Canvas Practice to Help Teachers in PD
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 03/27/19
Instructure
has released Canvas
Practice, a
video-based learning tool for use in professional development areas.
The program is an addition to the Canvas learning management system,
intended for use in teacher training programs. Instructure acquired
the Philadelphia company that originally developed Practice in 2017
to be part of Bridge,
its workforce development software line; now it's moving the program
to the K-12 education side of the house.
The
idea is that teachers can use Practice to film themselves practicing
a given instructional skill, assess their own work, share the video
online for asynchronous peer feedback and receive "expert
coaching."
The
platform "distributes the work of mentoring" said Jonah
Rockoff, a professor of economics at Columbia
University
who researches teacher performance and has used Canvas in his own
classes, in a statement. "In essence it 'crowdsources' mentors.
In doing so, Practice multiplies the opportunities for high order
apprenticeship learning that previously depended on non-scalable,
face-to-face interactions."
"There isn't enough time in
the day for teachers to really focus on their individual growth in
the way we know helps people grow," said Practice Co-founder
Emily Foote in
a video about the program.
"The biggest benefit of Practice for teachers is it allows them
to not only receive feedback from their peers and also experts, but
it allows them to see others and pick up nuances that others use,
whether through classroom management or through their instruction and
then bring it back to their own classroom practice."
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.