Nothing reshapes a teacher's practice faster than watching their own lesson back. Video-based coaching formalizes that instinct: a camera in the classroom, a coach reviewing the footage, and a structured conversation about what the tape shows. The best-studied model is MyTeachingPartner, developed at the University of Virginia, in which teachers and coaches work through six to nine coaching cycles a year built around recordings of real lessons.
The Evidence
- A randomized study of the secondary version — one of the largest PD studies ever run — found that students of trained teachers made significantly larger achievement gains than students of comparison teachers. The federal What Works Clearinghouse reviewed the study and confirmed it met evidence standards.
- Teachers consistently report the same thing: the video shows patterns — questioning, wait time, who gets called on — that are invisible from inside the lesson.
Video removes the argument and replaces it with evidence. You are not discussing what you "usually do" — you are discussing what the tape shows.
Starting Small
You do not need a program to start: a phone on a stack of books, one 15-minute clip of your questioning, and a single focus ("How long is my wait time?") recreates the core mechanism. What makes it powerful is the cycle — record, reflect, change one thing, record again. That loop is what the research says coaching is.
