Colorado Education Association Offers Teachers Member-Driven Video Coaching

Clearly, teachers are there to help their students in the classroom. But who helps the teachers with their own professional development?

The right instructors might not be in the classroom, but in Colorado, they will be in easy reach digitally. The Colorado Education Association is incorporating video observation and feedback into its existing COpilot learning platform  (opens in a new tab), collaborating with the video coaching vendor Edthena.

Trained CEA members facilitate a variety of interactive COpilot courses and will now be able to provide peer-to-peer feedback on videos uploaded by Colorado teachers.

“Using Edthena, teachers can record their classroom instruction and receive feedback from other educators who they respect and trust,” Kim McLachlan, a COpilot class facilitator, said in a news release  (opens in a new tab). “Video coaching also allows teachers to become an active part of the evaluation process. Rather than sitting on the sidelines waiting for feedback, teachers can collect artifacts for their evaluation, showcasing a whole class period or specific strategy.”

CEA Director of Learning Services Casey Kilpatrick noted that the service allows teachers taking classes using COpilot to “collaborate with each other in a unique and personalized way, which is something many of them have never experienced.”

“It adds cutting-edge technology to our teachers’ experience,” Kilpatrick added.

While Edthena has users in nearly 30 states, the Colorado affiliate of the National Education Association is the first state education organization to launch such an effort.

(iStock/Thinkstock)