Teach Learn Connect -- A Homegrown "Teaching Channel"

This TLC Share comes from Jill Edwards, an Instructional Partner for the Florence City Schools. She served as a partner at Hibbett Middle School up until the 2015/16 school year. She now serves the Florence Middle School teachers. Her blog was originally posted on the Alabama Best Practices Center's Ning site. This site allows instructional partners across this region to blog and to share how they are impacting their schools.

We are fortunate to have a District-wide ELA Specialist in Florence City.  Her name is Nira Dale.  In addition to all the work she has done in helping our ELA teachers, she has also created a "teaching channel" that is made up of videos from our own teachers.  I think this was a phenomenal idea -- many times when teachers watch videos, they think "but my kids don't act like that" or "our students couldn't do that".... Nira is also an expert at capturing the key ideas from their lessons.  She videos the lesson, then spends valuable time editing the video and adding essential questions and "look fors". 

 She has the site organized by elementary, middle, and high school (the same as our schools), but of course the teacher best practices are applicable to all teachers.  The personal touch she adds to these videos really make them meaningful to our teachers.  It also helps teachers feel like what they are doing really does matter, and that people think they are doing a good job!  We all know that perception is reality, and this site is helping FCS teachers see all the great things happening in our own classrooms!    Check out her site:  http://www.teachlearnconnectfcs.org/

***********
(Below is a recent update to Jill's blog)
​
"...The Power of Video "

Last March, I posted a blog about Nira Dale''s Teach Learn Connect website.  She is our District ELA Specialist, and has created a website http://www.teachlearnconnectfcs.org/ that is modeled after the Teaching Channel.  Her website adds value and meaning to our teachers because her videos are OUR teachers using the strategies with OUR students (sometimes when teachers watch "professionally" made video, they struggle to see it working in their actual classrooms)...

​Well, Nira's site has really encouraged me to use video more.  Now, I want to mention that my use of video is by NO MEANS professional!  In fact, most of the time, I just whip my phone out of my pocket and record on the fly when I witness something happening in a classroom I want to capture.  I learned how to use iMovie (thank you again, Nira!) and just drop in random video clips and pull out the bits and pieces that I want to use.      

One of the videos I made, called Meaningful Conversations, came about because I had noticed that I wasn't seeing a lot of student led conversations in the classrooms.  So, I went into random classes throughout the day for a week or so and looked for times when students were doing more of the talking.  I also looked through resources we have been using through ABPC and found quotes and information about student engaged conversation.  By embedding these in the video, teachers get the added benefit of not only seeing our students in action, but also get a little professional development on the sly!        In a nutshell, what I wanted to say is that initially I shied away from using video myself.  I knew my sound wasn't perfect, I wasn't having time to schedule and coordinate lessons to video, and I knew there were professional resources out there that I could use.  However, I can now see the confidence it gives my teachers to see themselves and their students doing the things we are talking about.  And the videos don't have to be perfect, in fact the "realness" of them is part of what makes it seem possible!