Some Exploratory Uses of Interactive Video in Teacher Education: Designing and Presenting Interactive Video Sequences to Primary Student Teachers

Abstract

This study examines the potential use of interactive video in promoting Primary students’ thinking about, and their interpretation of, various classroom episodes as a means of making them more aware of the processes of learning how to teach. Implicit in the design of teacher‐education programmes are certain assumptions about the nature and growth of teacher knowledge. Our interactive video programmes are designed to explore the main features of that knowledge using Shulman's distinction between subject‐matter and pedagogical knowledge. Each programme has been designed to represent different aspects of both types of knowledge by using a range of exemplars of typical primary classroom practices. The interactive learning tasks are intended to encourage students to describe, analyse and evaluate various teaching episodes by comparing alternative images of practice, by considering the appropriateness of particular classroom activities and through discussing aspects of their own practice, using a detailed set of teaching‐practice criteria.