Video Assessment of Classroom Teaching Practices: Lessons Learned, Problems and Issues

Digital video is used to capture and assess a wide range of everyday classroom teaching practices. Generally, these applications are informal in nature and considered either risk-free or risk-neutral by teachers. Increasingly, however, captured video can be scrutinized and assessed by others to determine the presence and/or quality of specific teaching practices. The recent emphasis on teacher accountability, standards-based teaching, documentation of teacher progress, and performance evidence has spawned interest in and pressure for increased use of captured video for external assessment. Several problematic issues have surfaced related to video assessment of teacher practice. Building from the authors' ongoing program of research, this article identifies current and emerging assessment issues and identifies issues in video assessment of teaching practice.