I’ve previously written about the professional development effort we have at our school where Kelly Young at Pebble Creek Labs videotapes us teaching lessons, and how he and I showed my video and involved students in the process (see Videotaping teachers the right way (not the Gates way)).
One of the many reasons I wanted to involve students was to model the importance of accepting critique and working to get better at what we do.
This week, as part of our unit on Jamaica, students needed to compose, and perform, a song using Bob Marley’s music as a model. Two students chose to sing about me. In addition to commenting on the shine of my bald head, they sang about the videotaping experience. The one minute recording is pretty funny, and also shows that you never know what you do in the classroom will really “stick.”
Mr. Ferlazzo,
My name is, Kelly Evans. I am a student at, The University of South Alabama. I am an Elementary Education major and was assigned to your blog by my EDM 310 professor, Dr. Strange. I will be summarizing my thoughts on your posts on my blog. You can visit my blog
HERE as well as our class blog HERE.
I like the idea of video taping teaching lessons, it gives you a chance to look over it and see what you could do different the next time. I have done a few projects for school in which I videotaped myself “teaching” a lesson and found it to be beneficial in helping me improve my skills. I read the article in, The Washington Post and loved all the points that Mr. Kelly gave to your students and posted them on my blog for my fellow EDM classmates to read. I am sure they will be helpful even to us college students. Thank you for sharing your experience it was insightful and educational.
By the way, the video that your students made was hilarious!
Kelly Evans