Making Videos for Education

"Teaching is a never-ending process. There are always ways to improve upon it," says John J. Boehrer, head of the filming and critiquing section of Harvard's in-house teaching workshop.

Boehrer and his associates tape sectionleaders--mostly graduate students--in their natural classroom habitats or a video lab and then review the performances and give pointers.

The effort is sponsored by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences through the Harvard-Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning, which also directs the annual course evaluations published by the Committee on Undergraduate Education in the CUE Guide.

The center is headed by Dean K. Whitla, a lecturer in the Graduate School of Education who also directs the Office of Instructional Research and Evaluation.

In addition to running various educational workshops and seminars on all aspects of learning, including computers and creative writing, the center awards outstanding teaching fellows scoring higher than six points out of seven on the student evaluations with Certificates for Distinction in Teaching, says Leslie Bladelock, an assistant to Whitla.

In taping the sections, or reconstructed classes inside the lab, filmers do not use special lights like those that are used in the movie business and try "to make the classroom situation as close as possible to an actual classroom setting away from the lab," says Boehrer. "Our facilities enable us to pretty much show teachers what they look like and what students look like."

"We are confident that the videotaping process doesn't distort classroom situations that would make the ensuing observations invalid," Boehrer says. "After a few minutes, TFs [teaching fellows] lose track of the fact of being taped."

Boehrer stresses the strictly voluntary nature of the videotaping and consulting process. "TFs can get help and feedback on teaching without cost, constraint, or interruption, by their own choice."

"This function is totally extricated from the departmental evaluation processes. There is strict confidentiality, and no reports or tapes are sent to professors or deans. Our evaluation has no impact on hiring decisions. The process is only to benefit the teachers."

Shortly after the filming, the teachers return to the lab to view and discuss the film with one of the teaching consultants. The consultation focuses on making sections more productive--identifying the teacher's strong points and the means of improving on them, and the teacher's weaker aspects and the ways to correct them.

"TFs take the viewings seriously...The process is a self-confrontive thing--a very hard thing to do," says Boehrer.

Boehrer says that he estimates that "99 percent of the time, teachers come out the consulting sessions [with one or more of the three PhD.s in Education] relatively happy. Many of them even include a copy of the tapes in their resumes."

Frequently the lab expands on its consulting function by bringing all the TFs into the lab for one course at the same time and conducting seminars on specifically advantageous ways of teaching that particular subject area.

Boehrer says that there are certain characteristics that are particularly relevant to the success of a section.

"It is important as to whether section leaders use students' names. This reflects a great deal on how well the TFs know individuals and how much attention the teachers are paying to students. In sections where names are used, there is more success."

Furthermore, Boehrer says, "Teachers should show enthusiasm, interest in the subject, commitment to the process of learning, and enjoyment for being in class."

In classes where teachers focus on presenting concepts and working out problems, such as in chemistry and math, "they must make the structure of the presentation clear. Do students know where its going? Are they thinking actively? Are they working with the information and not just recording it down on their notebooks? Is the teacher working with students' approach to solving problems, or is he oblivious?"