Internet Video Calling and Desktop Sharing (vcds) as an Emerging Research Method for Exploring Pedagogical Reasoning in Lesson Planning

Elizabeth Hidson

doi:10.1163/23644583-00501001

Abstract

Abstract This article presents the specific case of video calling and desktop sharing (vcds) used in a small-scale doctoral study exploring the lesson planning processes of teachers as a result of a national curriculum change. Accessing the participants’ actions and live think-aloud exposition of their pedagogical practices also generated dialogue as new data. The study set out to explore how pedagogical content knowledge was enacted through pedagogical reasoning when participant teachers planned Computing lessons. Two central case studies captured using vcds are shared. One presents a dialogic research interview which developed a shared understanding of the impact of the curriculum change on one teacher’s practices. The second case study shows the potential of vcds to capture the verbalised thoughts and observable actions of a second teacher preparing to teach new programming skills. The video data collected provided a rich audio-visual record of the lesson planning process as it happened. This article shares the approach taken, exemplifies the data captured and reflects on vcds as a method for exploring teachers’ pedagogical reasoning. It concludes that, depending on the nature of the research question, vcds may be justified as more suitable than face-to-face, artefact-based interviews.

Highlights

In 2014, the English national curriculum programme of study (Department for Education, 2013) for all schoolchildren changed from Information and Communications Technology to Computing, representing a much- discussed disciplinary shift for in-service teachers (Woollard, 2018)
Teachers employed to teach ict as a school subject tended to have a background more relevant to teaching Information Technology rather than its more abstract and programming-oriented relative Computer Science, which was newly incorporated into the national curriculum underneath the umbrella term ‘Computing’
The difference in the two might best be understood as ict focusing on the use and application of technology and Computer Science focusing on computational systems and programming

Summary

Introduction

In 2014, the English national curriculum programme of study (Department for Education, 2013) for all schoolchildren changed from Information and Communications Technology (ict) to Computing, representing a much- discussed disciplinary shift for in-service teachers (Woollard, 2018). The data needed to answer the research questions meant that access was required to the teachers at the time when each one was ready to engage in planning, bringing verisimilitude to the process This was conceptualised in line with Shulman’s (1986, 1987) process of pedagogical reasoning, focusing in on the teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (pck) as they sought to plan lessons and sequences of lessons that required an understanding of specific subject matter as well as a knowledge of how to teach this material in a way that learners would be able to engage with. For teachers with limited knowledge of aspects of Computer Science, the challenge to their pedagogical content knowledge came firstly from needing to source the appropriate material to teach and secondly, being able to understand the way that learners would engage with it, and anticipate misconceptions

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion