Video Learning Lab

Initial situation

Teacher education programs face two major challenges: integrating academic knowledge with professional practice, and developing the ability to analyze professional practice. Students often struggle to make explicit connections between the concepts covered in university and real-world situations. This disconnect can be attributed in part to a lack of mechanisms that make professional activity observable, discussable, and understandable.

Furthermore, the analysis of practices is still frequently approached through transmissive methods, which limit students’ engagement and their access to the complexity of real-world situations. In this context, the pedagogical challenge lies in fostering an active connection between concepts, analysis of professional activity, and professional development.

The Video Learning Lab (VLL) is part of this approach. By using videos of authentic situations, it provides concrete resources for observing, analyzing, and critically examining professional practices, while encouraging the exchange of perspectives and the development of reflection grounded in experience.

Project implementation

The educational program is based on the use of the Video Learning Lab, which is structured around three complementary functions: an observatory for analyzing filmed real-life situations, a laboratory dedicated to designing and testing training scenarios, and a repository for compiling and sharing resources.

Within this framework, the observatory enables students to engage in a progressive process that leads them to analyze video clips from real teaching contexts, identify significant professional phenomena, and compare their interpretations with those of various stakeholders in the field. The various videos provide multiple perspectives from different protagonists: filmed teachers, other teachers, students, trainers, researchers, and school administrators. These analyses are discussed collectively to refine the understanding of the challenges in the observed situations.

In the lab, students then work in groups to design training scenarios that incorporate videos of real-life situations as learning materials. These projects are subject to reflective analysis and group feedback, allowing students to examine how their peers’ design choices impact learning. This approach shifts them from being mere “consumers” of educational content to active creators of their own learning, by applying course concepts to real-world situations. They use video as a tool for analyzing professional practices, actively participate in designing training scenarios that contribute to the repository aimed at training others, and analyze the effects generated by their peers’ implementation of these scenarios.

Course assessment is based primarily on the work produced by the students (training scenarios, analyses) as well as on their ability to apply analytical tools and adopt a reflective stance. It values both the learning process and the results produced.

Thoughts and advice

Setting up a system such as the Video Learning Lab (VLL) represents a significant investment in technical, audiovisual, and educational terms. The development of the platform was structured in three complementary phases: the observatory, the laboratory, and the conservatory, which respectively enable the documentation of practices, the design of systems, and the sharing of resources.

The system promotes greater student engagement, a better integration of theory and practice, and the development of reflective thinking. It also helps shift the teacher’s role toward a supportive one.

Its implementation, however, requires significant pedagogical preparation, particularly in the selection of filmed situations and the structuring of analysis activities. Close support for students is essential to foster the development of their observation, analysis, and design skills.

Students generally find it quick and intuitive to get the hang of the platform. The main challenge lies in their ability to use the videos as objects of analysis within training scenarios, moving beyond a descriptive reading to gain a deeper understanding of professional situations.

The program has significant potential for application in other training programs focused on the analysis of professional practices.

Student feedback

“The course is very comprehensive. It covers theory, practice, and real-life situations—it’s truly very rich. ” “The theoretical component was helpful for understanding future expectations: creating our own scenario. Having to immerse ourselves in the various videos and analyze them put the theory into practice—a very useful element for our understanding of educational authority. Additionally, connections were made between real-world issues (substitute teaching, internships) and theory thanks to Ms. Lussi-Borrer’s responses.” “The instructors are highly competent and passionate about their work, which is evident during the classes. They present theoretical concepts by connecting them to practice through testimonials and real-world experiences, which we access via short video clips. This helps facilitate understanding of the course material and reinforces learning.”