It's no secret: New teachers frequently struggle mightily with classroom management. However, pre-service education programs often fail to provide prospective teachers with adequate practice or guidance in this area. A new study suggests that expert feedback on novice educators' own analyses of teacher-practice videos may be one route to improvement.
In the study, a pair of German researchers worked with more than 50 pre-service teachers in their last year of their teacher-education program. The pre-service analyzed authentic videos of other teachers' performances in the classroom and critiqued them, looking for examples of strong and weak management practices. Half of the teachers also got personalized expert feedback on their critiques of the videos and had the opportunity to revise their responses. The other half also analyzed the videos but didn't receive expert feedback.
The researchers then tested all the participants on their knowledge and analysis of classroom management practices. The group with access to expert feedback on their critiques outperformed the control group and demonstrated a higher professional vision of their practice, suggesting that personal feedback can have a positive effect on new teachers' confidence and ability to manage a classroom.
"Expert feedback provided preservice teachers with a deeper focal lens for observing and analyzing classroom interactions," the researchers write. They believe the analysis of authentic teaching videos, combined with feedback, can allow teachers to "create knowledge networks using chunks and schemata for more efficient analysis and interpretation of classroom situations."
