So we recorded videos of student discussions...now what?

I am trying to re-assess a teaching practice I have conducted two or three times.

In my speaking classes, I have students do discussions and record their discussions on videos.

Goal of the Activity:
1. Give students a chance to see how they are communicating in discussions and set goals for improvement.
2. Nothing else? Perhaps to accumulate data for research on student speaking needs and improvement goals.

Steps:

1. Students take turns leading a discussion on a topic of their choice and one member of the group acts as the camera person using a small video device.

2. I take the video files and make them available to students. This can be done in a variety of ways such as burning a DVD so students can check it out and watch/download their videos, posting them on a webserver and giving students links, posting them on YouTube and sharing the link with them, or posting them on a Moodle page. Each way has pros and cons. The fastest way is still the DVD burning, but that is not convenient for students. In addition to convenience, privacy is a consideration. The safest way to control access to videos is to email each student a private, possibly secure link to their video so they can download it or share it with their classmates as they like. The ideal way would be for each student to get their own video on their own device like a cell phone...but many don't have enough memory.

So...this week...I am going to upload videos to YouTube and either email restricted links to students or give them access via a class account.

3. Students will come to a lab, watch their videos, take notes, fill out some kind of analysis form with self-ratings on skills, transcriptions of key phrases they used, and goals and plans for improvement. The form can be paper, which is easiest for students and myself, or it can be an electronic survey form, like a Google Spreadsheet form or a Moodle Feedback module.

4. Finally, students will discuss their improvement goals and plans. The assumption here is that some explicit awareness of their needs, improvement goals and plans for speaking practice based on watching their own videos will help students move toward proficiency in those skills in a more efficient, focused way. Of course, it is possible that spending time for "more practice" instead of "stop and reflect" will lead to better proficiency...but my working theory is that in the long term, students who have a clear idea of what they want to work on will make more progress.

That would be interesting to examine somehow with a comparison of two groups: those whose teachers gave them time to reflect and those who did not. What will the difference be?

Mark