Using audio or video to record and collect data about what’s happening within your classroom can form a very useful part of the action research cycle.
What does it involve?
This usually involves setting up a video or audio recorder within your classroom, recording a part or all of the lesson and then sitting down on your own or with a colleague to review the material you’ve recorded to watch, evaluate and draw conclusions about what you have recorded.
Although it can be tempting to record students without letting them know. This is really a violation of your students’ rights and could also get you into a lot of trouble with your school. So be sure that you get your students’, and in the case of younger learners, their parents’, as well as your school’s permission before you do any recording.
Having a short letter that parents sign, explaining what you are doing and why you are doing it will protect you and help to reassure them that the recording is for a legitimate purpose. Some parents might find it reassuring to know that any recordings will be erased once the research is complete.
Why record your class?
Being able to watch yourself and your lesson as you teach it can be incredibly informative and can really help you to view the lesson in an objective way.
Having a machine record your class leaves you free to get on with the demanding process of actually focusing on your teaching without the added task of having to make notes and evaluate as you go.
A recording is completely unbiased and objective. Unlike other teachers it doesn’t come with any preconceptions about what the class should be like and it won’t judge you. It also won’t forget things or lie to you to protect your feelings.
Having a recording of your lesson gives you the opportunity to sit down and really focus on and analyse what is happening in the classroom in calm and logical way. It also enables you to play and replay sections multiple times with out the kind of ‘information loss’ that your own memory is likely to suffer from.
Recording a class is far less stressful and intimidating than having another teacher watch you. You don’t have to share the recording with anyone else, so if things go wrong, nobody but you and your students will know about it.
You can, however, share a recording of your class with your students to focus them on what is happening within the classroom and to help them understand aspects of the lesson, or with other teachers, to get their advice or help them to learn from your experiences.
How to set it up?
It is important to set up your recording with the aims of your research in mind. In some cases it may be better to have the recording equipment focused on the teacher in other cases it may be better to have the students as the focus, or perhaps even just one particular group or pair of students. Is it teacher or student behaviour that you need to record? You will need to decide and place your equipment and set up your class appropriately.
Video, particularly can have a disruptive effect on student behaviour and can make them very self-conscious. If you want to get accurate data in this way it may be better to take the video camera into class for a few lessons prior to the one you need for your action research project. This will give students the opportunity to get used to having the camera around.
It can be very frustrating to get to the end of your lesson and realised the recording has failed for some reason, so be sure to try out some test recordings with your equipment before you do the lesson which is part of your action research project. This will help you to understand what the equipment is capable of, how best to set it up and help to avoid any unfortunate mistakes when you come to make your recording.
Audio Vs Video
You may not be in a position to make a choice between making an audio or video recording of your class, if you have to rely on only what equipment is available. It is still important though to have an understanding of the relative merits of these two forms of recording are and if you have the opportunity, to choose appropriately.
Video cameras with built in microphones tend to deliver poorer quality audio recordings, so if you want to focus on what is being said within the classroom you would do much better to use an audio recorder.
Audio recorders have the advantage of being able to get close to the subject you want to record without disturbing and distracting them too much. If it is yourself you want to record it is quite easy to have a small microphone attached to your clothing which should give you quite a high sound quality.
Video records can have some huge advantages. They can capture the huge range of non-verbal communication that takes place within every classroom, so if you are doing research into any aspect of classroom practice that involves student- student interaction or student behaviour video can be an invaluable tool.
Possible problems
Reviewing a recording of a lesson can take a long time if you aren’t sure what you are looking for.
Very few classrooms have good acoustics for recording audio, so unless you have really good equipment, it’s hard to get really clear audio recordings of a classroom lesson, especially if lots of people are speaking or if there is a lot of movement within the class.
The field of vision of a camera is much more limited than that of person, especially if the camera is in a fixed position rather than being operated by a person and so it is very easy for the camera to ‘miss’ what’s happening at certain points within the lesson.
The information that you record will still need to be interpreted. The camera can’t offer you opinions or help you to evaluate in the way that another teacher could, so any judgements or decisions that you make regarding your data will still be subjective.
Students can behave differently when they know they are being recorded and so this can effect the data that you are collecting.
Watching or listening to a recording of yourself teaching can make you very aware of your own verbal and physical mannerisms. This can have the negative effect of making you overly self-conscious or self-critical.
Conclusion
Recording a class may not always be the best, most practical or most useful form of data collection. If you do it with an understanding of the issues involved and with an awareness of its strengths and limitations, it can however become a very useful and informative part of your action research cycle and one that both you, your students and other teachers can benefit from.
Written by Nik Peachey - January 2008
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