Teachers’ noticing and interpretations of students’ responses to silent video tasks

ABSTRACT

Four upper secondary school teachers in Iceland were asked to implement a silent video task, intended to support students’ understanding of mathematical concepts, with their 17–18 years old students and to give feedback to the researcher developing the task. The task was challenging for teachers because it required them to make a short transition from a transmission-oriented to a socio-constructive approach in a new role as facilitators of learning; encouraging students’ discussions about mathematics and utilising student-to-student explanations in a whole group discussion. An overarching research question asked how teachers’ knowledge influenced their engagement in the innovative practices. This paper reports how teachers noticed (i) mainly unclarity and what was absent in students’ responses to the silent video task, and (ii) some limiting factors and insecurities that constrained teachers’ ability to innovate.

KEYWORDS:

• Task design
• teacher knowledge
• teacher noticing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Iceland under the 100 years Anniversary Grant.