‘Bringing theory to life’: findings from an evaluation of the use of interactive video within an initial teacher preparation programme

Abstract

The development of interactive video technology offers teacher educators new possibilities for working with student teachers. This article draws on an evaluation of a project in England that used the internet to link a university teacher education faculty with local partner schools in which remotely operated Internet Protocol cameras and microphones were mounted in classrooms. During sessions at the university, tutors were able to make use of contemporaneous examples of classroom activity to illustrate their teaching, providing demonstrations that contextualised the theoretical and decontextualised the practical, assisting student teachers in developing an understanding of the relationship between theory and practice at an early stage of their initial teacher preparation course. Such systems have the potential to link university‐based teacher educators and school‐based practitioners in a number of ways and could play a part in the development of closer and perhaps more decentralised partnerships between schools and higher education institutions.

Keywords:

• teacher education
• theory–practice relationship
• interactive technology
• partnerships
• collaborative research

Acknowledgements

We should like to acknowledge the generous assistance given by Michael Eraut throughout the evaluation of the InSTEP project and in the preparation of this paper. We are grateful to Peter Adamczyk and to his colleagues at the University of Sussex School of Education for facilitating our access to both student teachers and teacher educators associated with the InSTEP project.