Video & practice

Initial situation

The approach developed in this course aims to support the professional experiments of teachers in training with a view to professionalization. It has been adopted with a view to improve the engineering of training to help the professional development of students (with a practice). It aims to provide students with a framework for sharing and appropriating reflective and practical tools using video as a medium.

Project implementation

This course format enhances students’ professional expertise by stimulating and bringing creativity to their personal professional practice through the non-judgmental external input of peers. The course consists of 6 sessions of 4 hours each spread over the year.

During the plenary sessions (first 3 sessions), the problematic: “what is watching a video and how to do it constructively” is addressed. More specifically, the students measure the need to deconstruct the natural tendency of everyone to judge. To do so, they are provided with a methodology and tools for describing and analyzing video content objectively. They also take part in role plays and simulations.

In the following sessions, students are divided into small groups (3-4 people). The main purpose of these sessions is to promote a supportive and formative exchange between peers. Students define collaborative inquiry projects based on their personal professional needs (e.g., how to deal with incivilities? how to correct a math exercise with students?) They then establish the modalities of their investigations (what do they want to test, how, when to provide the image right consent forms, which session will be filmed, etc.). They then film themselves during their professional practice. The technical staff of each school in which they work in parallel will set up the equipment and collect the film, which will then be provided to the student. Each student then chooses a video clip (5-10 min.) that addresses the defined object of inquiry, which will be shared with his/her peers. These video sequences form the basis for the group sessions. They are viewed and the students proceed to the objective analysis of the activities and provide various interpretations, tools or solutions. Evaluation is done at each stage of the investigation.

Thoughts and advice

The teachers have an advisory role and supervise about 20 students (about 6 groups) from a distance. It is therefore necessary to know how to take a back seat. It is also necessary to be flexible and to know how to adapt to what the students bring, because the objects of investigation are free. These can evolve from one session to the next or remain similar according to the specific needs of the students. In the same way, the choice of video sequences is left to the students, which allows them to keep their concerns in the foreground without making the use of video too confronting.

Student feedback

“The video interviews are by far the most important and formative moments. These moments allow for a very constructive and caring exchange about our practices and those of our peers. I really appreciated these moments. In class, the role-playing exercises that allow us to practice for the interview are also interesting.” “The fact that you can personalize your study subject is very appreciable! Indeed, each student can work on the aspects that interest him/her and that will be useful in his/her teaching practice. “Global and transdisciplinary approach to the theme of professionalization. A very beneficial way of working and evaluating in order to understand teaching. I was able to have training experience throughout the semester and not, as is sometimes the case with other courses, work primarily for evaluation without perceiving its usefulness for my future activity as a trainer.”