Guide to Professional Development of
Out-of-School Science Activity Leaders

From the National Partnership for After School Science (NPASS)

NPASS

Using Videos

Viewing videos with workshop or institute participants of out-of-school activities can be an effective way of discussing implementation issues. Since videos provide a specific context, they help participants to anchor their thinking in the realities of leading science activities with children. Videos can also provide the stimulus for discussions about how to interpret what children are doing and how to deal with specific problems in the implementation of activities. Thoughtful use of video can help activity leaders move toward being more reflective about their practice, so that they move from merely presenting activities to actively thinking about how their role and behavior can lead to more productive engagement with children and youth.

The purpose is not to make judgments about the role and actions of the activity leader in the video, but rather to provide concrete situations where participants can discuss and reflect upon specific ways of implementing activities. An effective approach for stimulating reflection is to present short segments of the extended video, and to ask participants to discuss what they observe about the children’s behavior and the actions of the activity leader. For this viewing, you can pre-select segments of the video where behavior of the children or activity leader provides a context for the implementation issues you wish to illustrate and discuss. For instance, you could use a video showing the management of messy materials to introduce a discussion about effective strategies and techniques for dealing with materials management for the Oobleck (from GEMS) or Siphons (from Explore It!) activity guides. To make the best use of any video, it is essential to preview and select those segments that you think best match the issues you want to discuss in your workshop.

There are many videos of formal classroom teaching that can be adapted and used with those working in informal settings. Keep in mind that many of these videos include a voiceover describing what the viewer is supposed to notice about the activity in progress. It can be much more effective to turn off the sound, thus eliminating the narration, and let viewers make their own judgments and interpretations for what they are seeing. Some of these types of videos are also highly edited, providing only short snapshots of the classroom environment. Viewing an uninterrupted sequence of interactions between educators and children can provide a more complete and realistic view of how the activities actually proceed with children. For these reasons, we feel that video of science activities occurring in an informal setting, with no voiceover and sparse editing, is the most suitable for promoting reflective discussions about working in the out-of-school context.

 

Resources

Explore It! Professional Development Videos

Learning to See: Observing Children’s Inquiry in Science Professional Development Videos