TAP Teacher learning and application to
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Handbook of Research on
Teacher Education in the Digital Age Margaret L. Niess Oregon State University, USA Henry Gillow-Wiles Oregon State University, USA A volume in the Advances in Higher Education and Professional Development (AHEPD) BookManaging Director: Lindsay Johnston Managing Editor: Austin DeMarco Director of Intellectual Property & Contracts: Jan Travers Acquisitions Editor: Kayla Wolfe Production Editor: Christina Henning Development Editor: Caitlyn Martin Typesetter: Kaitlyn Kulp Cover Design: Jason Mull Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global)
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Chapter 13 TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy)
through Digital Video-
Mediated Relections
Poonam Arya
Wayne State University, USA
Tanya Christ
Oakland University, USA
Ming Ming Chiu
Purdue University, USA
ABSTRACTThis chapter presents relevant indings from research that explored literacy teachers’ self-relections and
relective discussions with peers that were mediated by digital video. Mixed methodological approaches
were used, including statistical discourse analysis, which examines the relations between speech-turns
in teachers’ video discussions to provide a ine-grained view of digital video’s mediating role. Findings
showed that recursive viewing of videos, across diferent contexts or within a context facilitated shifts
in purposes for discussing videos and broadened the foci of these discussions. Additionally, the situ-
ated context and multiple modes of information presented in digital videos supported literacy teachers’
generation and application of ideas about reader processing and reader engagement. Teachers used
certain conversation moves, such as critical thinking, hypothesizing, and challenging, as they transacted
with the multimodal information in the video to support their generation of ideas for literacy instruction.
Implications and future research directions are discussed.TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this chapter is to share what was learned through a research agenda across the last four years about using digital video as a tool to mediate literacy teachers’ reflections and reflec- tive discussions to inform practices for literacy teacher education in the digital age. Our interest in using digital video to mediate literacy teachers’ reflections and reflective discussions in reading practicum courses stemmed from the opportunities they provide for teachers to (1) consider multiple perspectives about pedagogy, (2) challenge their prior beliefs about teaching and shift or expand their pedagogical views, (3) understand the complexities of classroom literacy instruction, (4) consider the particular advantages and disad- vantages of different instructional practices for specific contexts to better analyze and respond to diverse instructional situations, (5) replay videos to learn recursively and address individual learn- ing needs, and (6) receive more useful specific feedback about their pedagogy (Boling, 2004; Copeland & Decker, 1996; Harrison, Pead, & Sheard, 2006; Kinzer, Cammack, Laboo, Teale, & Sanny, 2006; Tripp & Rich, 2012).
Despite this body of knowledge about the mer- its of digital video, however, little is known about how video mediates literacy teachers’ learning outcomes, such as their generation or application of ideas for their literacy instruction. In this chapter, we present a synthesis of the relevant findings from across our research agenda spanning 2010-2014 that highlights the mediating role of video used as a tool to facilitate literacy teachers’ learning during individual reflections and reflective group discussions with peers.
BACKGROUND within a collaborative and social environment.
First, multimodal literacies and transactional perspectives are presented to contextualize the use of digital videos in teacher education. Second, the advantages of digital video for facilitating teachers’ learning are discussed. Third, research on video mediated self-reflections and reflection with peers is examined that offers multiple ways of using digital videos in teacher education.
Theoretical Perspectives
From a multimodal literacies perspective (e.g., Kalantzis & Cope, 2008), digital videos act as a form of “text” with which viewers can transact and construct meaning. This is similar to how readers engage in “complex, nonlinear, recursive” trans- actions with traditional text (Rosenblatt, 2004, p. 1371). However, digital video captures multiple modes of information (visual and auditory) that can present more complex pathways for processing information than transcriptions of oral accounts of teaching events alone (Kress, 2010; Wolfe & Flewitt, 2010). For example, video affords op- portunities to attend to many multimodal aspects of teaching events, such as facial expressions, gestures, and verbal interactions (Brophy, 2004; Koc, Peker, & Osmanoglu, 2009; Sherin & Han, 2004). Thus, digital video grounds discussions in ways that are “virtually impossible when referents are remote or merely rhetorical” (Ball & Cohen, 1999, p. 17).
These affordances of digital video are most powerful when used in a situated social context of a community of learners in which teachers collectively construct meaning through complex transactions with the multiple modes of infor- mation embedded in the video to solve the real problems presented in the video event (Greeno, 2003; Kress, 2010; Lave, 2004; Vygotsky, 1978; Wenger, 2001; Wolfe & Flewitt, 2010). Through
TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections
thinking about and constructing meaning for teach- ing events, thus optimizing teachers’ individual growth within their zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). Further, these processes support teachers’ abilities to collectively construct solu- tions to problems situated in the video that would be difficult to solve alone (Grossman, Wineburg, & Woolworth, 2001; Kinzer et al., 2006; Lave, 2004; Putnam & Borko, 2000; Vygotsky, 1978).
Advantages of Digital Video for Teacher Education
Digital video has several advantages as compared to analog: ease of video capture, ability to edit video, ease of sharing, and ease of interactivity. These attributes support teachers as they use digital video to reflect on practices to expand and trans- form their understandings about pedagogy (e.g., Arya, Christ, & Chiu, in press; Christ et al., 2012; Christ et al., 2014; Christ et al., in press; Fadde & Sullivan, 2013; Harford & MacRuairc, 2008; Miller, 2009; van Es & Sherin, 2010).
Given the recent developments in video tech- nologies and easy access to relatively affordable video recorders, digital video is easy to capture (de Mesquita, Dean, & Young, 2010; Rich & Han- nafin, 2009; Savas, 2012). For example, built-in cameras in laptops, tablets, and phones, small portable video cameras with built in hard drives, and innovations like Flip cameras allow teachers to easily carry equipment around the classroom to record their instructional sessions. Also, digital videos tend to have good sound quality, due to the close proximity of the camera with built in microphone to the teacher and students. On the other hand, analog videos, or videos taken with cameras using mini digital cassettes, usually are cumbersome to collect because of multiple exter- nal microphones and wires stretching across the room and the need to change cassettes frequently, tag segments of the video that feature behaviors of interest (de Mesquita et al., 2010; Kumar & Miller, 2005; McFadden, Ellis, Anwar, & Roehrig, 2014). The hands-on approach of re-viewing the video and producing short video clips that look at classroom instruction from different perspectives supports teachers’ development of pedagogical knowledge (Boling & Adams, 2008; Masats & Dooly, 2011). Additionally, editing digital videos this way has been linked to changes in teachers’ views about student thinking and learning as well as their own teaching practices (de Mesquita et al., 2010; Yerrick, Ross, & Molebash, 2005).
Digital video is stored as digital files that can be easily converted to a variety of formats, making it compatible with different hardware and software (de Mesquita et al., 2010; Savas, 2012). They can be viewed from the same machine on which they are captured immediately after recording is stopped, or easily shared across multiple platforms, operating systems, and applications (e.g., Google Drive or Dropbox) within minutes. Given the ease of storing, accessing, and sharing digital video files, they are simpler to use in a variety of ways for reflecting on teaching (Kumar & Miller, 2005; de Mesquita et al., 2010). Analog videos, on the other hand, need to be converted and transferred in a compatible format that might not always be possible and can be time consuming.
Unlike analog, digital videos are interactive. According to Boyle (1997, as cited in Karppinen, 2005), digital videos should not be treated as a “procedural” resource, which runs along a set path, but as a “declarative” resource, which can be entered at a number of points and negotiated in multiple ways (p. 237). Digital videos allow teachers to instantaneously access any part of the video simply by clicking on the appropriate part of the recording as they search for and revisit clips of classroom instruction (Boling & Adams, 2008; Newhouse, Lane, & Brown, 2007). The
TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections
and development of shared knowledge,” (Masats & Dooly, 2011, p. 1160; McFadden et al., 2014; Zhang, Lundeburg, Koehler, & Eberhardt, 2011).
Digital Video-Mediated Reflections
Digital video-mediated reflections have been sug- gested as a means to bridge the “apparent chasm between what often happens in university-based teacher education and teaching in schools—a theory-practice gap” (Bencze, Hewitt, & Pedretti, 2001, p. 192). Digital video creates opportunities for teachers to view and refer to multiple modes of information embedded in the video. It also allows teachers to focus on this information within a spe- cific episode of instruction, and through complex transactions between viewers and video, come to understand pedagogy differently through analytic discussions (Lewis, Perry, & Murata, 2006; Tripp & Rich, 2012). Given the advantages of digital videos, two ways that video has been used as a dynamic multimodal source of information to deepen teachers’ reflective practices are worth further exploration: (1) self-reflection (includ- ing video editing) of one’s own teaching, and (2) reflection on these events with peers.
Video-Mediated Self-Reflection
Video self-reflection provides a means for teachers to step back, explicitly notice what is important, and recognize discrepancies between what they remember occurred during instruction and actual evidence in the video (Rich & Hannafin, 2009; Sherin & van Es, 2005; Yerrick et al., 2005). The recursivity of digital video viewing (e.g., re-viewing, re-visiting, and zooming in on differ- ent segments of the video), scaffolds what Schön (1987) referred to as reflection on action. Further, the ease with which digital videos can be captured and shared allows teachers to view the videos for discuss with their peers in face-to-face or online contexts (e.g., Christ et al., in press; So, Pow, & Hung, 2009; van Es & Sherin, 2008). Researchers have found that the process of editing and anno- tating the video fosters deeper reflection on the part of the teachers by allowing them to process the video in many different ways, such as mak- ing connections between concepts, responding to video content using different “observational frames,” and considering alternative interpreta- tions and solutions (Beck, King, & Marshall, 2002; Calandra, Brantley-Dias, Lee, & Fox, 2009; Sanny & Teale, 2008; Sherin & van Es, 2005; van Es & Sherin, 2008).
Video-Mediated Reflection with Peers
The benefits of using digital videos are particu- larly conducive for teachers who come together to discuss videos of their own teaching with peers. Different names have been used by researchers to describe this practice, such as video-based
dialogue (Miller, 2009), video club (Sherin & van
Es, 2005), video analysis (Tripp & Rich, 2012), and collaborative peer video analysis (CPVA; Arya et al., in press; Christ et al., 2012; Christ et al., 2014). CPVA particularly focuses on the analytic component of peer discussions. The rela- tions between several aspects of these reflective discussions, such as purposes for which teachers select video clips to share, aspects of pedagogy they discuss, the conversation moves they employ, and sources of information they use, and their outcomes may be mediated by the use of digital videos. However, this mediation has not been explicitly explored in previous research.
Previous research showed that the purposes (e.g. to share a problem or success) for which pre-service teachers selected video clips of their teaching practices from across multiple subject areas to share with peers was related to the ideas
TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections
of video in these discussions on teachers’ purposes and outcomes were not explored. Additionally, previous research has shown that teachers discuss several aspects of pedagogy, including methods and materials, students’ processing of information (e.g., reader processing in literacy), and issues related to student engagement (Brantlinger, Sherin, & Linsenmeier, 2011; Harford & MacRuairc, 2008; Koc et al., 2009; Llinares & Valls, 2009, 2010; Miller, 2009; Sherin & van Es, 2005). However, research has not explored how digital video mediates viewers’ transactions between the videos of their own teaching practices and their discussion of these specific aspects of pedagogy. Likewise, researchers have identified specific conversation moves used by teachers during these video-mediated discussions, such as recalling, probing, questioning, hypothesizing, agreeing, disagreeing, extending, connecting, and challeng- ing (Boling, 2004; Juzwik, Caughlan, Heintz, & Borsheim-Black, 2012; Llinares & Valls, 2009; Miller, 2009; Sherin & van Es, 2005). However, research has not explored how video content is related to these conversation moves. Understand- ing these relationships is important to improve the use and efficacy of video-mediated discussions in literacy teacher education. Finally, previous research has identified that teachers use multiple sources of information in video-mediated discus- sions of pedagogy (Harford & MacRuairc, 2008; Koc et al., 2009; Llinares & Valls, 2009, 2010; Sherin & van Es, 2005; Smith, 2005). However, this research has not explored how these sources of information are related to literacy teachers’ video discussion outcomes. Particularly, this chapter focuses on two sources of information –video and discussion content.
VIDEO-MEDIATED REFLECTION IN LITERACY TEACHER PREPARATION
Video-mediated discussions of teachers’ own pedagogy with peers may also support the appli- cation of ideas learned in this context to literacy teaching practices. While previous research has shows that when teachers apply their learning, this is often related to opportunities to do so (Lim & Kim, 2003; Lim & Morris, 2004-2005; Selzer, 2008). Given the situated context for learning in video-mediated discussions of literacy teachers’ own pedagogy, and the opportunity for applying this learning in subsequent lessons in their clinical practicum, it seems likely that teachers will apply at least some of what they learn to their literacy instruction.
This chapter presents research conducted over the past four years exploring video-mediated reflec- tions in literacy teacher preparation courses. After teachers captured their teaching events on digital video, they self-reflected on these individually, and then selected clips from the video to share and discuss with peers through collaborative peer video analysis (CPVA) (Arya et al., in press; Christ et al., 2012; Christ et al., 2014; Christ et al., in press). Self-reflections included (1) recursively viewing the video, (2) writing a reflective response based on guiding questions provided by the professor (e.g., What did you do well? What did not go so well? What would you do differently next time?), and (3) selecting a clip from the video to share with peers for CPVA and identifying a focus for the discussion. CPVA included (1) a teacher present- ing the clip s/he selected and sharing the purpose that she identified through her self-reflection, (2) the teacher and her colleagues dynamically view- ing and re-viewing this clip together, and (3) their discussion of the content of the clip to generate new pedagogical ideas that could be applied to this teacher’s literacy practices.
Four studies are included in this discussion of the impact of video-mediated reflection in teacher
TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections
relevant findings from these studies related to how digital video mediates literacy teachers’ learning through the complex, recursive transactions with it are presented. Finally, recommendations for the use of digital videos in literacy teacher preparation that are based on the findings from these studies are discussed.
Methods
The research team conducted a series of studies about CPVA. Arya and Christ were the professors of the courses in which the research was conducted. All course enrollees were invited to participate in the research. No incentive or penalty was given for participation. The courses involved two-semester reading clinic practica that focused on literacy assessment and assessment-based instruction (for studies 1, 2, 3, and 4) and an undergraduate service-learning course (also included in study 4). All graduate-level teachers in these studies taught literacy at some level from K-12, and undergraduate students were studying to become elementary school teachers. Only studies 2 and 3 share the same dataset and participants. All other studies presented here have unique datasets and participants.
Before teachers in the studies engaged in CPVA, they all had participated in video case- study discussions that were facilitated by the professors in their respective reading practicum courses. Thus, teachers had some guided experi- ence engaging in analysis of literacy events to set a foundation for engaging in CPVA. Also, all teachers had an opportunity to edit and self-reflect on the video of their literacy teaching practices as part of the process of selecting video clips and foci for the CPVA discussions.
Study 1
of 18 female graduate-level literacy teachers’ reflections across three contexts in their reading clinic practicum courses: video case-study reflec- tions, video self-reflections, and CPVA (Christ et al., in press). Reflections had two steps that were part of the coursework: (1) transactions between viewer and video (used as a multimodal text) to construct understandings about the teaching event, and (2) written responses to guided written reflection templates (as suggested by McFadden et al., 2014). To encourage candid responses on the written reflection templates, points were given for simply completing these assignments.
A total of 133 video case-study reflections, 55 video self-reflections, and 50 CPVA reflections were collected as data sources. Ideas that teachers stated they learned in these video-mediated reflec- tions were organized in a database. A teacher’s ideas about an issue that she reflected on across multiple contexts over time were organized across multiple columns (one column for each reflective response) within the same row. A teacher’s ideas that were about different issues were organized on different rows. Thus, information across rows reflected breadth of ideas on which a teacher re- flected, and information across columns reflected the depth of reflection a teacher engaged in about an issue.
Grounded theory, including emergent coding and constant comparative analysis (Corbin & Strauss, 2008), was used to identify categories and themes that reflected the patterns of teachers’ development of depth and breadth of ideas about literacy pedagogy across the three video-mediated reflective contexts. Arya and Christ coded all data, and discrepancies were reviewed and discussed to achieve consensus.
Study 2
To understand the purposes for which teachers
TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections
conducted. These discussions occurred amongst 14 female graduate-level teachers enrolled in read- ing clinic practicum courses (Christ et al., 2012).
As part of the course requirements, all teach- ers were asked to select and share at least one instructional and one assessment video clip of their practice for CPVA. Teachers were asked to select a video clip from their practice that they wanted to share and discuss with their peers, and explain why they chose the clip when they presented it for CPVA. Most teachers chose to share more than the required two video clips, stating that they wanted additional feedback from their peers on their practices. Anecdotally, teachers commented that they found CPVA useful in helping them generate ideas to improve their pedagogy.
All CPVA events were video-recorded and transcribed for analysis. For each CPVA event, we identified whether the video clips teachers chose were of assessment or instruction. A combination of codes used in previous research (Calandra et al., 2006; Harford & MacRuairc, 2008; Miller, 2009) and emergent coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) were used to categorize the purposes for which teachers chose their clips to share (i.e., sharing an explicitly visible problem, an implicit problem, or a success) and the aspects of pedagogy that were discussed (i.e., literacy methods/materials, reader engagement, or reader processing). The codes were iteratively developed, applied, and revised until the first two authors (Arya and Christ) were in agreement. Both the use of previous codes and rigorous emergent coding development ensured the validity of these codes. Finally, Arya and Christ coded all the data independently, and developed consensus for any disagreements. Inter-rater reli- ability was calculated using Krippendorf’s (2004) α. Krippendorff’s (2004) α was used because it can be applied to incomplete data, any sample size, any measurement level, any number of cod- ers or categories, and scale values. Ranging from ficient reliability for analysis. Next, a constant comparative method (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) was used to identify patterns that described how teachers’ purposes for sharing videos and aspects of pedagogy discussed were related across the 39 CPVA events.
Finally, two discussion outcomes were coded: teachers’ generation of ideas that could be ap- plied to literacy teaching practices to address the situation in the video, and teachers’ expressions that they were considering applying these ideas to their practice. Then, preliminary statistical analyses were conducted to identify the relations between purposes for sharing video clips and these outcomes. As the dataset had (a) missing data, (b) multiple outcomes, (c) indirect media- tion effects and (d) false positives, ordinary least squares regressions were inadequate. To address each of these issues, we used the following: (a) MCMC-MI to estimate the values of the missing data as discussed above (Peugh & Enders, 2004), (b) Zellner’s method systems of equations to model multiple outcomes (Kennedy, 2008), (c) Sobel mediation test to test for mediation (Kennedy, 2008) and (d) two-stage linear step up procedure to reduce false positives as discussed above (Ben- jamini, Krieger, & Yekutieli, 2006).
Study 3
In a follow-up study that used the same dataset as Study 2, the analysis of CPVA events was extended to examine how conversation-turn characteristics of CPVA (i.e., those characteristics that can be identified within a teacher’s turn of talk during the CPVA discussion) were related to teachers’ generation of ideas that could be applied to literacy teaching practices to address the situations in the videos, and expressions that they were consider- ing applying these ideas to their future practice (Arya et al., in press). For this study, in addition to
TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections
cussed (reading level, word recognition, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, writing), sources of information (prior knowledge, video, general knowledge about the student, course readings), and conversation actions (recalling, probing, explain- ing, connecting, thinking critically, challenging, affirming, suggesting, hypothesizing).
A total of 1,525 conversation turns were coded. To ensure validity both codes from pre- vious research (Boling, 2004; Calandra et al., 2006; Harford & MacRuairc, 2008; Miller, 2009; Koc et al., 2009; Llinares & Valls, 2009; 2010; Sherin & van Es, 2005; Smith, 2005) and rigorous emergent coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) were used. Two graduate students were trained, and coded the data when their application of codes was consistent. Discrepant codes were discussed to achieve consensus and those codes were used
Finally, the relations between all coded factors and attributes of teachers’ turns of talk were tested using Statistical Discourse Analysis (SDA), which addresses several analytic challenges (see Table 1; Chiu, 2008). SDA identifies watershed events that radically change the participant(s)’ behaviors and models the likelihood(s) of specific behavior(s) at each moment in time with explanatory variables at different levels: attributes of recent behaviors (micro-time context), time periods, individuals, groups, organizations, etc. Using SDA, teacher outcomes were modeled using a multilevel, multi- variate, cross-classification logit model. An alpha level of 0.05 and a two-stage linear step-up proce- dure were used to reduce false positives (Benjamini et al., 2006). The total effect of the odds ratio is reported using percentage of increase or decrease in likelihoods of outcomes to make them easier
Table 1. Statistical discourse analysis Analytic Difficulty Strategy
Whole Data Set
· Missing data (0110??10) · Markov Chain Monte Carlo multiple imputation · Parallel conversations →→⇉⇉ · Store turn of talk to which a turn of talk responds · Complex categories/codes (A, B…Q) · Multi-dimensional Content Analysis
Dependent Variables
· Differences across time periods (T 1 ≠T 2 ) · Breakpoint analysis & Multilevel cross-classification · Nested data (Conversation turns within time periods; students within groups) · Multilevel analysis · Serial correlation (t 3 similar to t 4 ) · I 2 index of Q-statistics · Discrete (yes/no) · Logit / Probit· Infrequent (000010) · Logit bias estimator · Multiple (Y 1 , Y 2
) · Separate regressions for outcomes at different levels
· Multivariate, multilevel cross-classificationExplanatory Variables
· Sequences (X t-2 or X t-1 →Y ) · Vector Auto-Regression (VAR) · Moderation effects across levels (e.g., Student X Message) · Random effects model (Goldstein, 1995) · Indirect, mediation effects (X →M→Y) · Multi-level M-tests (MacKinnon, Lockwood & Williams, 2004) · False positives (Type I errors) · Two-stage linear step-up procedure
TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections
models; separate halves of the data set; and the original data set (without any estimated data).
Study 4
To extend previous understandings about the im- pact of CPVA on teachers’ literacy pedagogy, a subsequent study examined to what extent 48 male and female undergraduate-level and nine female graduate-level teachers, who were taking literacy practicum courses with Christ, self-reported ap- plying ideas that were generated during CPVA, what kinds of pedagogical ideas they applied, and how modes of information were related to their application of these ideas (Christ et al., 2014).
Immediately following CPVA discussions, using a guided response sheet, teachers docu- mented their learning, sources of information that contributed to their learning, and application of this learning to their teaching in their practicum courses. These responses were given full credit when submitted, regardless of content, to reduce the incentive to generate a response focused on attaining a particular grade. A total of 227 response sheets were collected; graduate-level teachers completed 44 and 183 were completed by undergraduate-level teachers.
Codes for the kinds of pedagogical ideas that teachers learned and the sources of information that supported their learning were based on cat- egories used in previous research, thus support- ing their validity (Harford & MacRuairc, 2008; Miller, 2009; Koc et al., 2009; Sherin & van Es, 2005). Additional categories were also identified through rigorous emergent coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Arya and Christ coded all instances of teachers’ learning recorded on the response sheets for content. Krippendorf’s (2004) α for pedagogical ideas learned was 0.97, showing high inter-rater reliability.
Analytic difficulties involved both the outcome model multilevel discrete outcomes, multilevel logit (Goldstein, 1995) was used. Mediation was tested across levels of data with multilevel mediation-tests (Krull & MacKinnon, 2001) and minimized false positives with the two-stage linear step-up procedure (Benjamini et al., 2006). Unlike SDA in study 3, this analysis does not model time or examine conversation turns.
Findings
This section presents and discusses only the find- ings from the studies presented in the Methods section that are salient to the role of digital video in mediating teachers’ learning during CPVA. Other results from these studies are reported in the original publications (Arya et al., in press; Christ et al., 2012; Christ et al., 2014; Christ et al., in press).
Study 1
The findings from this study showed that literacy teachers’ transactions with video during their self-reflections facilitated their editing process, through which they identified a clip and focus to share for CPVA (Christ et al., 2014). For example, Jesse’s transactions with the multimodal content of the video resulted in her noting in her written self-reflection, “After watching the video I think I could have prompted a little more to get a sense for his ability to retell.” She noticed in the videos that the student’s retelling was disjointed and confusing, and hypothesized that more prompting might have helped elicit more information, but she wanted more feedback about how to elicit and understand what he could recall more successfully. Through her editing process, she selected the video clip of her eliciting and his retelling to share for CPVA. She asked her peers to focus on the follow- ing: “What was the student telling me? Is there a
TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections
she could use peer support to construct deeper understandings about her literacy practices.
Previous research showed that teachers could notice things that they did not notice in-the-mo- ment of teaching, think critically about practices, and identify problems and solutions when using video for reflection (Downey, 2008; Holling- worth, 2006; Rich & Hannafin, 2009; Santagata, Zannoni, & Stigler, 2007; Yerrick et al., 2005). Our findings extended this body of research by showing that across multiple reflective contexts (i.e., self-reflection and CPVA) literacy teachers engaged in greater depth of reflection that led to identifying more problems and solutions than occurred through reflecting in any one context (i.e., self-reflection, or CPVA).
Study 2
The findings from this study showed that literacy graduate-level teachers chose clips to share in CPVA for three purposes: sharing a success, shar- ing an implicit problem, and sharing an explicit problem. During CPVA discussions, however, foci were often clarified or extended through the transactions with the video. The mediating role of video was particularly important when teachers discussed problems related to reader processing, as is the case in the following vignette in which Darcy discussed her difficulty helping her student identify long and short vowels in words. At the beginning Darcy explained why she chose the video clip:
I had been working on long-vowel sounds with her. I have never seen a student like her. She tries the short-vowel sound for every single word that she doesn’t know. So anyways, we had done this whole lesson on double-O and what sound it makes and she knows that every single one of these [word] cards will have the same double-O sound, but she
While she did not articulate it explicitly, her implicit problem was that she needed help under- standing how to support her student in analyzing vowel patterns. After viewing the video with her colleagues, Darcy extended her questions, refer- ring to the video, to add more information to the initial implicit problem, and identified a second explicit question to discuss:
So she just tries to always say the short sound—and you could see her looking away [in the video], not even looking at the word. She’s just guessing any random word that starts with the letter F. You can probably tell from that [video], my student is very wiggly when she reads. But I, when I was watching her video, just part of it, I was watching with, with no sound, she almost rocks back and forth, like as she’s reading and I don’t know if anyone has seen a kid do that, or if you think that’s helping her to focus. I was going to ask about that as well. So I guess I have two questions.
Primarily, Darcy was using visual information in the video to deepen her understanding of her reader’s processing and share this critical infor- mation with her colleagues. Without the visual clues, it would be impossible to understand that the reader was not attending to the letters, and this was the crux of the problem related to her misidentification of vowel sounds in words.
Similarly, when Gabby presented her video to her colleagues for CPVA, her problem at first was vague:
What I wanted you guys to hear next was my student’s retelling. He—watch his facial features. Every time I ask him a question, the eyes go up which is good because he’s thinking. But at the same time, he gets a little uneasy when [I’m] probing questions as it [the retelling] moves on. He starts to add in misinformation, I think just to
TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections
About two minutes into the conversation Gabby forwarded the video, played a new segment, and extended her explanation of her problem:
Right there, I’m trying to ask more probing ques- tions but every probing question doesn’t get me an answer so I try to think of other ones and I’m fiddling with the paper [in video] and I think that … You know, it was funny because I read this with him. I read the story before, I read it after, I read it during, creating my retelling guide. I read my retelling guide like seven times. I got it down pat and then you’re sitting in front of him and other things are coming out or things are not coming out and he’s telling me basics and when I’m asking questions, nothing’s... there’s no flow. So I think next time, even though I know we should take some paper and check it off, personally, I would just like to put that down in front of me, I think, next time and just use my head to ask the questions going along because then I’m trying to think of what he said--what’s a good probing question? What did he miss here? Is there something I can help him connect? I look like I’m nervous but that was the whole thing of what was going on in my brain at that time. I don’t know if that spilled onto him, too.
Both the auditory and visual information provided in Gabby’s video were critical to un- derstanding the situation. Viewers had to hear Gabby’s open-ended prompts and see her looking back at her papers for help. They had to see the student’s facial expressions as he struggled to an- swer Gabby’s questions, and Gabby’s subsequent fiddling with her papers as she struggled to elicit what he understood about the text. In response to viewing the video that showed Gabby’s difficul- ties, Linda suggested that she could use “bullet points” instead of “everything written out” and Julia suggested, “Try to use the same words and vocabulary that they [the student] gave the infor-
Thus, the mediating role of the multiple modes of information afforded by the video is critical because it helped literacy teachers articulate their problems regarding the situated instruction that was being discussed. This is important because the findings showed that when literacy teachers articulated problems, they were more likely to generate ideas that could be applied to address the issues in the video (Christ et al., 2012).
Previous research showed the recursive pos- sibilities of replaying video to support teachers’ learning (Kinzer et al., 2006). The findings in our study extended prior research by identifying a specific way that this occurs—by providing opportunities for questions about pedagogy to unfold and be sharpened through CPVA discus- sions (Christ et al., 2012).
Study 3
The findings of this study showed that the pur- poses for sharing video clips were statistically related to teachers’ outcomes. Specifically, literacy teachers who shared a success were 54% more likely to express that they intended to apply an idea generated during the CPVA discussion to their practice (Arya et al., in press). For example, through self-reflection, Carrie identified a video clip that showed her student “making really good progress” predicting during reading. Subsequently, when she shared and discussed the information in the video clip during CPVA, the following exchange ensued:
1a. Carrie: I’m trying to get him to make the prediction on his own without me giving him any prompting. Now [pointing to the video] he’s going to flip the page and he’s going to see, I believe it’s a spider’s eye… Now he’s counting all the eyes on it. See, he’s using the picture clues, which is really great for
TAP (Teacher Learning and Application to Pedagogy) through Digital Video-Mediated Relections that it was a spider, but he didn’t get them all right.
1b Karen: When you read another book, what if you put like little tiny flags, when they got to a certain part to stop and to make a prediction without you saying anything. When they read it, they see that sticker—that flag—they have to stop, make a prediction and then keep going. And you randomly place them throughout the book.
1c. Lucy: It was similar with my seventh grader, but one day I ripped out all my stopping points and I just told him at the beginning of the reading, okay, today you’re going to tell me when it’s a good time to stop.
1d. Karen: What if you had like the Post-its but like one would be to predict and he’d have however many. Like yellow would be predict, blue would be something else, and he can use however many he wants. But he has, say try to use this many during the reading.
1e. Carrie: Yes, I could use those with both of my students, more than one [idea], too. Be- cause even today, I just feel like I’m holding their hand too much. Like I have to let them predict on their own or know when to stop on their own.
During CPVA, Carrie repeatedly drew her col- leagues’ attention to what the student and she were doing in the video clip. This action prompted her colleagues to suggest some additional methods/ materials that Carrie could use to further help her student. Carrie expressed an interest in applying the ideas generated during the discussion in the future, towards a potentially even more successful end. This highlights the important role video played in providing a shared experience that allowed teachers to collaboratively construct ideas that could be applied to the specific literacy instruc- tion situation portrayed in the video. and construct understandings about certain aspects of pedagogy, such as reader processing and reader engagement that could not be constructed without the video sources of multimodal information (Arya et al., in press). For example, the following oc- curred when Sharon and her colleagues discussed her reader’s prosody. Sharon explained the issue before showing the video clip: