Studies demonstrate that teacher candidates (TCs) may capitalize on the power of video as an instructional tool (Borko, Koellner, Jacobs, & Seago, 2011; Gaudin & Chaliès, 2015). This body of research indicates advantages of the use of video, such as easier access to classroom observation; authenticity of the situation; and linkage between coursework and practice (Gaudin & Chaliès, 2015). The use of video enables a pedagogy for teacher education  “representing, decomposing and approximating practice” (Grossmann, Compton, Igra…et al., 2009, p. 2058), and scholars often suggest specific learning cycles to do so (e.g., (Borko, Jacobs, Eiteljorg, & Pittman, 2008; Lampert et al., 2013; Santagata & Guarino, 2011),.

Reviewing the literature on the use of video for professional learning, Gaudin and Chaliès (2015) identify two intertwined processes, or abilities, that are enabled through the use of video. This includes selective attention to classroom events, by many conceptualized in the terms “learning to notice” (e.g., Barnhart & van Es, 2015; Castro Superfine, Amador, & Bragelman, 2019; Seidel & Stürmer, 2014) or “perception” (Blömeke, Gustafsson, & Shavelson, 2015). Further, reasoning around these selected events is the other process of video viewing (Gaudin and Chaliès, 2015). This implies the interpretation of the events, and teachers’ ability to process the events based upon their knowledge of teaching and learning (Castro Superfine et al., 2019; Seidel & Stürmer, 2014). The combination of these complex processes might be difficult for TCs. Nevertheless, scholars argue that these are decisive processes for learning to teach (Gaudin and Chaliès, 2015).

Different frameworks conceptualize TCs’ ability to notice and reason (Castro Superfine et al., 2019; Seidel and Stürmer, 2014; van Es, 2011). For instance, Seidel and Stürmer (2014) conceptualize TCs’ ability to notice and reason according the descriptions above, and argue that strong reasoning ability—the ability to make sense of an observed situation—indicates an integrated and differentiated knowledge base, combining subject matter, pedagogy, and pedagogical subject matter, that is flexible toward the contextual situation. Poor reasoning ability indicates a fragmented and scarce knowledge base with a lack of flexibility (p. 740). In a similar vein, and building on van Es (2011) framework, Castro Superfine et al. (2019) argue that reasoning appears on four different levels. Their framework distinguishes reasoning with and without evidence. High-level reasoning is defined as when TCs “described, interpreted, and provided evidence of reasoning for interpretation, with the evidence constituting quotes, paraphrased quotes, or specific line numbers in the transcript” (p. 5). Low-level noticing are responses that lack evidence for their interpretations and are mere descriptions of what happens in videos, or a general response.

While video holds great potential to develop TCs’ ability to reason around particular teaching practices, concerns have been raised that foregrounding specific teaching practices might reduce attention to the rich contextual issues that shape particular classrooms (Zeichner, 2012; Kennedy, 2016; Philip et al., 2019). This body of research point to a danger of neglecting issues like pedagogical dilemmas (Kavanagh et al., 2020a); overall instructional purposes (Kennedy, 2016); different contextual factors and student needs (Zeichner, 2012; Kennedy, 2016; Kavanagh et al., 2020b). These concerns are of particular interest to our analysis of the TCs’ reasoning, and our analytical framework thus includes aspects of this body of research, as well as the research refered above, when we set out to investigate the role that video can play in spuring generative discussions during teacher education coursework.

In this paper we investigate one case of Language Arts coursework using videos of teaching throughout one academic year, through the research question: What characterizes TCs’ reasoning around videos of teaching, in groups and in plenary, during coursework?

This study is set within an integrated 5-year teacher education program at a Norwegian university. The program’s candidates have their teacher training in semesters 3, 6 and 7. This paper reports on data from semesters 6 and 7, from the coursework of pedagogical content knowledge in Norwegian Language Arts. One TE (the second author of this paper) and 30 TCs participated. Selected videos of authentic classroom teaching were used during coursework, and the lessons focused on specific features of scaffolding techniques. We defined teacher’s scaffolding practices according to the Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observation [PLATO] (version 5.0, Grossmann, 2015), i.e., teachers’ use of modeling, strategy use and instruction, and feedback. We report on five lessons (450 minutes) across semesters 6 and 7. We have chosen to focus on the whole-class discussions across these lessons, as well as the TCs discussions in smaller groups, to capture all TC reasoning. To capture the observation data, we used a two-camera solution, with one camera in the front of the classroom, and one in the back. We distributed four microphones across the classroom, and one designated to the TE. All data was transcribed using IncScribe, and analyzed using the software NVivo12. To investigate the teacher candidates’ reasoning, we conducted a qualitative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Our unit of analysis was episodes of pedagogical reasoning (Horn, 2005, 2007), which we defined as episodes of talk between TCs (in groups) or between TCs and TE during which candidates described issues or raised questions about the three practices for instructional scaffolding, accompanied by some elaboration of reasons, explanations, or justifications. We developed an analytical framework based on research on teacher (candidate) reasoning (van Es, 2011), and research on specific features of pedagogical reasoning (i.e., attention to instructional purposes (Kennedy, 2016), different contexts and student needs (Zeichner, 2012)). We also included codes from our empirical data, for instance the code “connecting to own practice”. The analysis occurred in three stages. First, we identified all the episodes of pedagogical reasoning that related to the three practices for instructional scaffolding. Second, we coded the episodes with our initial codes, and developed new codes to describe what did not fit within our initial codes. Finally, we fine-tuned the codes in relation to our empirical data and developed subcodes that captured the nuances in the candidates’ reasoning related to their observations of the three practices for instructional scaffolding.

Initial findings indicate that while discussing the classroom videos in groups during coursework, candidates were able to identify and describe all scaffolding practices in the videos. The reasoning in groups are however often evaluative in terms of what the teachers do in the videos, not necessarily based in evidene from the videos or evidene from theories or coursework readings on the practices of instructional scaffolding. Sometimes the discussions also drift of to more or less related experiences from the candidates’ own fieldwork. While discussing in plenary, however, the reasoning around the videos were to a greater extent based in evidence from the videos, or based in evidence from thepretical readings or theoretical concepts related to the practices of instructional scaffolding. On these specific occations, the candidates were often encouraged by the teacher educator to do so. Still, the candidates seldom connected their reasoning to the contextual factors of the lesson, such as the overall purpose of the lesson, or schooling in itself. To a small extent, they reasoned around the consequences for specific students in the videos, or didactical dilemmas inherent in applying specific strategies for teaching, such as modeling a poetry analysis, for instance. But this also to a great extent was a result of prompting by the teacher educator. Our findings indicate the important role that the use of video can have in grounding teacher education in practice, and in helping the candidates to connect the theories and theorietical terms that they read on campus to practices in school. Our findings also point to the importance of the teacher educator support in pushing the reasoning of the teacher candidates, paying attention to not only theories of teaching, but also the contextual factors related to the specific lesson and students in the videos.

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