy and learning target that you are sharing with your families. So maybe you have a time around that that you want to share with families. So I would say just focus really on the content and let that be the driver for the time. Rob, anything that you wanna add in? About that?

– Yeah. Length of video’s a good question, I think. And it really depends. And that’s something, I think, that you can kinda find when you’re creating the purpose of your Video Learning Community, is think about what the lengths are gonna be. And I think that can sometimes define what your purpose is gonna be. And if there’s a specific skillset that you’re gonna be trying to find in your classroom, setting a targeted length for those videos I think is very helpful.

– Yep, great. Thanks Rob. So we discussed about the purpose. We discussed about the dialogue. And essentially the third big idea that we’re gonna have a chance to talk about today is essentially who’s pushing the initiative forward? Or who is the champion? The champion essentially is going to be the person who’s really setting up the Video Learning Community for everyone. And this could be a teacher, this could be an instructional coach, this could be an administrator. It’s essentially anyone who really wants to take the initiative to set up and help create the Video Learning Community for your organization. So we would love to see, is anyone already starting to think about whether they would be interested in setting this up at their organization, or if they would be interested in learning more about this, feel free to share some of that information in the chat.

– [Rob] Awesome.

– So when you’re thinking about the types of distance teaching for the purpose, or you’re thinking about how to essentially set up your Video Learning Community, we’re thinking about synchronous and asynchronous. During last week’s webinar we went into a lot of detail between the different types of distance teaching that’s happening currently, whether it’s from a synchronous or asynchronous. And we’re noticing a lot of our partners are using both of these types of teaching to start these communities.

– Awesome. Okay here. So the next part of the slideshow, we’re gonna see how I think it’s valuable to see teachers collaborate when it comes to these Video Learning Communities. And what I’m about to show you is some of the dialogue that’s actually in our platform right now from live classroom teaching of teachers kinda have a dialogue and a back and forth inside one of these Video Learning Communities. So we have this first one here, and as you noticed I’ve changed the names. So nobody’s names are out there. And what these comments are, they’re in relation to a video. So these are two teachers who are in a Video Learning Community and are commenting on another teacher’s videos. And what I think is valuable about this one is I look at the comment on the bottom at second 37 in the video. Harriet T mentions good wait time here, along with using an effective strategy to recapturing student attention. What I find valuable in this is that, as you’ve noticed, they’re tagging this comment to a specific framework. I think it’s important sometimes to kinda have teachers come together in these communities as opposed to maybe if there is an administrator or instructional coach. I think you can see that sometimes a group of teachers collaborating together, you can really get positive dialogue and see what’s happening in both each other’s classroom. Okay. This next bit of dialogue, the reason I chose this and the reason I think it’s most valuable, again, I changed the name here. We have George W is coming back again and we have Julie A, who’s actually the uploader of the video. So as you notice here, she said I probably should’ve used more clear directions as far as academic language. And what I find valuable about this is the other teacher commented and said, yeah you’re right, that’s something happening in my classroom too. It’s something that I think I should kinda focus on as well. So what’s valuable about that is the idea around self-reflection amongst teachers. And I think what can happen when you have these Video Learning Communities when a group of teachers are together collaborating is one self-reflection can kinda lead to self-reflection again from another teacher. And I think that’s kind of a valuable lesson that can be learned as far as the dialogue that happens inside of these communities. So the next slide I’m gonna show you is, I just showed dialogue that’s happening for live classroom videos that’s happened in our platform. Now I wanna show you what is still currently happening in a distance teaching world. So there’s still dialogue and still communities that are happening now in this distance teaching oriented mindset. And here again are some live teachers that have had some comments inside of Edthena. And I like the first one ’cause it really is just referencing, the teacher is saying I really appreciate that you’re reminding them that you’ve done this type of work before. Inside the video there could’ve been a situation where the teacher was showing something and now emphasized to the students that they’ve still done this. I think that’s important. And then in this second comment here on the bottom by Harriet T, actually mentions this is a good resource, whatever you’re doing here is a great resource in this distance teaching world. And it’s not necessarily the comments that I think are important, it’s the idea that it’s really valuable for teachers together to make these comments. And they can kinda come together and realize that some things that are happening in their classroom, whether it be in a synchronous classroom or in a live classroom, they’re happening out there. And you can kinda have a dialogue and learn from each other. Okay. So any questions about this or any questions that have come in? I’m gonna stop sharing because I’m actually gonna go into Edthena and show you maybe how it’s possible to implement one of these Video Learning Communities in Edthena. So while I stop sharing here, I’ll let Heather, if any questions have come up or if anyone has any comments that they’ve chatted in, Heather, I’ll let you go ahead and answer those. Okay, so I’m resharing. Is there any questions that came in at all, Heather?

– I think we’re good to see the next piece.

– Okay. Okay, so what we’re looking at here is a group in Edthena. For those of you who are familiar with it or who were here last week or have used Edthena, what we are in right now is a group that’s been created. So the idea in Edthena is users can create groups, and groups is where that sharing of videos and sharing of content, of commenting on videos, that happens inside of these groups. So we have a group here called Spring 2020 Video Learning Community. There are some people in that group. Heather and I actually are both in the group, and our colleagues. And if you notice here we’ll kinda go to the conversations and see some videos that have been shared. So the concept here is you can create a group and once you’ve kinda designated your purpose, got your champion, and determined what the Video Learning Community is gonna be about, members of the group could share. What the video I’m gonna show you, we’re not gonna watch it but here at Edthena we kinda practice what we preach as far as these Video Learning Communities and as far as learning from video. So actually, we put in our webinar from last week. And Heather and I watched it, we had our colleagues watch it as well, we had our colleagues comment on it. And I’ll kinda show you what that would’ve looked like. So the concept here is, regardless of what type of video that you embed into your Video Learning Community that you decide is part of your purpose, regardless of whether it be synchronous or live classroom experience, you can still analyze that video and learn from it. So what happened here is we actually had colleagues as well as Heather and I who made some comments on the video. And I think what was cool was there was a comment that was made that Heather and I actually realized was a great idea, and it’s something that we implemented in our webinar now. So it kinda just goes to show, one video, you can really spot trends and break things down. And then ultimately make changes in your practice that ultimately is gonna impact your students. Okay. So I’m gonna go back to our slideshow here. If anyone has questions about this or other questions, Heather can kinda maybe answer those while we’re resharing here.

– I think a really great question, a really important question came up as to whether instructional coaches could be a part of the group. And I think it’s all based on the purpose of your Video Learning Community. We have seen Video Learning Communities that are really teachers, teachers working on their practice. Perhaps a group of English teachers across the English department are all coming together to focus on some different strategies that they want to roll out to their students. I think another great way, though, is to have a coach or to have an admin supporting teachers on specific strategies. So I think it really all is grounded in the purpose. And then also thinking about the dialogue, what that would look like with coaches or administrators in the community as well, as well as the champion who’s gonna start the imitative.

– Yeah, I think that’s a great question. As far as having a coach in a Video Learning Community or if you just want it to be a group of teachers, I think either way works. As long as you find that champion. So maybe the coach is kinda the champion who’s facilitating the community, but a lot of the dialogue is happening between the teachers. I think those are examples we’ve seen really successful communities that have been created in that way. Any other questions at all, Heather, that have come through? Or anything in the chat that we need to reference? Okay.

– Actually, one thing I do wanna just share, definitely take a look at our blog as well if you want to see any more about specific techniques. I would just definitely recommend going to blog.edthena.com as well. And the address is inside of the chat to see some more in detail.

– If you wanna look at how to interact with video, the idea of spot, break down, interpret, compare, and discuss, definitely blog.edthena.com/five. And that’s a great place, they really break down all of those elements, and each one are kind of important to ultimately how you’re gonna break down video when you’re watching it.

– And we definitely got some feedback about how the blog has a lot of great information, so thank you so much for sharing that. We appreciate your feedback.

– Okay. So to kinda wrap up here, again, we’re on session two. We have two more sessions left. So we’d love for you guys to be there and join us next week and the week after. Same time, same place. If you would’ve scheduled this one it should be another email that should be a Zoom link for next week as well.

– Well thank you so much for taking some time. As Rob mentioned, we are creating pltogether.org. So definitely check us out. We are working on creating this website. And then also, if you enjoyed what we shared today and if you want to let others know about it, please feel free to use our hashtag to share, it’s #PLtogether. And then this is our customer support email address, [email protected]. If you do have any questions at all about Edthena or any questions at all about creating any of the content that you saw today, really creating Video Learning Communities, please feel free to reach out to us. We’re here to help. And we truly appreciate your time today. Thank you.

– Awesome. Yeah, we really appreciate your guy’s time. Looks like we’re kind of wrapping up here. We’re at the two o’clock Pacific time mark, or 1:59. So we have a minute left. If there’s any last minute questions we’ll kinda stay for, we’ll plan on staying until about two o’clock. But we really appreciate you guys being here.

– Thank you.

– Is there any last questions, Heather? Or it looks like that’s everything, okay. Thanks again everyone. We really appreciate your time. Hope to see you next week.

– Thank you, bye.

– Bye.