Embodied Becoming – Student Teachers’ Reflections on Their Filmed Teaching

Marita Cronqvist

doi:10.1163/23644583-bja10017

Abstract

Abstract This study examines student teachers’ reflections on recordings of their teaching during a period of internship related to a subject didactic course in Swedish. Bodily expressions, not as frequently explored as verbal ones, are in focus. Data consists of video papers, multimedia documents, combining clips of video recordings and reflective texts on the clips. The purpose is to gain knowledge about student teachers’ reflections on and learning of bodily expressions in teaching, using video papers. The analysis of the video papers is descriptive phenomenological, searching for the meanings of the phenomenon. The findings indicate that video papers contribute to student teachers’ reflections and learning about bodily expressions in terms of how they move in front of students, what impressions their bodies convey, how they manage to make contact and how they use their voices. Video papers complement the memory image and through recordings, bodily expressions get attention and are verbalized.

Highlights

The phenomenological understanding of embodiment, perceiving the body as the medium for experiencing (Merleau-Ponty, 2002/1945), challenges the Cartesian division between body and mind
Dall’Alba (2009) explains how ontology and epistemology are involved in teacher education referring to Merleau-Ponty’s description of how he is both touched and touching when he presses his hands together
Video paper offers student teachers an opportunity to experience their embodied teaching in a way that differs from just using memory

Summary

Introduction

The phenomenological understanding of embodiment, perceiving the body as the medium for experiencing (Merleau-Ponty, 2002/1945), challenges the Cartesian division between body and mind. Dall’Alba (2009) explains how ontology and epistemology are involved in teacher education referring to Merleau-Ponty’s description of how he is both touched and touching when he presses his hands together. The ambiguity in the lived body of being both subject and object opens up different ways of understanding the world, to embrace changes or resist them (Dall’Alba, 2009). These different perspectives of understanding the body are crucial to how teacher education can develop the competence of teaching and professional ways of being

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Conclusion