Phase 1: Designing

Developing Mutual Understandings, Goals, and Tools

The first phase of the project took place over the course of the first years and included 3 goals:

1. Develop a shared understanding of MfA LA as a professional learning environment for the Master Teacher Fellows (MTF).
2. Develop a data collection plan and prepare interview protocols to capture teachers’ learning over time.
3. Pilot a formative feedback process: a video-based formative feedback (VFF) cycle to enhance the MTF teachers’ learning.

The VFF Cycle

  

In the VFF cycle design, teachers focus on their learning goals by studying their own practices. Teachers are filmed using a series of cameras, allowing project team members to review class sessions. They can then identify moments that provide evidence to probe the teacher’s questions.

Sometimes, the video excerpts offer evidence of instruction going as the teacher intended. Other times, they hear details about students’ responses that they did not anticipate. In both cases, as the video excerpts elicit the teacher’s sensemaking, dilemmas and tensions surface and alternative courses of action are considered and discussed.