Contents of this article:
- What is the UnityPD Library?
- Why Share to the Library?
- GDPR and Safeguarding
- The Process we will Follow
- How the Video will be Used
- How to Submit
- Submission Form
What is the UnityPD Library?
The UnityPD Library is an online compendium of real practice, not showreel practice. It affords teachers a chance to see strategies in action in real classrooms, bridging the gap between research and practice. Each video also contains time-linked comments, where the teachers in the videos have revealed their mental models, by articulating what they are doing and why at each point. This makes thinking visible and is particularly useful as a scaffold for novice teachers.
We have started by gathering clips of the strategies discussed in our UnityPD theory groups but we are looking to expand on these as we believe that expert teachers should have a wide repertoire of strategies in their instructional palette to draw from. What is more, you can be assured that each clip has been quality assured and anonymised, so that there is no GDPR worries (see our GDPR section below for more information).
Why Share to the Library?
As teachers, we are all part of one huge community of practitioners, who are involved in the shared endeavour of improving students’ life chances through effective teaching. Contributing to the library gives back to this community and helps to develop teacher expertise in an evidence-informed way, so that the knowing/doing gap can be closed. The library is also incredibly useful to use as models and deconstruct with anyone you are mentoring or coaching, so uploading your video to the UnityPD library will also contribute to the teacher retention crisis by helping teachers stay in the profession.
GDPR and Safeguarding
All the content will be fully anonymised. We will do that by ensuring that:
- The video will be anonymised
- The video won't be linked to the creator
- The video won't be linked to the school
This will ensure no triangulation of data can be done to link to individuals within the video.
The process will be undertaken in line with the ICO’s guidance on anonymisation.
The Process we will Follow
- The video will be shared to IRIS Connect alongside contextual information such as year group, subject, teacher type (e.g. ECT / trainee), learning objectives, and instructional strategies in use.
- This video will then be reviewed by CRB checked member of the IRIS Connect team to ensure:
- The face blurring is 100% effective and there are no other identifying characteristics in the video i.e. children referred to by name or posters on the classroom wall identifying the school.
- If additional anonymisation is required this will be done via manual editing of the video.
- Once the video has been signed off it will be tagged with the associated contextual information and published in the UnityPD library.
- The IRIS Connect access to the original unblurred video will then be removed.
How the Video will be Used
The videos will be used for the following purposes:
- As “worked examples'' within blended learning programmes delivered on the IRIS Connect platform. For example if the learning programme was focused on questioning strategies we would:
- Provide participating teachers with an evidence based overview of the instructional practice.
- Provide access to anonymised videos which illustrate the practice.
- Publish the video alongside discussion forums and stimulus questions to support a process of collective reflection.
How to Submit
- Select the video you wish to share.
- Annotate it with comments of what you are doing an why, and upload any attachments to the reflection that you want to include.
- Find out the reflection ID.
- Complete the form via this link. The form is on the IRIS Connect web platform so you will need to log into your IRIS Connect account to access it. By having users log in to submit the form we are then able to verify their identity.