Interacting Reflective Responses to Self and Peer Classroom Video Help Make Sense of Teacher Learning

• In Event: 75.042 - MTCC Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: 75.042-5 - Developing Reflective Practices During Field Experiences for Preservice Teachers

Abstract

When used strategically as resources for reflection, videos of their own classrooms can help teachers unsettle what and how they think about their teaching in productive ways. Eight secondary science student teachers each watched, shared, and reflected about four field lesson observations alone and in meetings with their cohorts. Student teachers whose reflections deviated from a one-way, teacher-oriented ‘best practices’ position, whose perceptions about teaching were at an arm’s distance from their peers, and whose teaching goals and gauges for student success were sufficiently aligned moved toward more robust reform-mindedness about their practices. The findings show how video-based protocols of intermediate levels of flexibility can prompt teachers to generate original change-directed thinking on which they are more likely to act.

Author

• Robert Danielowich, Adelphi University