First entry at barnard college

I am working on a research project with Professor Rivera.
 
This study looks at the impact of the video reflection and use of the interface program VITAL on teacher development and learning. The pre-service teachers and the professors spend a lot of time on the microteaching lessons and on these video reflection assignments. It is important to analyze the results of these assignments and quantify teacher growth in order to improve the program internally as well as share and publish the findings to a broader audience of teacher educator programs.

As a researcher on this project, I am responsible for sorting through all this data and analyzing it in a consistent, objective, and critical way. Each pre-service teacher planned and taught two microteaching lessons. Each lesson has a transcript based on the video. This transcript is useful when coding and when I go through and do the large grain analysis. The large grain analysis is a detailed description of what is happening in the classroom during the lesson. This is very important because the large grain analysis captures most of the information that could be lost when the video file is turned into a written transcript. Information such as student participation, glances, movement around the classroom, and silent interactions. So far, I have dedicated most of my time to watching the videos of the pre-service teachers and checking the transcripts. Some of the teachers have large grain analysis already started and I have been going back over this work. I am both learning the system and trying to add my own judgment and analysis at the same time. I feel that because I have been in the same position as these teachers, I pick up on different aspects of the lesson and details that were previously overlooked.
 
As much as the work at times feels repetitive and robotic, as I pause and take time to reflect I realize that I have learned a lot from this research. The simple process of watching so many other teachers teach their lessons and struggle through the same things I struggled with reminds me of ways to improve my own teaching. Watching these videos has inspired me to go back through and re-watch all of my own videos of my teaching. I was surprised to see myself develop so much from back in the Science in the City class, to my microteaching videos, to my student teaching recordings.
 
Moving forward in this research, I need to stay more focused on the research itself. I have been indulging my own distractions and my own experiences with these lessons, but I need to discipline myself to be a more diligent researcher who remains objective. I also need to progress through the rest of the large grain analysis so I can move onto some of the fine grain coding. This fine grain coding is essential to the hypothesis and findings of this research. I will continue to work on asking questions and discovering answers related to video based reflection. The readings that are provided are great resources for these inquiries.