1) Engaging in science<\/em>: Finding ways to teach content that is meaningful and engaging to students,<\/p>\n 2) Organizing instruction and resources<\/em>: Making use of curriculum materials and other available resources to organize productive instruction,<\/p>\n 3) Understanding students<\/em>: Learning about students as people and as reasoners about science (p. 679; emphasis in original).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Our study addressed special activities within a physical science curriculum focused on this third problem of practice\u2014understanding students. We found that by considering the ideas of children, prospective elementary school teachers reflected on their own ideas and developed a sense of themselves as science teachers.<\/p>\n This study builds on an earlier study (Harlow, Swanson, & Otero, 2012), in which we investigated prospective teachers in an undergraduate physics course designed for an audience of future elementary school teachers. This course used the Physics and Everyday Thinking (Goldberg, Robinson, & Otero, 2007) curriculum, which included special activities that provided undergraduate students the opportunity to view video of children learning science and discuss the children\u2019s ideas.<\/p>\n In this earlier work, the discussion of these videos occurred in class in face-to-face conversations during class. Like research focused on other types of teacher education and professional development, Harlow et al. (2012) demonstrated that analyzing video of children learning science can facilitate teachers\u2019 ability to develop useful science knowledge for teaching (see also Brophy, 2004; Santaga, Zannoni, & Stigler, 2007; Yerrick, Ross, & Molebash, 2005).<\/p>\n This paper describes a study that continued a similar line of inquiry in a new context. In the undergraduate physics course that constituted the context of the present study, prospective teachers also engaged in activities built around similar video clips of children talking about science. As was the case with Harlow et al. (2012), this course was intended for undergraduates interested in pursuing a career in elementary teaching. However, unlike the earlier course, the videos and related activities were moved to an online context, a forum in which prospective teachers responded to guiding prompts (see appendix<\/a>) and were able to read posts from their peers. These activities also included videos of other undergraduates (i.e., students who enrolled in the course the previous year) to increase opportunities for prospective teachers to consider the reasoning of their peers; however, our study focused only on the online responses that discussed the videos of children.<\/p>\n The nature of these online responses (longer individual narratives) allowed us to probe more deeply into the role of video in the prospective teachers\u2019 views of themselves as teachers. As more undergraduate institutions move to online formats or integrate online activities into face-to-face courses, it is important to understand how the technology facilitates the types of conversations in which students engage.<\/p>\n In this study we asked the follow research questions:<\/p>\n Literature Review<\/strong><\/p>\n The conceptual framework guiding our earlier work centered on two ideas, (a) developing subject matter is developing a discourse (e.g., Gee, 1990), and (b) teacher learning is both constructed and situated (e.g., Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994). The present study investigated the role video played in prospective teachers\u2019 views of themselves as teachers of science, as evidenced by their online posts. \u00a0This work was guided by the notion that learning cannot be separated from the context in which it occurred and that learning science discourse is an essential aspect of learning science. Further, Positioning Theory (Harr\u00e9 & Van Langenhove, 1999) supplemented our conceptual framework and informed our work identifying the role video analysis played in the prospective teachers\u2019 views of themselves as physics learners.<\/p>\n Positioning Theory<\/strong><\/p>\n To increase the amount of time and quality of elementary school science instruction, new elementary school teachers must see themselves as individuals capable of learning and thinking about science. Unfortunately, the majority of individuals preparing to be elementary school teachers have experienced failure in their attempts to learn science (Palmer, 2001), placing the burden of developing their confidence in learning and teaching science in their methods or science content courses. Using Positioning Theory (Harr\u00e9 & Van Langenhove, 1999) allowed us to look at how the prospective teachers used discourse to position themselves in an online forum. Harr\u00e9 and colleagues (Davies & Harr\u00e9, 1990; Harr\u00e9 & Van Langenhove, 1991) opted for the term positioning<\/em> to capture the notion that one is \u201cconstituted and reconstituted through the various discursive practices in which they participate\u201d (Davies & Harr\u00e9, p. 46). The term positioning, therefore, implies that this process can happen multiple times within a given interaction.<\/p>\n In this way, positioning is tied to identity (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005).<\/p>\n Deliberate self-positioning occurs in every conversation where one wants to express his\/her identity. This can be done in at least three different ways: by stressing one\u2019s agency (that is presenting one\u2019s course of action as one from among various possibilities), by referring to one\u2019s unique points of view, or by referring to events in one\u2019s biography. (Harr\u00e9 & Van Langenhove, 1991, p. 400)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For the purposes of this study, we were most interested in this third avenue (recounting one\u2019s biography) through which individuals position themselves and express a certain identity. A biography is one\u2019s account of what one saw, did, and thought, in addition to a description of what happened. In particular, we were interested in the ways the prospective teachers incorporated descriptions of learning experiences and previously held science ideas in their written conversations with peers.<\/p>\n Wortham (2001) claimed that individuals create and reinforce particular identities when they position themselves during autobiographical narratives. In order to achieve this reinforcement of a particular identity, \u201cany autobiographical narrative involves a doubling of roles<\/em> for the narrator\u2019s self\u2014the narrator has at least one role in the represented content of the story and one role in the ongoing interaction between the narrator and audience\u201d (p. 13).<\/p>\n For example, prospective teachers might recount a story in which they describe learning a particular science concept. Through this autobiographical narrative, the teachers would not only be positioning themselves as more knowledgeable about science than they were prior to the learning experience, but they would simultaneously be positioning themselves to their audience as understanding that particular science concept.<\/p>\n We viewed the online posts of prospective elementary science teachers as similar to the types of autobiographical narratives Wortham described. For example, the questions that guided the online postings prompted the prospective teachers to talk about themselves, their learning, their experiences, and their science ideas. Additionally, the prospective teachers\u2019 posted responses contained several narrative-like features: They had a clearly defined teller, tale, and audience; a trajectory that led the audience to some form of conclusion; and the postings incorporated displacement (descriptions of events removed in time from either the teller or audience)\u2014all salient features of narratives (Toolan, 2001).<\/p>\n Online Asynchronous Forums<\/strong><\/p>\n In this study, we investigated how prospective teachers positioned themselves in relation to the content materials when posting responses in an online forum. All online contributions were asynchronous and threaded. This meant that individuals did not have to be online at the same time to post a response. All posts were accessible to all prospective teachers and the course instructor. Any contribution could be replied to, and a reply would be nested with the initial contribution.<\/p>\n The intention behind having posts visible to all members of the forum, and the ability to reply to individual posts was to engage prospective teachers in asynchronous online conversations about physics content material, children\u2019s ideas, and how one learns science. As such, we drew from literature on asynchronous discussion boards to guide our understanding of this type of instructional tool.<\/p>\n Asynchronous discussion boards are becoming increasingly common in teacher education and professional development. Gomez, Sherin, Griesdorn, and Finn (2008) suggested that teacher educators tap into the potential of this technology to provide opportunities for all educators to contextualize theoretical knowledge in their daily activities of teaching and to become reflective about their practice. One example of this type of use of asynchronous discussion boards can be seen in Schwartz and Szabo\u2019s work (2011). These authors studied preservice elementary teachers\u2019 use of reflective thinking when analyzing videos of classroom teachers.<\/p>\n Barnett (2006) provided another example with his description of how preservice and practicing elementary teachers deepened their understanding of planning and implementing inquiry-based science instruction through participation in the Inquiry Learning Forum (ILF). Through this forum, teachers engaged in online discussions centered on how children learn science, what it meant to teach science using inquiry, and how to identify such practices in a classroom setting. ILF helped frame teachers\u2019 thinking about ideas consistent with the three problems of practice described by Mikeska and colleagues (2009).<\/p>\n Although the teachers in Barnett\u2019s (2006) study found asynchronous discussion forums to be useful in discussing reform-based science in elementary settings, other research has shown varied levels of participant satisfaction with this form of technology. For example, Thomas (2011) found that preservice elementary science teachers enjoyed participating in online learning, yet they wanted to continue to engage in the types of face-to-face conversations that occur in traditional methods courses.<\/p>\n Ocker and Yaverbaum (1999) found that graduate student working groups using an asynchronous discussion board to analyze case studies and complete a group report were less satisfied with their experience than were those who worked face-to-face with peers. Interestingly, the authors found no differences in terms of the quality of learning among the two types of student groups. Similarly, Wang and Woo (2007) noted that students found face-to-face discussions as more authentic than those online using an asynchronous platform.<\/p>\n As with any other type of instructional practice, there are many considerations for using asynchronous discussion forums, including the time allotted for student response, the structure of online questions, and a discussion anchor. In responding to a discussion, students need additional time to read, reflect, and formulate posts in an asynchronous discussion forum, compared to having the same conversation face to face (Wang & Woo, 2007).<\/p>\n The questions guiding the online discussion must also be carefully considered. Bradley, Thom, Hayes, and Hay (2008) classified online questions into one of six types, ranging from those asking students to respond to specific aspects of an assigned article to those asking students to justify a particular position on a given issue. Bradley and colleagues investigated student responses by word count, the degree to which the question was answered, and which question types elicited higher order thinking. They found that, although some question types resulted in longer student responses, were more on topic, and were more likely to evoke higher order thinking, the vast majority of student responses indicated lower level thinking.<\/p>\n Finally, Guzdial and Turns (2001) argued that the goals for online discussions are similar to those of in-class discussions: Conversation is sustained, relates to class topics, and is shared by multiple active participants (i.e., students in the class). They recommended using an anchor to motivate students\u2019 participation and focus online discussions. An anchor is \u201ca topic that students find worthy of discussion, and a successful anchor is one that engenders a sustained discussion in the collaboration forum\u201d (p. 443). The authors found that successful anchors included review pages with sample exam questions and other students\u2019 work to critique.<\/p>\n Anchors are also distinct from the discussion forum, so that students can easily look at the anchor and responses simultaneously. That is, students do not have to scroll up to read the anchor when reading the responses, but instead can access the anchor in another window. In their work comparing anchored and unanchored discussions among undergraduates in a computer science course, Guzdial and Turns found that online discussions including an anchor remained focused on course topics more often, contained more posts (i.e., the conversations were sustained), and involved a greater number of students than did unanchored discussions. In the activities discussed in this paper, the online discussions were anchored by videos of children discussing their science ideas.<\/p>\n Video in Teacher Education <\/strong><\/p>\n Classroom videos are used in traditional face-to-face as well as online methods courses. In fact, several of the studies previously discussed involved the use of videos in teacher education (e.g., Barnett, 2006; Schwartz & Szabo, 2011; Thomas, 2011). Analyzing videos of children presents prospective and practicing teachers with the opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge learned in their methods courses and content knowledge learned in their disciplinary courses to the practices of teaching (Hough, Bill, Moon, Guzman, & Lager, 2010; Petrosino & Koehler, 2007). However, the video alone does not produce effective learning: Videos must be integrated thoughtfully into course activities with particular attention paid to how they will promote discussion (Borko, Jacobs, Eiteljorg, & Pittman, 2008).<\/p>\n Our study investigated the use of videos in an undergraduate physical science course, in which prospective elementary school teachers analyzing the children\u2019s ideas as an application of their content learning rather than analyze teaching practice. Specifically, the prospective teachers responded to prompts about the children\u2019s ideas seen in the videos.<\/p>\n Study Context and Methods<\/strong><\/p>\n The study context was a semester-long introductory undergraduate physical science course at a large state school in California. Again, participants were upper division undergraduates considering careers in elementary education. We refer to these undergraduates as prospective teachers even though they had not yet formally entered a teacher education program. The activities were adapted from Learning about Learning (LAL) activities included in Physics and Everyday Thinking (PET; Goldberg et al., 2006) and Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (PSET; Goldberg, Robinson, Kruse, Thompson, & Otero, 2008), content courses designed for undergraduate audiences of prospective elementary school teachers.<\/p>\n In PET and PSET, instruction occurs through guided inquiry activities, and both curricula include special LAL activities that provide opportunities for learners to reflect on their own learning, the learning of children, and the nature of science. All activities (physics content and LAL) follow a similar pattern: Undergraduates discuss their initial ideas, engage in a hands-on or computer-based activity, and finally discuss their observations and interpretations as a whole class. In all cases, the prospective teachers are expected to support claims with evidence.<\/p>\n For those activities focused on physics content, the evidence came from experimentation; for those that focused on learning, the evidence was from video episodes of children talking about science. Key to this study was the LAL activities focused on children\u2019s ideas. In PET and PSET, two such activities focused on force and motion (see Harlow et al., 2012, for a detailed description of these activities). Videos can be found at http:\/\/petpset.its-about-time.com\/htm\/pet.htm<\/a> (see Activity 5 Movies under Chapter 2).<\/p>\n The interactive nature of PET and PSET requires equipment and a classroom set up to facilitate discussion in small groups. Such requirements preclude many institutions from offering this course or similar courses. To meet the space and equipment constraints of such institutions, a new curriculum was developed using technology such as student response systems (\u201cclickers\u201d), videos of experiments, and online discussions to maintain many of the inquiry aspects and allow for instruction in a traditional lecture hall (Goldberg, Price, Robinson, Boyd-Harlow, & McKean, 2012).<\/p>\n For the LAL activities, the first field test of the new course included activities in which the prospective teachers watched videos of elementary school students and other undergraduates (i.e., students who were not enrolled in the course) outside the classroom and responded to prompts in an online discussion format. The videos of elementary school students included in the online force and motion activities were edited versions of those used in the PET force and motion activities about children\u2019s ideas and reported on in Harlow et al. (2012). In the version of the course studied here, the online discussions of the videos were part of activities called Unit Tasks, which were completed over the duration of each unit. (The final version of the curriculum does not include Unit Tasks. Instead, the activity format is more similar to the content activities and includes an online context but not a forum.)<\/p>\n The videos of undergraduates talking about science were not included in PET and PSET. They were added to the new course, because in the lecture format prospective teachers had fewer opportunities to consider the reasoning of their peers. As our focus was to gain insight into the ways prospective elementary school teachers positioned themselves as knowledgeable about physics content material and about how physics ideas developed, we did not analyze their comments regarding the video clips depicting other undergraduate students.<\/p>\n We viewed these comments as more indicative of how the prospective teachers positioned themselves in relation to other physics learners at the college level\u2014a separate research question beyond the scope of this paper. However, the prompts surrounding all videos are provided in their entirety in the appendix<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two important aspects of the online discussions should be considered when thinking about how the prospective teachers positioned themselves with respect to the content material. First, watching the videos constituted a shared experience among the prospective teachers. As such, they could be confident that their peers would understand references to the videos\u2019 content in their posts.<\/p>\n Second, prospective teachers may have considered this type of online forum more public than face-to-face conversation. This is because participants\u2019 names were attached to the responses, the responses were more permanent than a vocalized statement in a small group or whole class discussion, and everyone in the class, including the instructor, had access to the postings. Therefore, prospective teachers may have been more mindful of their words when posting responses (when compared to discussing the same ideas in a classroom discussion).<\/p>\n Description of Anchoring Videos<\/strong><\/p>\n Three videos were included in the unit task, two of children and one of undergraduates. The video clips of children were selected from longer videos that are part of the activities about children\u2019s ideas in the PET curriculum. The first video (3 minutes long) shows an interviewer asking a group of fifth graders what will happen after a ball is kicked. The children in the video are specifically directed to consider what forces, if any, act on the ball after the ball has left the foot.<\/p>\n A physicist would claim that while the foot is in contact with the ball it exerts a force on the ball. The ball then moves across the grass at a constant speed until another force (friction between the grass and the ball in this case) acts on the ball in the opposite direction to slow it down. This means that after the ball has left the foot the only forces acting on the ball are friction and gravity. The children in the video, however, expressed ideas that are common among novice physics learners, including that the ball moves because the foot transfers a force to it and that the ball slows down because a force \u201cruns out.\u201d<\/p>\n In the second video (48 seconds), a third grader talked about why a toy car slows down after being pushed across a surface. The elementary student suggested that the toy car will slow down because it does not have batteries and \u201cbecause of gravity.\u201d<\/p>\n Data Collection <\/strong><\/p>\n Online responses were collected from 50 prospective elementary teachers enrolled in the undergraduate physics course. At this university, the teacher-credentialing program is a postbaccalaureate program; therefore, participants had not yet taken any education courses at the time of data collection.<\/p>\n The prospective teachers watched videos of children discussing their ideas about force and friction and then responded to prompts online. The prospective teachers were asked to provide individual responses to each prompt during the unit and then work together to write a final summary essay. In order to respond to the summary essay prompts, they were expected to review both their own and their classmates\u2019 previous posts. Beyond the summary questions, they were not explicitly told to respond to or incorporate their classmates\u2019 posts, though the discussion forum had this capability.<\/p>\n The lack of explicit requirements to respond to each other\u2019s posts may have decreased the likelihood that the prospective teachers engaged in back-and-forth conversations online. In fact, our analysis of the online posts indicated that the prospective teachers rarely engaged in extended discussion. However, this forum was public and resulted in peer collaboration.<\/p>\n First, the prospective teachers were expected to use their peers\u2019 posts when collaborating on the summary responses; therefore, these posts became part of a conversation between individuals. Second, the prospective teachers\u2019 posts were not anonymous nor were their posts to a board populated by strangers. These prospective teachers were all enrolled in the same course and met face to face on a regular basis. Finally, all posts were viewable by all members of the forum, including the course instructor.<\/p>\n A total of 146 online postings (from 50 participants) were collected during the unit; however, many prospective teachers did not complete all parts of the assignment. We analyzed work only from prospective teachers who completed at least two thirds (four) of the six prompts related to the unit. As a result, 26 prospective teachers\u2019 work (108 online postings) was used for analysis. Participants included 6 males and 20 females, all college age (18-23). Using the 26 prospective teachers as participants, response rates for each of the prompts were as follows: Prompt 1 (54%), Prompt 2 (88%), Prompt 3 (96%), Prompt 4 (96%), Prompt 5 (96%), and Summarizing Questions (92%).<\/p>\n Data Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n An earlier study on face-to-face interactions about videos of children found that the prospective elementary teachers connected the physics subject matter of the course to the children’s discourse in two ways: (a) reflecting on their own learning and (b) identifying and restating the ideas of children (see Harlow et al., 2012, for full details). We used these findings to inform our initial coding of the discussion board postings and, as such, began with an a priori coding scheme of two codes, reflecting on learning and analyzing children’s ideas.<\/p>\n Through iterative coding and discussion of codes, we recognized that this scheme was insufficient for our data and modified it to better represent the data. We converged on four codes:<\/p>\n See Table 1 for final codes and examples. The online posts were independently coded by both authors.<\/p>\n Table 1 <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n
\n
\nCodes and Example Text<\/p>\n
![\"Figure](\"https:\/\/citejournal.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/v13i3Science1Fig1.jpg\")
Figure 1. <\/strong>Using video to anchor a comparison of ideas.<\/em><\/p>\n