Exploring a Video-Embedded Pedagogy for Preparing Novice Science Teachers for Equity

• In Event: 75.019 - Advancing the Knowledge Base to Improve Teaching: Generating a Design Framework for Video-Based Activity Systems

Abstract

Objective: This study explores a video-embedded pedagogy for developing novice teachers’ capacity to create equitable and meaningful learning environments in secondary science classrooms. The goal is to articulate design principles and strategies to facilitate preservice science teachers’ learning with explicit attention to equity.
Theoretical Framework: Sociocultural and critical race theory (CRT) (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Parson, 2017) guide this work. Situated squarely between teachers’ past experiences as students in classrooms and their future experiences as teachers in classrooms, preservice teacher education presents unique opportunities to alter novice teachers’ trajectories, and disrupt traditional instruction that marginalizes youth from historically underserved communities. A central task of preservice teacher education in preparing novice teachers for equity is to increase novices’ interpretive power (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Rosebery, 2017) by problematizing and expanding novices’ frame of reference (Kennedy, 1999). In theory, this begins by cultivating novices’ critical recognition that their views and expectations about discipline, teaching and learning are constructed in a racialized and unjust society that historically privileged certain group’s experiences, knowledge, culture, and languages. The questions that guide this study are:
1. What are the principles and strategies that guide the design of a video-embedded activity for increasing secondary science teacher candidates’ interpretative power?
2. How do the candidates respond to a video-embedded activity designed for problematizing and expanding their frames of reference?

Data Sources and Methods: To identify the principles and strategies for increasing novices’ interpretative power in a video-embedded activity setting (RQ1), three bodies of literature are synthesized: 1) equitable science teaching, 2) preservice teacher learning, and 3) use of video for equity. A framework that consists of principles and strategies is tested with secondary science teacher candidates to understand its utility (RQ2). Data are: (a) video-recordings of the class sessions, (b) candidates-generated learning artifacts, (c) videos, and (d) interviews with the participants. The data are coded in two layers: First, novices’ trajectories of discourses across settings and over time. Next, guided by CRT, novice teachers’ discourses were coded once again attending to power, race, and racism.
Findings: The analyses of literature point to the five dimensions that need to be explicitly attended by novices when interpreting situations in classrooms. Those are: 1) history, 2) race and racism, 3) power and privilege, 4) culture, and 5) languages. The preliminary analyses suggest the framework is useful in surfacing and confronting novices’ ideas that could make the science learning environment exclusive and inaccessible to historically marginalized youth. However, video-based conversation it and of itself is limited to alter novices’ normalized views, assumptions and ideological beliefs unless this activity is coupled with other humanized learning experiences that increases novices’ deep appreciation toward the lived experiences of people from historically marginalized communities.
Significance: Noticing unequal learning opportunities shaped in the moment of interactions in classrooms is foundational to promote equity, but extremely challenging to novice teachers. A framework for designing a video-embedded pedagogy for equity will advance the knowledge base on teacher education by articulating pedagogy of teacher preparation.

Authors

• Hosun Kang, Seoul National University

• Jiwon Lee, University of California - Irvine