Session Information
02 SES 04 A, Learning I: Tools
Paper Session
Contribution
For quite some time, the quality of teachers and teacher education has been a topical issue in the global education policy agenda (Alvunger & Wahlström, 2017). Debates regarding vocational teacher education (VTE) reflect specific notions about teacher professionalism and qualifications for vocational teacher recruitment (Moreno Herrera, 2016), as well as the relationship between school practice and academic research (Alvunger & Adolfsson, 2016; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999). In the context of both vocational education and training (VET) and VTE, there is a strong belief that standardised qualification frameworks and the restructuring of VET systems will decrease unemployment, develop human capital and promote economic growth (Boutsiouki, 2014; Rauner & Maclean, 2008; Wallenborn, 2010).
Over the recent decade, the use of videos for forwarding and supporting teacher students’ professional learning and teachers’ professional development has been a growing field of research (Marsh & Mitchell, 2014; Tripp & Rich, 2012). A general view is that it offers ways for teacher students to bridge the gap between theory and practice in terms of applying knowledge acquired at university for analysing and guiding their teaching practice (Charalambous, Philippou & Olympiou, 2018). Video captures the multi-layered, diverse context and provides the possibility to discuss tacit dimensions, such as good judgment embedded in practice (Marsh and Mitchell, 2014), and sharpens and directs the teacher students’ attention and sensibility towards how their teaching practice can be improved (Tripp & Rich, 2012). Video-based courses seem to make teacher students more aware of how critical examination of their instruction can help improve and make teaching more effective. However, this is not the same as saying that teacher students learn in a similar way or follow unilinear learning trajectories (Charalambous et al., 2018).
This paper explores how VTE students experience professional learning through the use of video analysis, their reflection among peers and their meaning-making of the didactic ability concept during the beginning of their education. The case we build on is an assignment in a course that includes video recording and analysis of a teaching sequence. The research questions are: What qualities do the students ascribe video analysis for facilitating and supporting their professional learning? How do they look upon the use of video for teaching in their vocational subjects? What notions of didactic ability emerge from the students’ analyses of, and reflections on, the video sequences?
Bernstein’s (2000) concept of ‘pedagogic discourse’ and a conceptual framework of recontextualisation in VET developed by Evans, Guile and Harris (2009) will guide the analysis of the different meanings that emerge. Evans et al identify four types of recontextualisation: ‘Content recontextualisation’, ‘pedagogic recontextualisation’, ‘workplace recontextualisation’ and ‘learner recontextualisation’. Pedagogical identity is based on a collective foundation formed by the knowledge content and the distribution of knowledge in a certain education (Bernstein, 2000). This corresponds to learner recontextualisation in the sense that the learner is an agent in the creation of pedagogic text and a (re)producer of pedagogic discourse, and this process shapes a sense of belonging, self-understanding and recognition. The interplay between the different types of recontextualisation is of course important. For our study, the analysis of the use of video for professional learning and meaning-making for didactic ability will focus on learner recontextualisation.
Method
A so-called theory-based evaluation, which offers methodological and analytical tools for integrating change-theory and process-analysis, inspired this study (Sundberg, 2017; Wahlström & Sundberg, 2015). The present study has chosen a mixed-method design and through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, complementary types of data could be sampled (Creswell, 2010), which provided rich material for analysing how the VTE students experienced the assignment and how they make meaning of didactic ability. As a first step, an online survey was distributed to 53 students, and the response rate was 60 %. The students were asked to evaluate the extent to which the assignment had relevance regarding ‘the development of your didactic ability’ along the following scale: ‘to a very large extent’, ‘to a pretty large extent’, ‘to a small extent’, ‘not at all’. In addition to the questions, the students could describe in free text how they experienced the assignment (voluntary). To provide a deeper understanding of how the students regarded the importance of video analysis for their professional learning and of the didactic ability notions that emerged from the students’ recontextualisation of the assignment, the second step was sampling qualitative data through semi-structured recorded interviews with five students. The questions were open and concerned how the students would reason about didactic ability, for instance ‘In what ways did your didactic ability develop through the assignment?’, ‘How do you experience the use of video analysis for developing teaching and supporting your professional learning?’; ‘In what ways did the presentation and videorecording shape your understanding of the content that was presented?’; ‘What did you learn from watching and reflecting on your peers’ video-recordings?’; ‘What significance do you ascribe the seminar at the end of the semester?’ Follow-up questions were asked during the interview for clarifications. The qualitative data from the interviews added important information for understanding how the students looked upon the use of video for teaching their vocational subjects.
Expected Outcomes
The findings strongly support observations from previous research that emphasise that the use of video promotes and supports teacher students’ professional growth. There are a number of qualities that the students ascribe video analysis for facilitating and supporting their professional learning. They claim to develop a new understanding of how to organise content and to analytically handle the relationship between theoretical aspects and professional action. Video recording helps them to draw attention towards the complexity of teaching situations and to address and articulate tacit dimensions. Through reflecting on the video sequence thoughts were triggered about the interactions with students and how articulation, gestures and non-verbal communication could impede or promote VET student learning. The VTE students experienced a higher degree of attention towards how the VET students responded and how they themselves could improve teaching. Video also helped them reflect on vocational concepts as aspects of VET students’ socialisation in vocational culture and identity. The emerging meanings of didactic ability among the VTE students are a new discursive understanding of work-knowledge and the teaching content, as well as a strategic structuring of the content for sense-making, transcending the theory and practice divide through visual artefacts and practical tasks and the ability to use different teaching strategies. The importance of vocational culture and identity, the workplace context and a specific knowledge base serves as a significant element in the VTE students’ pedagogic discourse. By using the vocation’s language and by working with sense-making of workplace concepts and codes, the VET students are given access to theoretical meaning systems of vocational knowledge. Language, actions, content, terminology and meanings in terms of workplace codes – inherent in the previous knowledge and experiences of the VTE students – tend to ‘move’ and be recontextualised from the school’s pedagogic discourse.
References
Alvunger, D., & Wahlström, N. (2017). Research-based teacher education? Exploring the meaning potentials of Swedish teacher education, Teachers and Teaching, 24(4), 332–349. Alvunger, D., & Adolfsson, C-H. (2016). Introducing a critical dialogical model for vocational teacher education. Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 6(1), 53–75. Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Boutsioki, S. (2014). Policy transformations and institutional interventions regarding vet in an employment-oriented European Union. Review of European Studies, 6(1), 201–217. Creswell, J.W. (2010). Mapping the developing landscape of mixed methods research. In A. Tashakkori, & C. Teddlie (Eds.), Sage handbook of mixed methods in social & behavioral research (pp. 45–68). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Evans, K., Guile, D., & Harris, J. (2009). Putting knowledge to work: Integrating work-based and subject-based knowledge in intermediate level qualifications and workforce upskilling. London, England: WLE Centre. Charalambous, C.Y., Philippou, S., & Olympiou, G. (2018). Reconsidering the use of video clubs for student-teachers’ learning during field placement: Lessons drawn from a longitudinal multiple case study. Teaching and Teacher Education 74, 49–61 Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S.L. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities. Review of Research in Education, 24, 249–305. Marsh, B., & Mitchell, N. (2014). The role of video in teacher professional development. Teacher Development, 18(3), 403–417. Moreno Herrera, L. (2016), Yrkesutbildningsutmaningar i nya tider: Vilken väg ska vi ta? Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 6(2), 66–83. Rauner, F, & Maclean, R. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of technical and vocational education and training research. Berlin, Germany: Springer. Sundberg, D. (2017). Mapping and tracing transnational curricula in classrooms: The mixed-methods approach. In N. Wahlström, & D. Sundberg (Eds.), Transnational curriculum standards and classroom practices: The new meaning of teaching (pp. 48–65). New York, NY: Routledge. Tripp, T.R., & Rich, P.J. (2012). The influence of video analysis on the process of teacher change. Teaching and Teacher Education, 28(5), 728–739. Wahlström, N., & Sundberg, D. (2015). Theory-based evaluation of the curriculum, Lgr11. Uppsala, Sweden: The Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU). Wallenborn, M. (2010). Vocational education and training and human capital development: Current practice and future options. European Journal of Education, 45(2), 181–198.
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