1. Background of the project

A strongly pronounced heterogeneity of pupils and inclusive learning settings place increasing demands on the professional profile of teachers. In many teacher training courses, intensive preparation for these challenges is currently still a shadowy existence. Rather, the principle of "learning by doing" seems to be the common practice. As early as 2000, Mandl and Gerstenmaier pointed out a significant "gap between knowledge and action" in university education (Gerstenmaier & Mandl 2000, p. 1). In addition, Hof (2000) was able to show that early in their careers, teachers tend to draw on intuitive knowledge and subjective theories as a basis for action rather than evidence-based and theoretically grounded knowledge. However, the lack of practical relevance and the increased reliance on subjective theories and intuitive knowledge is counterproductive for the preparation for today's school life. In order to address this problem appropriately, it is therefore important to rethink established university learning arrangements and to actively promote further development of the content of teacher training courses. An essential element of this is the (further) development of innovative teaching concepts as well as the establishment of new digital teaching and learning tools that do justice to a practical and sustainable education.

2. problem definition

A frequently discussed and already extensively studied topic in this context is instructional videos. Research by Petko, Prasse and Reusser (2014) shows that the use of videographed teaching sequences in university teacher training has a positive effect on the competence development of future teachers and can contribute to improving the quality of teaching. Furthermore, Gold, Förster, and Holodynski (2013) demonstrated that instructional videos are well suited for multidimensional analyses of differentiated teaching-learning processes. However, some researchers criticize that information for a sufficient analysis of videotaped instructional processes is often missing because they are out of the camera perspective. Thus, this circumstance seems to be quite problematic for an objective observation and an error-free analysis and evaluation of a situation.

3. goal

The aim of VideoLeB is to enable the strongest possible theory-practice transfer and to support and specifically train the development of job-specific and professional competencies, such as analysis, observation and reflection skills.

4. Solution

Within the framework of the BMBF project QUALITEACH, the Erfurt School of Education (ESE) at the University of Erfurt and the Department of Media and Communication Management at the Technical University of Ilmenau have therefore developed the digital learning platform VideoLeB developed. VideoLeB is a video-based e-learning platform that provides students of teacher training courses with authentic insights into teaching practice. While conventional video learning platforms usually rely on the use of focused, multi-perspective camera settings, authentic 360° teaching videos in various Thuringian schools were created especially for this platform. Corresponding to a real classroom observation, this kind of recording allows to freely choose the observation perspective during the video analysis and to change it during the observation. In addition, the 360° videos can be viewed via a virtual reality headset, which gives users the impression that they are participating "in real life" in the classroom. In reference to a real classroom observation, we also refer to this form of representation as "digital observation" (Windscheid et al., 2018).

First results from this project show that the use of 360° videos leads to an increased feeling of "presence" in the recipients compared to classical video recordings. In other words, what is seen is perceived as more "real" than in a normal video. Differences in terms of emotions and workload, on the other hand, did not lead to any significant differences. The video platform has been used in teaching at the University of Erfurt since October 2017 and has been continuously improved and developed in the course of this.

5. Literature

- Gerstenmaier, J., & Mandl, H. (Eds.) (2000): The gap between knowledge and action. Hogrefe. Göttingen.

- Gold, B., Förster, S. & Holodynski, M. (2013): Evaluation of a video-based training seminar to promote professional perceptions of classroom management in the primary classroom. Journal of Educational Psychology, 27(3), 141-155.

- Hof, C. (2000): Subjective theories of knowledge as the basis of teaching: Results of an exploratory study. Journal of Educational Science, 3(4), 595-607. .

- Petko, D., Prasse, D. & Reusser, K. (2014): Online platforms for working with instructional videos: An overview. In: Contributions to teacher education, 32(2), pp.247-261. .

- Windscheid, J. Stoll, D., Sallat, S., Will, A. (2018): 360° videos as a learning medium for inclusion in teacher education. Poster presentation at the program workshop CHANcen GEstalten - Inclusion orientation in teacher education as an impulse for development processes in universities. 19.02.2018, TU Dortmund

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Andreas Will & Julian Windscheid, M.A. Group of Media and Communication Management Department of Economics and Media.