Abstract:

While video has long been used to capture teaching episodes, illustrate classroom case studies, and demonstrate effective teaching, recent developments in video annotation applications offer the possibility for teachers to analyze and reflect upon their own teaching. Video annotation applications enable teachers to capture, code and analyze teaching episodes in authentic classroom contexts and to share those with others collaboratively (Rich & Hannafin, 2009).

This paper describes a pilot project between the researcher and two teachers using the open source video annotation applications VCode and VData (Hagedorn, Haipern & Karahalios, 2008) to analyze teaching episodes. Using a socio-cultural approach to discourse analysis, videos of teaching episodes were coded and annotated using VCode. The two teachers were trained in the use of VCode and appropriate codes were selected by the researcher and the participants. Once participants were trained, analysis was performed on independent coding of the same series of videos using VData. Cohen's Kappa calculations were made to determine agreement among the coders.

The videos of teaching events were of a teacher discussing current or controversial events with his class. Socio-Cultural Discourse Analysis (Mercer, 2004) requires attention to the moment-by-moment unfolding of events (Green & Wallat, 1981). This unfolding and signaling of interpretations, intentions. and relationships are the means by which people construct a shared definition of learning. They construct a sort of enacted narrative which they signal to each other through verbal, nonverbal, prosodic, and other communicative means. These narratives frequently result in recognized “participant structures” that help in a co-construction of meaning (Bloome, Carter, Christian, Otto & Stuart-Faris, 2005). In this project, coders identified “participation structures” used by the teacher to help students think critically by engaging in what Gordon Wells (2007) calls “triadic dialogue”.

The results of the pilot project suggest that video annotation applications like VCode and VData are useful in supporting fine grained collaborative analysis of classroom teaching. Participants found the applications easy to use and valuable in helping them reflect upon their own teaching and that of colleagues.

References

[1] P. J. Rich, and M. Hannafin, “Video Annotation Tools: Technologies to Scaffold, Structure, and Transform Teacher Reflection,” Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 52-67, 2009.
[2] J. Hagedorn, J. Haipern and K. G. Karahalios, VCode and VData: Illustrating a new framework for supporting the video annotation workflow, http://social.cs.uiuc.edu/projects/vcode.html

[3] N. Mercer, “Sociocultural discourse analysis: Analysing classroom talk as a social mode of thinking,” Journal of Applied Linguistics, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 137-168, 2004

[4] J. Greene and C. Wallat, Mapping instructional conversations. In J. Greene and C. Wallat (Eds.) Ethnography and language in educational settings (pp. 161-195). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

[5] D. Bloome, S. Carter, B. Christian, S. Otto and N. Shuart-Faris, Discourse analysis and the study of classroom language and literacy events: A microethnographic perspective, London, LEA, 2005.

[6] G. Wells, “Semiotic Mediation, Dialogue and the Construction of Knowledge,” Human Development (0018716X), vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 244-274, 2007.

Keywords:

video annotation software, socio-cultural discourse analysis, teacher reflection.