PD Colleagues,
The Media Library of Teaching Skills http://mlots.org is a free website with short, streamed (or downloadable) videos of authentic adult education classrooms. Most of the videos we have made are accompanied by state standards-based lesson plans. Some have links to student handouts and to a video viewing (discussion) guide.There is also a large section of others' adult education PD videos. http://www.mlots.org/?page_id=89 This makes MLoTS the "go to" website for adult basic education authentic classroom videos.
Tip: If you teach a face-to-face or online adult basic education course for instructors or volunteer tutors some of these videos may be useful. New teachers or tutors, especially, want to see what an adult education class or tutoring looks like, what teachers and tutors do. Because these videos are not designed as examples of "best practices" (although they are usually good practices and sometimes are excellent examples of best practice) they are great discussion starters. You can ask participants in your class: How did this instructor teach (xyz)? What did you like about how s/he did it? What didn't you like? What does this make you think about in your own teaching practice?
When I have done that, sometimes teachers say, "I want to try that approach." Sometimes they say, "I do that much better than the teacher in the video." Sometimes they say, "Yes, that's what I do. It's confirming to see that it also works for someone else."
If you want to see short videos of teachers at a conference in small group discussions of MLoTS videos, look at:
ESOL/ESL: Food Vocabulary: http://www.mlots.org/?page_id=78
Math/Numeracy: Ratio and Proportion: http://www.mlots.org/?page_id=63
Let me know if you use an MLoTS video in your PD course, and let us all know how teachers reacted to it.
David J. Rosen
djrosen123@gmail.com