written by Danielle B. Harlow and Lauren Swanson

Prior research has documented that analyzing video of children learning science aids pre-service teachers in developing physics knowledge and deepens their understanding of the learning process. Research on video analysis in teacher education suggests that the primary value of such tasks comes not from watching the video, but from the subsequent discussions. We questioned whether similar advantages would be evident when participants watched and analyzed video clips via online threaded discussions. We found that participants used the video clips as a mediating tool to position their own current ideas about physics topics with respect to their prior understandings as well as to ideas articulated by the students in the video clips. We discuss the study findings and affordances and limitations of online discussion formats.

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Published November 11, 2009
Last Modified October 6, 2009

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