How can signaling in authentic classroom videos support reasoning on how to induce learning strategies?

Classroom videos are a viable means to implement evidence-informed reasoning in teacher education in order to establish an evidence-informed teaching practice. Although learning with videos relieves pre-service teachers from acting in parallel and might reduce complexity, the material still poses higher cognitive load than written text vignettes or other traditionally used static material. In particular, the information they deliver is transient and can, therefore, easily be missed. Signaling can guide learners’ attention to central aspects of a video, thereby reducing cognitive load and enhancing learning outcomes. In the current project, pre-service teachers acquired scientific knowledge about learning strategies and their promotion in a computer-based learning environment. We explored the effect of different arrangements of signaling in classroom video-examples on conceptual knowledge and the reasoning-component of professional vision. Therefore, we conducted a set of two studies with 100 student teachers including two signal arrangements in order to investigate how signaling can help learning to reason about classroom videos. In addition, we varied if participants received information on the use of signals in advance (informed) or not (uninformed). We measured conceptual knowledge by asking participants what they knew about self-regulation strategies. Additionally, we assessed reasoning by asking participants to notice sequences in a video where teachers induced learning strategies, and to reason in what respect the observed behavior was useful to induce the strategy. Uninformed signaling did not affect the acquisition of conceptual knowledge and reasoning. Informed signaling led to significantly better conceptual knowledge than uninformed signaling. It is argued that the signal-induced extraneous load exceeded the load reduction due to the signal’s selection advantage in the uninformed conditions. In a third, exploratory study, nine participants were interviewed on the perception of different signals and indicated that spotlight and zoom-in signals foster processing of classroom videos

Supporting Peer Feedback on Learning Strategies: Effects on Self-Efficacy and Feedback Quality

The study focused on supporting the distinct processes of assessment and providing feedback within a peer feedback setting in teacher education and investigates the effects on student teachers’ self-efficacy and feedback quality in a quasi-experiment. Student teachers (n¼129) were asked to repeatedly provide peer feedback on learning strategies and were supported by a digital tool. The support was varied: support in assessment (A; realized by rubrics), in formulating the feedback (F; by providing sentence starters), in both components (AþF), or no support (Control). We conducted a 22 analysis of variance (ANOVA) to measure the effect on feedback quality and 2 2 2 mixed ANOVAs to investigate the effects on self-efficacy. Results revealed that student teachers perceived higher self-efficacy regarding assessing learning strategies and giving feedback after repeatedly giving and receiving peer feedback. While supporting feedback-writing (F) was immediately beneficial for students’ self-efficacy, the combination (AþF) was most advantageous in the long run. In addition, feedback quality was higher when students were supported in writing the feedback. The findings show that competencies to assess and to give feedback seem to be distinct components that should be fostered individually. The developed support by the digital tool seems to be one beneficial approach here

How preparation-for-learning with a worked versus an open inventing problem affect subsequent learning processes in pre-service teachers

A worked-out or an open inventing problem with contrasting cases can prepare learners for learning from subsequent instruction differently regarding motivation and cognition. In addition, such activities potentially initiate different learning processes during the subsequent (future) learning phase. In this experiment (N = 45 pre-service teachers), we aimed to replicate effects of earlier studies on learning outcomes and, on this basis, to analyze respective learning processes during the future-learning phase via think-aloud protocols. The inventing group invented criteria to assess learning strategies in learning journals while the worked-example group studied the same problem in a solved version. Afterwards, the pre-service teachers thought aloud during learning in a computer-based learning environment. We did not find substantial motivational differences (interest, self-efficacy), but the worked-example group clearly outperformed their counterparts in transfer (BF+0 > 313). We found moderate evidence for the hypothesis that their learning processes during the subsequent learning phase was deepened: the example group showed more elaborative processes, more spontaneous application of the canonical, but also of sub-optimal solutions than the inventing group (BFs around 4), and it tended to focus more on the most relevant learning contents. Explorative analyses suggest that applying canonical solutions to examples is one of the processes explaining why working through the solution leads to higher transfer. In conclusion, a worked-out inventing problem seems to prepare future learning more effectively than an open inventing activity by deepening and focusing subsequent learning processes

Engaging in Writing to Learn – Increasing the Motivation for Learning-Journal-Writing to Foster Self-Regulated Learning

University students should be able to self-regulate their learning to benefit the most from their studies. Long-term self-regulated learning trainings can help students to reach that goal. A frequent problem of such trainings is a decrease in participants’ motivation over the course of training. To avoid this decrease, we combined a learning-journal-based, self-regulated learning training with a learning environment teaching conditional knowledge about learning strategies, a guided peer-feedback system, and an optional motivational intervention for participants reporting low levels of motivation. Four motivational items were tracked over the course of ten weeks. Participants (N = 103) showed an increase in their self-efficacy and a decrease in cost associated with learning-journal writing throughout the semester. The additional motivational intervention led to an increase in the intrinsic value associated with the learning journals. Our study suggests that this expanded self-regulated learning training can help participants maintain their motivation during a long-term training

Teachers’ assessment competence: Integrating knowledge-, process-, and product-oriented approaches into a competence-oriented conceptual model

In this article, we present a new model of teachers' assessment competence. The model is based on the educational competence concept, thus defining competences to be context-specific, learnable cognitive dispositions that are needed to successfully cope with specific situations. Integrating research on assessment processes, practices, and products, we specify the range of situations our model applies to, and discuss how its elements may become involved and measurable in a variable assessment process. The model aims to inspire future integrative research on the description, explanation, prediction, and promotion of teachers' assessments in various situations