Source: Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 10(1), p. 145-166. (2010). (Reviewed by the Portal Team)
The current study examined teacher-learners’ use of video production in their K-12 classrooms and connections between students’ content learning and teacher-learners’ practice.
The following questions guided the research:
- What evidence of content learning was reported by teacher-learners who integrated video production in their classroom?
- What do teacher-learners’ reflections report about what worked when they integrated video production in their classroom?
- What was challenging to teacher-learners when they integrated video production in their classroom, according to their reflections?
The participants were teacher-learners who learned at the Integration of Technology in Schools (ITS) graduate degree program in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University.
The reflections of the teacher-learners in this study indicated that the content learning outcome of their efforts to design learning opportunities using video production was positive and, in some cases, more effective than previous attempts to teach the same content. Reports of objective measures of content learning demonstrated mastery of content learning goals. Results of rubric assessments provided evidence that students were able to create videos that were well conceived, creatively produced, and reflective of in-depth content understanding.
Recommendations
One recommendation resulting from this study is to incorporate video production in K-12 classrooms by considering it an instructional strategy or activity to support content learning.
The findings of this study suggest several recommendations for the design of opportunities for teachers to learn to maximize the power of video production.
- Teachers need the opportunity to learn that video production has a place in their practice when understood as an instructional strategy to promote content learning.
- Teachers need the opportunity to learn to use authentic problems with video production in order to link purpose, audience, motivation, and engagement with content learning.
- Teachers need the opportunity to learn to create and use effective rubrics as a way to both structure the video design process (written plan, storyboard, script, and final product) and to provide clear evidence of learning in a domain that does not always lend itself to more traditional assessment.
- Teachers need the opportunity to learn, discuss, anticipate, and resolve infrastructure considerations that impact the integration of video production.
- Teachers need to consider the use, availability, and compatibility of equipment, the logistics associated with space, noise, lighting, and adult assistance, and time considerations related to planning and producing video before using video rather than encountering these problems in practice.