My initial thoughts in response to Scott McLeod‘s questions regarding cameras in the classroom…
How would most teachers feel about parents being able to watch
and hear, via a secure password-protected webcam connection, what was
occurring in class on a regular basis?
When I was a classroom teacher, I wished
that parents could see and hear what was going on in class. I had no
secrets and nothing to hide. Plus, I wished that the "enabling"
parents could witness some of their children’s behaviors before they
called and made accusations like, "My son didn’t understand the way you
taught it!" It wasn’t often that I got calls like that, but it would
have been very nice to be able to pull up a video of the student with
his head down while the rest of his group worked on the problem.
Ideally, it would have made for some very interesting dinner conversations.
Would teachers’ classroom instruction / pedagogy be better, worse, or
the same if parents could watch and hear what was occurring in class on
a regular basis?
That’s a question with several answers to my way of thinking. The good
teachers would keep doing what they have always done as they have
nothing to hide. I think that it might cause some of the "marginally
effective" teachers to raise their game. But would the oversight be
well-received by the "retired-on-the-job" teachers who we all know?
I’d like to think that for some of them it would move them closer to actually retiring…
I worry how it might affect new teachers or teachers who want to try
something new. I would hate to think that rather than dive in with a
new or innovative lesson, someone would be overly concerned about how
it will be received or whether it will be as effective as he hopes.
Would classroom management / discipline be better, worse, or the same
if parents could watch and hear what was occurring in class on a
regular basis?
My guess is that in most cases the parents who care enough about school to actually watch the camera feeds would be the ones who have passed on to their kids the value of education. It’s the parent-teacher conference night paradox in that the parents you actually need or want to see are rarely the ones who show up to check on their student’s progress.
I have no scientific evidence to back this up, but I would venture a guess that one of the contributing factors to students with serious discipline issues (beyond lack of engagement with the instruction, but that’s another story…) is a lack of attention from parents. I can’t imagine the parents of some of those kids having the time or inclination to watch Internet feeds of their kids’ classes.
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