Capturing student teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) using CoRes and digital technology

During the last decades, digital technologies have become more common in providing opportunities for reflection and in-depth analysis of classroom practices and have afforded new ways of organising teacher education. In particular, videotaped lessons have proven to be a valuable tool for capturing teaching episodes, subsequent reflection and development of student teachers’ professional knowledge, here referred to as ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ (PCK). The aim of this project was to investigate how the use of the reflective tool, content representations (CoRes) in combination with video and associated digital tools might be used as a means for capturing student teachers’ professional knowledge of practice. In the study we explore how a group of 24 secondary science student teachers were provided with Content Representations (CoRe) and video annotations to support their reflection-on-action during their practicum. Video annotations, alongside a written reflection of critical incidents in the student teachers’ teaching constituted data for analysis. Our findings suggest that the different tools enabled the student teachers to connect captured examples of teaching instances with theoretical issues, and in this way offered the ability to see as well as to analyse their teaching practice. As such, the CoRe, together with the video annotation tool, proved to be successful in scaffolding and structuring student teachers’ reflection-on-action, allowing them to connect their reflections to components of PCK and further to articulate connections between these components.     

Finding balance: impact of classroom management conceptions on developing teacher practice

A sociocultural perspective on teacher learning was used to investigate how three beginning teachers’ conceptions of classroom management affected their developing teaching practices. Students were followed from student teaching through their first 2 years of teaching. Data sources included interviews, classroom observations, and teacher education portfolios. Although all three teachers shared common conceptions of management as establishing positive learning environments, only two of the teachers were successful in doing so. Four key ideas shared by these two teachers served as pedagogical tools that framed their decision-making and scaffolded their early practice. These four conceptions are linked to a course on classroom management not taken by the third teacher. Implications of these findings for teacher education are discussed.     

Why new mathematics teachers do or don’t use practices emphasized in their credential program

A major research concern for teacher education is the impact of university credentialing programs on K-12 teaching and the disjuncture between university-promoted practices and what teachers actually do in their classrooms. In particular, mathematics-credential programs typically promote reform-oriented methods, while mathematics teaching in the US remains largely traditional. Proposed explanations for the limited uptake of university-promoted mathematics-teaching methods have included new teachers’ struggle to bridge the “two worlds” of the university and school, the relative difficulty of reform-oriented teaching, and the failure of the standard teacher-preparation model that teaches general pedagogical concepts prior to specific teaching tools and practices. In this study, interviews of 19 first- through 4th-year secondary-level mathematics teachers—graduates of a single credential program—investigated the factors, internal and external to the credential program, that these teachers perceived to support or impede their implementation of certain university-taught practices. The findings are used to examine previously proposed explanations for limited uptake, and recommendations are made for credential programs and employing schools.     

Using innovative teaching practices to inspire critically engaged reading and writing in a neoliberal university environment

ABSTRACT

This article presents the authors’ successful experiences with Cirrus, a purpose-built Digital Humanities teaching and learning platform developed at The University of Queensland between 2016 and 2018. Our case studies in teaching the crafts of close reading, critical analysis, and writing show that Cirrus’s annotation tools enable teachers to push students towards close critical engagements with the material they are studying – across textual, image, audio, and video formats – while the exhibition-building software allows for the transformation of the classic essay into a multi-faceted online presentation combining words, images, and other resources. However, we problematise our own involvement in the development of the platform by considering the ways such tools may become implicated in the negative impacts of neoliberalisation on the university sector in Australia and internationally. We are concerned that universities are using digital tools and innovative teaching practices to further reduce their investment in teaching.     

Capturing and assessing evidence of student teacher inquiry: A case study

In this paper, we present five principles underlying teacher inquiry and report a case study during which student teachers in a US teacher education programme used evidence-based decision support, an inquiry method designed to help teachers analyse and adapt their own teaching through the use of a video analysis tool. This case study examined interplay among tools designed to guide teaching practice, student teachers’ own self-guided inquiry, and feedback from cooperating teachers as they made instructional decisions. Preservice teachers initially accepted the guidance provided by teaching analysis tools, but abandoned the tools in favour of informal self-assessments and feedback from cooperating teachers when they assumed teaching responsibilities in their own classrooms. We discuss the role of external support and video evidence in guiding preservice teacher inquiry.     

Levels of interaction and proximity: Content analysis of video-based classroom cases

This study employed content analysis techniques to examine video-based cases of two websites that exemplify learner-centered pedagogies for pre-service teachers to carry out in their teaching practices. The study focused on interaction types and physical proximity levels between students and teachers observed in the videos. The findings regarding interaction demonstrated that video cases were more focused on teacher-centered interactions than learner-centered interactions. In terms of proximity, the analysis revealed that reciprocal interaction between students and teacher was most likely to happen if their physical distance from each other was the greatest. Findings and directions for future research are discussed in terms of the content of online video-based classroom cases.     

Teachers’ collaborative learning – development of teaching in group discussions

Teacher learning and the development of in-service education for teachers are both an active area of research and a broad challenge. In working as teachers, theory and practice are often seen as divided, or problems in teaching and the requirements of development are solved on the basis of experience. This study focuses on collaborative teacher learning as part of an in-service education course that supports teachers in connecting learning theories with practical knowledge and that aims to create new knowledge and practices for teaching. The starting points for the study are the changes of the curriculum and theories of learning. The aim is to analyse developing of teaching in teachers’ collaborative group discussions and how the theoretical knowledge of learning theories is connected with developing teaching practices. The research method of the study was data driven, systematic and qualitative analysis of the content of the discussion. The research data consist of video recorded group discussions of two teacher teams from the in-service education course meeting. The analysis focused on developing talk and further, on finding interconnections between the developing talk and the theories of learning. The analysis shows three different ways how the learning theories emerged in method developing talk. The findings indicate that theoretical knowledge can be used or left unused and imply that creating and changing teaching practices is challenging. However, the findings show that theoretical, research-based knowledge on learning theories can be applied to developing teaching practices in the teachers’ collaborative knowledge creation process. Long-term in-service education based on collaborative knowledge creation and supporting the interconnection of theoretical knowledge of learning and experience knowledge of teaching is a promising way to arrange and develop in-service education.     

基于教学视频案例的教师专业发展实践

信息时代,技术已成为教育生态系统中不可或缺的构成要素。如何通过技术培养高效能教师成为教师专业发展中重要的研究议题之一。教学视频案例以教学观摩、教学研究为目的,以视频为主要形式,全程记录某个真实教学活动,能为教师呈现真实的课堂教学情境及向专家学习的机会,帮助教师实现隐性教学知识显性化并生成教学实践性知识。因此,可以将教学视频案例应用于教师培训工作。基于视频案例的教师专业发展实践证明,教学视频案例不仅有助于教师将理论知识与实践相联系,检验理论中的观点并形成自己的看法,还有助于教师与他人交流,使学习突破个人活动的局限。但是,在利用教学视频案例支持教师反思及共同体学习过程中,要注意突破教学实录的局限,使教学视频案例成为一个有机的资源整合体,为教师提供视频分析及标注等辅助性工具,帮助教师有效吸收教学视频案例信息并加以创新应用。     

Improving instruction of future teachers: A multimedia approach that supports implementation of evidence-based vocabulary practices

Teacher education efforts must prepare future teachers to implement evidence-based practices that are effective for all students. A strand of practices necessary for reading competence is vocabulary instruction; however, teachers spend less time teaching vocabulary as opposed to other literacy skills. In this experimental study, researchers investigated a multimedia-based intervention, which pairs video with a Content Acquisition Podcast (i.e., video plus CAP) to teach preservice teachers (N = 49) to implement vocabulary practices with struggling students. Those who watched the video plus CAP used significantly more teaching behaviors associated with an evidence-based vocabulary practice during instruction than the comparison group.     

Discovering Plate Boundaries in Data-integrated Environments: Preservice Teachers' Conceptualization and Implementation of Scientific Practices

Drawn from the norms and rules of their fields, scientists use variety of practices, such as asking questions and arguing based on evidence, to engage in research that will contribute to our understanding of Earth and beyond. In this study, we explore how preservice teachers' learn to teach scientific practices while teaching plate tectonic theory. In particular, our aim is to observe which scientific practices preservice teachers use while teaching an earth science unit, how do they integrate these practices into their lessons, and what challenges do they face during their first time teaching of an earth science content area integrated with scientific practices. The study is designed as a qualitative, exploratory case study of seven preservice teachers while they were learning to teach plate tectonic theory to a group of middle school students. The data were driven from the video records and artifacts of the preservice teachers' learning and teaching processes as well as written reflections on the teaching. Intertextual discourse analysis was used to understand what scientific practices preservice teachers choose to integrate into their teaching experience. Our results showed that preservice teachers chose to focus on four aspects of scientific practices: (1) employing historical understanding of how the theory emerged, (2) encouraging the use of evidence to build up a theory, (3) observation and interpretation of data maps, and (4) collaborative practices in making up the theory. For each of these practices, we also looked at the common challenges faced by preservice teachers by using constant comparative analysis. We observed the practices that preservice teachers decided to use and the challenges they faced, which were determined by what might have come as in their personal history as learners. Therefore, in order to strengthen preservice teachers' background, college courses should be arranged to teach important scientific ideas through scientific practices. In addition, such practices should also reflect the authentic practices of earth scientists such as use of historical record and differentiating observation versus interpretation.     

Using Student Video Cases to Assess Pre-service Elementary Teachers’ Engineering Teaching Responsiveness

Our study addresses the need for new approaches to prepare novice elementary teachers to teach both science and engineering, and for new tools to measure how well those approaches are working. This in particular would inform the teacher educators of the extent to which novice teachers are developing expertise in facilitating their students’ engineering design work. One important dimension to measure is novice teachers’ abilities to notice the substance of student thinking and to respond in productive ways. This teacher noticing is particularly important in science and engineering education, where students’ initial, idiosyncratic ideas and practices influence the likelihood that particular instructional strategies will help them learn. This paper describes evidence of validity and reliability for the Video Case Diagnosis (VCD) task, a new instrument for measuring pre-service elementary teachers’ engineering teaching responsiveness. To complete the VCD, participants view a 6-min video episode of children solving an engineering design problem, describe in writing what they notice about the students’ science ideas and engineering practices, and propose how a teacher could productively respond to the students. The rubric for scoring VCD responses allowed two independent scorers to achieve inter-rater reliability. Content analysis of the video episode, systematic review of literature on science and engineering practices, and solicitation of external expert educator responses establish content validity for VCD. Field test results with three different participant groups who have different levels of engineering education experience offer evidence of construct validity.     

Collaboratively Exploring the Use of a Video Case-Based Book as a Professional Development Tool

Although the literature contains many examples of extensive professional development (PD) programs, most science teachers experience only a few hours of PD each year. To address this reality, alternative PD delivery tools need to be examined. Since the mid-1990s, video cases have emerged as a flexible form of PD where in-service teachers can repeatedly and vicariously view reform teaching practices enacted within the classroom context. Recently, PD developers have taken video cases to another level by embedding them into print and electronic books. In these video case-based books (VCBBs), the reader is iteratively prompted to watch a video case and read commentaries by the teacher featured in the video. In this study, we used collaborative action research (CAR) to explore what happened when a fourth-year biology teacher attempted to use a VCBB as a PD tool to enact the whole-class inquiry model (presented within the VCBB) into her curriculum. Specifically, we critically examined the extent to which the teacher was able to enact the model, the challenges she experienced, and the manner in which she utilized the VCBB. Our findings indicate that the teacher was able to use the VCBB, in conjunction with CAR, to make significant changes to her teaching practice. The results also point to the possibility of a new PD model where the VCBB provides a “vision” of reform teaching and the collaborative exploration of the VCBB as a PD tool affords the “space” needed to reach that vision.     

Extending the apprenticeship of observation: how mentee experiences shape mentors

Although the importance of mentor teachers in clinical teacher preparation is well established, few researchers explore the social identity development of these individuals. Through our study we contribute to the body of research by exploring mentor teachers’ social identity development through the concept of Apprenticeship of Observation – specifically, how they felt their own mentoring experiences influenced their approaches to mentoring. The multi-case study includes findings about mentoring beliefs and practices during the laboratory school component of an Alternate Route to Licensure program. Incorporating semi-structured interviews and video analysis, the findings demonstrate how four mentor teachers’ prior experiences as mentees – including Alternate Route to Licensure, traditional teacher preparation programs, and inservice teaching – influenced their interactions with teacher candidates as mentors. Recommendations for practice and implications for future research are provided.     

Prospective teacher beliefs about liberative and oppressive mathematics teaching practices: a first step toward equitable instruction

This article reports findings from a study conducted within a teacher education program to help highlight the importance of equitable instruction of mathematics for all students. The researcher developed four scenarios of her oppressive and liberative teaching practices. Prospective teachers were then asked to write scenarios describing their oppressive and liberative teaching practices. Results showed that prospective teachers found it easier to write liberative teaching practices of themselves than oppressive examples. Scenario themes centered on allowing students ample time to understand mathematical concepts, having high expectations for all students, and addressing individual student’s needs. Developing prospective teachers who are aware of equity in teaching requires ample time to discuss authentic issues in diversity. Teacher educators need to be aware of their own oppressive and liberative teaching practices in doing such work.     

Developing teachers’ pedagogical practice in teaching science lessons with mobile phones

This paper presents the findings of an investigation carried out in Sri Lanka to explore how mobile phones can support science teachers’ pedagogical practices throughout the teaching cycle of planning, teaching and evaluation. Data were collected using observation supported by audio and video recordings from both continuing professional development workshops where a group of teachers planned four science lessons that integrated mobile phones and the subsequent implementation of those lessons. Thematic network analysis, carried out on the data with the help of NVivo8 qualitative analysis software, showed how mobile phones were used and the issues involved. It concluded that mobile phones can support science teaching in a variety of ways, in particular with communication during planning lessons, with relating subject knowledge to authentic locations and activities during teaching and with image and data capture to support assessment and post-lesson reflection. The additional pedagogical practices and knowledge base required when integrating mobile phones into science lessons are discussed in the light of Shulman’s original model.     

Shifting the reflective focus: encouraging student teacher learning in video-framed and peer-sharing contexts

Since many studies that use video to support teacher learning are situated in strongly guided contexts and encourage particular kinds of thinking, we still know very little about how more loosely guided contexts can support teachers to think about the dilemmas of practice associated with their own goals by reflecting about video. This study explores how video-based and peer-based reflections about one’s own and others’ practices both indicate and guide the development of teachers’ change-directed thinking when they are sequenced before supervisor feedback. Six secondary preservice teachers reflected about peer-evaluated mini-teaching and videotaped field-based teaching in the prestudent teaching term and then about videotaped teaching alone, with peers, and alone again with supervisor feedback in the student teaching term. These reflections were coded by their subject, degree of reform-mindedness, and tendency toward three foci (player, stance, and source). Patterns in their ‘higher focus’ codes across the three reflective resources during student teaching showed how teachers were developing the goals they espoused in the fall term. Teachers situated their learning in contexts where the degree of scaffolding matched their degree of readiness for change, which was better characterized by their tendency toward subjects and foci that were less ‘one-sided’ than by their tendency toward only reform-minded (standards-based) thinking. While teachers whose reflections were intermediately different from the peer group were better supported by it, most teachers found direct support from the self-video and/or peer-video contexts to advance change-directed thinking associated with their own goals for teaching. The findings reveal not only how goal-related teacher learning can be powerfully supported with loosely guided video-framed contexts, but also how the diversification and/or expansion of teachers’ reflections across the categories used in this study provide robust indicators of both the content and efficacy of their change-directed thinking.     

Teachers’ Practices of Inquiry When Teaching Investigations: A Case Study

Teacher practices are essential for supporting learners in scientific inquiry practices of framing research questions, designing and conducting investigations, collecting data, and drawing conclusions. This study examines instructional practices of two Grade 11 Physical Science teachers engaged in teaching practical investigations. Data were collected from video recordings of teachers?? enactment of pre-laboratory, laboratory and post-laboratory practical investigation lessons. Other data sources included video-based classroom observations, teacher and learner interviews, and artefacts, such as teacher handouts, supplemental materials and learner work. The results suggest that when teachers introduce practical investigations, they vary in the practices they engage in as well as the quality of their use of these practices. Implications for teacher practices of scientific inquiry are explored.     

Prospective teachers’ teaching experience: teacher learning through the use of video

Background: Future teachers need to observe, interpret and analyse teaching during the initial teacher education period. The use of videoed teaching and learning in teacher education promotes reflection, and analysing videos of teaching is helpful in learning effective classroom practices that prospective teachers mostly do not have the chance to observe during fieldwork experiences. The analysis of videos of teaching can be seen as a way to enhance the development of prospective teachers’ professional vision, which, in turn, improves instruction. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine prospective teachers’ reflections on video examples depicting their own teaching experiences. It aimed to create a professional development environment to facilitate the prospective teachers’ reflection on their own videos and those of their peers to improve their professional vision. Sample: This study was conducted with over 200 (in 31 groups) third-year prospective mathematics teachers in a university in Western Turkey. The student teachers, receiving training to teach first- to fourth-grade elementary school pupils, were taking a teaching methods course. Design and methods: In the first week of the semester, the student teachers, working in groups, were assigned mathematics topics to teach the elementary school pupils. During the semester, each group prepared by trying out their activities in front of other student teachers in other groups. At the end of the semester, one student teacher from each group presented a short lesson related to their mathematical topic to the elementary school pupils. This lesson was videotaped, then later it was watched and discussed by the student teachers. Of the student teachers who undertook the teaching in the videos, 22 volunteers agreed to be interviewed. All groups of student teachers provided written reflections on their experience. Selected videos of the class discussions about the videos of teaching were also used for triangulation. The data were analysed to identify the issues the prospective teachers reflected upon. A content analysis technique was employed. Results: The data indicated that the prospective teachers were able to reflect on several issues related to effective teaching, connect their theoretical knowledge to their practice and consider issues related to pupil learning and difficulties. Conclusion: The findings suggested that the use of video, together with discussions between the student teachers, had the potential to create promising learning opportunities for prospective teachers.