Dive Brief:
- Principals can videotape themselves to enhance their work performance and demeanor with staff, author and former principal Peter DeWitt writes for Education Week. Athletes and coaches often video themselves to find ways to improve, DeWitt says, and principals should do the same.
- DeWitt said self-review of meetings could indicate whether principals are modeling behavior for staff, whether their body language is conducive to a positive and welcoming work environment and whether they are actively listening to concerns and suggestions.
- He also encouraged principals to review videos of meetings three times; the first time to help them get over how they speak and look. Next, principals can focus on their listening skills and in the third viewing they can find ways to approach things differently.
Dive Insight:
Principals and educators in general could benefit from self-viewing performances in the classroom and staff meetings to better their performance, as well as peer observations. But video could also help introduce educators to the reality that they must conduct themselves as if a camera’s eye is trained at all times. Teenagers and students are increasingly gravitating towards smartphones, and the devices are increasingly prevalent on campuses and in classrooms, to the point where some college campuses are considering practices that would essentially necessitate smartphone usage.
As headlines consistently indicate, wrongdoing or incompetence is much more likely to be captured by a smartphone than ever before. The increased access to video technology makes it harder to obfuscate substandard behavior and performance, and educators should be aware of the trend. Though schools will always try to supervise smartphone usage, a principal’s misdeeds or a teacher’s misbehavior is now far more likely to come to light. The ‘sunlight’ imposed by smartphones demands a higher standard, and educators need to be prepared to meet it.
