DEVELOPING EXPERTISE: USING VIDEO 1
Developing Expertise: Using Video to Hone Teacher Candidates’
Classroom Observation Skills
Abstract
This article explores the impact of a video observation model for teacher candidates in an early experiences course. Video Grand Rounds (VGR) combines a structured observation protocol, videos, and structured debriefing to develop the observations skills necessary for non-structured and field based observations. A comparative research design was employed for this VGR study. Both quantitative and qualitative data inform the results. Four major findings illuminate the impact of participating in VGR: focus, complexity, support and structured modeling, and transfer. The degree to which VGR teacher candidates transferred skills and knowledge suggest that this model builds a foundation of conceptual understandings.
Developing Expertise: Using Video to Hone Teacher Candidates’
Classroom Observation Skills
Classroom observations have long been an unchallenged staple of teacher education programs throughout the United States. Each semester teacher candidates at various stages in their development trek to the classrooms of teachers willing to host them for a varying number of hours or days so that these teacher candidates might glean insight into the worlds they wish to inhabit at the end of their training. Over the last several years, however, teacher education programs, and professional development efforts as well, have begun turning to video as a vehicle for sharing classroom interactions, exemplary practices, and specific learning experiences (Borko, Jacobs, Eiteljorg, & Pittman, 2008; Youens, Smethem, & Sullivan, 2014). Further, a growing body of research suggests that viewing videos focused on classroom interactions and instruction prompts teacher candidates to reflect more deeply on classroom events (MacLean & White, 2007) and engage more actively and personally in the event (Goldman, 2007). In response, some teacher education programs are embedding video at different points in their curriculum.
During the 2012-2013 academic year, while engaging in a series of program revisions, elementary education faculty at a large, public university turned to video to address concerns about their early field experience course. The course, taken in the sophomore year, included a 16-hour field placement requirement. Those 16 hours, which represented 14% of the 111 hours of required field experience that their teacher candidates spent in classrooms before their internship (Dobson, 2013), often did not provide the level of focused, meaningful experiences that the faculty desired. Despite efforts to provide meaningful observations, clinical teachers could rarely predict with certainty what would be occurring in their classroom weeks ahead of time, and as a result, teacher candidates sometimes found themselves observing a class of students taking a test or reading silently for a block of time. Within this context, teacher candidates seemed at times to be merely clocking hours in the early experience course without consistency in what they did or did not observe.
In an effort to capitalize on their teacher candidates’ first experience of looking at classroom interactions not as students, but as future teachers, faculty sought to enhance not only what the candidates saw, but to encourage them to develop the observation and reflection skills that they needed most in order to become a well-started beginning teacher. As a result, the Video Grand Rounds (VGR) model was developed and examined.
Background for Instrument Implementation and Study
This research of the VGR model called upon three interrelated constructs: the theoretical framework of pedagogies of practice, the practical application of classroom videos as case studies, and the conceptual framework of medical grand rounds.
Pedagogies of Practice
The theoretical frame for reconfiguring elementary education’s early field experience course drew on the notion of pedagogies of practice (Grossman, Compton, Igra, Ronfeldt, Shahan, & Williamson, 2009) as informed by the concepts of reflection, coaching, and low risk learning environments (Schön, 1987). In their work, Grossman et al. (2009) identified three key components for understanding the pedagogies of practice in programs of professional education: representations, decomposition, and approximations. Representation of practice defines the ways that an element of educational practice is embodied and made visible to the novice, in elementary education’s case, the teacher candidate. Decomposition refers to breaking down visible practice into parts so that novices may learn the practice. Finally, approximation refers to the novice’s opportunities to begin to engage in professional practices. The research described here focused on the first two components of pedagogies of practice: representation and decomposition.
In describing representation, Grossman et al. (2009) consider the complexity that novices to a field must face each time they attempt to understand a new facet of their profession. Two discrete factors are necessary to understand the pedagogy of practice: “pedagogical actions” and associated “thought processes” (p. 2067); yet, often when teachers represent their practice, they privilege one component over the other. As a result, a novice teacher candidate may see the practice, but not recognize the thought processes behind it, or conversely may hear the thought processes without seeing the actual practice. One may be visible; the other may be hidden.
The second component in the theoretical frame, decomposition, involves identifying the elements that are critical to a particular profession’s practice. Once identified, these elements become the focus of explicit instruction in order to build knowledge and skill. Examples of practice that are common to teacher education at all levels and that benefit from decomposition include lesson planning, and on an even more complex level, unit planning. In decomposing the practice of lesson planning, educators provide teacher candidates with a means through which to view, consider, examine, and enact the various elements required to plan a lesson.
Complicating teacher candidates’ efforts to observe and understand practices and classroom interactions in meaningful ways during their early field experiences, however, is one common factor: their position as students. The dozen or more years that teacher candidates have each spent as K-12 classroom students, and their continuing position as students within their teacher education program and other classes, predisposes them to apply the lens of a student rather than the lens of a teacher in viewing classroom settings. Consequently, as several studies have noted, teacher candidates must be taught during early observation experiences to see the classroom from a teacher’s perspective and to connect and apply university coursework to the classroom (Greene, 2009; Hult & Edens, 2001; McDevitt, 1996).
What, then, do these concepts suggest to teacher educators working with beginning teacher candidates? Schön (1987) asserts that those engaged in professional education require not only opportunities to learn by doing, but also careful coaching in low-risk settings by others who have already been initiated into the profession, and Grossman et al. (2009) argue that
to help novices develop such professional vision or disciplined perception of a complex practice, instructors must first possess a set of categories for describing practice and then, during instruction, focus students’ attention on these components of practice. By decomposing complex practices, professional educators can help students learn first to attend to, and then to enact, the essential elements of a practice. (p. 2069)
Thus, as teacher candidates make their first forays into classrooms, not as students, but as future teachers, they require education instructors prepared and willing to identify essential aspects of representations, to decompose elements of practice, and to provide structured, supported, opportunities to develop and apply essential skills.
Videos as Case Studies
Research conducted over the last ten years suggests that case studies (Merriam, 2007) are effective in encouraging teacher candidates to recognize important aspects of instruction in classroom settings (Brophy, 2004; Marsh, Mitchell, & Adamczyk, 2010). Rooted in the concept of the situative perspective in teacher education (Putnam & Borko, 2000), a theory adapted for teacher education from the Theory of Situated Cognition (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989) that asserts that learning must occur within authentic contexts, case studies provide teacher candidates with authentic experiences and have been used in law, business, and medical schools. In teacher education, videos of classroom interactions are increasingly being viewed as instantiations of case study and are being employed as effective means of engaging and instructing teacher candidates.
Video offers several advantages over live classroom observations in the field. First, videos are predictable and reliable. They include the same information each time they are watched. Second, when all members of a group view the same video, that video becomes a common text, able to be referenced by all. Third, events can be slowed down and viewed numerous times, allowing for opportunities for discussion and reflection. Moreover, a growing body of research affirms the impact of video as an instructional tool when combined with appropriate faculty-provided structure and guidance (Brophy, 2004; Greene, 2009; Hult & Edens, 2001; Marsh, Mitchell & Adamczyk, 2010; McDevitt, 1996; Santagata, Zannoni, & Stigler, 2007; Star & Strickland, 2007). Sonmez and Hakverdi-Can (2012) found that science education teacher candidates showed progress in their ability to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a lesson and to identify salient aspects of the teaching process when they viewed and discussed topic-specific videos. Likewise, Santagata, Zannoni, and Stigler (2007) used videos for two years in a teacher education program to teach lesson analysis and found that when they provided a specific framework to guide observations, teacher candidates’ comments on the video moved from simple descriptions of the teaching event to describing the effects instruction was having on the learner.
Hence, the use of video as a strategy for observational training in teacher education programs meets multiple criteria for effective teacher education. It honors the importance of providing the teacher candidates with learning opportunities situated within authentic contexts (Putnam & Borko, 2000) while simultaneously providing an avenue for their learning to be structured, guided, and discussed by and with faculty instructor.
Video Grand Rounds
The final construct of this study concerns the conceptual frame provided by an instructional strategy borrowed from the medical world: rounding (DelPrete, 1997; Roegman & Riehl, 2012; Thompson & Cooner, 2001). During medical grand rounds, a group of medical students at a novice level in their training, accompanies a licensed medical doctor to observe the experienced doctor’s treatment of patients. After the patients have been seen, the group and doctor engage in discussions regarding what the medical students observed about the patients’ symptoms, needs, immediate medical treatment, and follow-up care (Hebert & Wright, 2003; Cuthrell, Stapleton, Bullock, Lys, Smith, Fogarty, 2014). When this model is applied to a teacher education setting, video clips of classroom teaching take the place of visits to patients and provide the basis for discussion on the elements of quality instruction and of a positive learning environment. Just as medical students gain medical expertise through their discussions with the experienced doctors, teacher candidates develop educational expertise through their discussions with faculty instructors.
Hence, the Video Grand Rounds (VGR) model introduces a conceptual framework for novice teacher candidates’ observations using video clips as common, shared texts that are a standardized and efficient means for guiding classroom observation experiences. VGR requires teacher candidates to view a series of four classroom-based videos, one video per week; complete a structured observation protocol after watching each video; and participate in a whole-class debriefing discussion with classmates and a faculty member following each video observation. During these debriefing sessions, faculty intentionally model how classroom teachers might think about the events shown in the video. Through prompting questions and comments, faculty encourage teacher candidates to view classrooms from the perspective of a teacher, rather than through the lens of a P-12 classroom student, a position that teacher candidates have occupied for most of their academic careers. The overarching goal of the VGR model, then, is to provide teacher candidates with structured opportunities to develop the observations skills necessary to focus on elements of quality instruction. Figure 1 outlines the classroom observation process for the VGR model in the early experience course.
Insert Figure 1 here
Methodology
A comparative research design was employed for this VGR model study. The comparative method (Charles, 1998; Gay & Airasian, 2000; Gliner & Morgan, 2000; Martella, Nelson, & Marchand-Martella, 1999) examines the presumed effect of an independent variable as differences among groups are explored. For the purpose of this study, the performance of teacher candidates in the sections using the treatment (VGR model: incorporation of classroom videos for observation, structured observation protocol, in-class debriefing conversations) were compared to teacher candidates engaging in unstructured observations of school classrooms in the field on a variety of outcome measures. The research design compared performance between the two groups to determine if there was a measurable difference in teacher candidates’ transfer of skills and knowledge. All participants in this research were enrolled in a one-credit early experience education course and were limited in their prior knowledge of both curricular context and instructional strategies.
Procedures
In spring 2014, 65 sophomore-level teacher candidates participated in the VGR model study. All were assigned to either a treatment or control group based on course section enrollment. Seventeen teacher candidates were in the control group, and ten (59%) agreed to allow their data to be used. Forty-eight teacher candidates were enrolled in the treatment group, and 34 (71%) agreed to allow their data to be used.
Teacher candidates in the treatment group (VGR group) used a locally-developed, structured observation protocol as a guide for viewing four video clips (one clip per week) prior to engaging in observations in the field. See Appendix A. Teacher candidates enrolled in the control group engaged only in observations in the field without the use of videos, observation protocols, or debriefing sessions.
Teacher candidates enrolled in the VGR sections were provided a multicomponent treatment. In order to satisfy 12 of the 16 hours of required observation, the VGR group engaged in the following:
1. Beginning in week 5 of the semester, they viewed, outside of class time, one video per week for four consecutive weeks.
2. They completed an observation protocol form for each video they watched.
3. They participated weekly in instructor-led, debriefing session about what was observed in the video clips.
After the four videos had been viewed and discussed, the final four-hour observation requirement was satisfied with four hours of observations in the field. The VGR group completed an observation protocol on the observations in the field and then participated in a final in-class debriefing session during which they discussed their observation in the field experiences. As shown in Figure 1, the use of representative classroom video clips preceded the sequence of field observations and the follow-up debriefing session.