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Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 61–67

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Teaching and Teacher Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ tate

Catalyzing student–teacher interactions and teacher learning inscience practical formative assessment with digital video technology

Aik Ling Tan a,*, Phillip A. Towndrow b,1

a Natural Sciences and Science Education Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Room 7-3-85,1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616b Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Room 5-B3-30, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 28 January 2008Received in revised form 12 May 2008Accepted 11 July 2008

Keywords:Digital video technologyAssessment for learningScience laboratory workTeacher–researcher partnershipLearning task designReflective practice

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ65 67 90 3828: fax:E-mail addresses: aikling.tan@nie.edu.sg (A.L.

edu.sg (P.A. Towndrow).1 Tel. þ65 67 90 3773.

0742-051X/$ – see front matter � 2008 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.tate.2008.07.007

a b s t r a c t

This paper reports how a teacher–researcher partnership examined a biology teacher’s existing peda-gogical practices and attempted, through a task design innovation, to create the circumstances underwhich more interactive and emergent assessment for learning practices could flourish in her classroom.This work involved the use of digital video playback technology as the trigger or catalyst for reflection onconcrete experiences by the teacher and her students to occur. Results suggest that the digital videoinnovation brought about changes in student–teacher interactions in science practical work and assistedthe teacher in reflecting on her professional learning. The educative effects produced by the catalyst weredependent on the teacher noticing changes in her students and moving in tandem with them alonga parallel path of experiential and practitioner-based learning. Overall, the value of the study undertakenis located in sharing an authentic, lived science assessment experience with the intention of assistingcolleagues notice aspects of their own pedagogic practices that may be hidden at present.

� 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The importance of understanding how students’ experiences oflearning are structured via the regulation of knowledge is a keyfactor in bringing about change in educational practice. Butknowing ‘‘who controls what’’ (Bernstein, 1996, p. 27) within thesocial context of the classroom is simply one point of departure inthe pursuit of opportunities for teachers to learn professionally inthe contexts in which they work. When improvements in class-room practice are sought, a catalyst or a trigger to prompt reflectionon concrete experiences and generate new experimental peda-gogical practices can be a useful tool (Kolb, 1984). A catalyst, whenpurposefully introduced as part of a programme of in situ educa-tional innovation, can also serve as a platform or reference point forteacher professional learning. Both of these uses of a catalyst, as weattempt to show, can be woven together to produce interestingresults in educational innovation work.

This paper is an attempt to tell a story within the genre ofreporting findings from educational research where a singleteacher’s experiences are recounted to gain purchase on large or

þ65 68 96 9414.Tan), phillip.towndrow@nie.

All rights reserved.

pressing issues in the implementation of educational policy andteacher learning. A well-know example in the vein is David Cohen’s(1990) essay, which illustrates the relationship between instruc-tional policy and teaching practice through the personage of Mrs.Oublier. This account, and our own, present and unite strands oflived experience at the intersection of people, policies and places(Honig, 2006) in pedagogic endeavour.

In what follows, two objectives are set. First, we present a casefor the use of digital video (our catalyst) in the assessment oflearning that takes place in science laboratories. This is an aspect ofscience pedagogy and assessment that has received little attentionin the research and practice literature. Second, based on a teacher’sexperiences of using the digital video catalyst, we seek an answer toa crucial question in teachers’ learning: How can teachers, given thelimited opportunities they have to engage in continuous learningabout their practices in the settings in which they actually work(Elmore, 2004), learn to observe as they reflect on what they do?

2. Sophia and her teaching context

Sophia is a biology teacher with just 2.5 years of teachingexperience in a high school in Singapore. From our observations,she is hardworking, conscientious and concerned about ‘‘.trans-ferring information to her pupils in the correct way’’ (personalcommunication, August 2006). As far as interaction with hercolleagues is concerned, Sophia participates in group meetings

A.L. Tan, P.A. Towndrow / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 61–6762

when there is a specific task to perform, for example, planning anend-of-term assessment for her subject or class level, otherwise,her professional practice isdlike most other teachers in herdepartmentdindividualized and largely private (cf. Lortie, 2002).Under these circumstances, we suspect that Sophia has limitedopportunities to share and reflect on her professional and personalexperiences in formal settings.

Sophia entered the profession at a time when extensive changeshave been made in the areas of curriculum and assessment drivenby changing conceptions of education emphasizing the social andconstructivist nature of learning (Shepard, 2000) and the perceivedneed to prepare students for life in the 21st century (OECD, 2005a).One current development in curriculum and assessment thataffects Sophia is the implementation of the school-based SciencePractical Assessment (SPA) scheme.

SPA replaces the former one-time practical test in the GeneralCertificate of Education (GCE) Advanced- and Ordinary-levelexaminations and represents the decentralization of certainassessment functions to schools in Singapore. Classroom teachers,like Sophia are now increasingly responsible for deciding what,when and how to assess their students in the laboratory. Addi-tionally, science teachers are now charged with developing validand appropriate practical assessment tasksdboth formative andsummativedto meet accountability requirements and develop instudents a richer understanding of science and laboratory work. Todate, professional development to enhance teachers’ assessmentcompetencies has been regarded as critical to the success of SPA butstill more needs to be known about how science teachers inSingapore can balance their dual roles as teachers and assessors. Aswe will illustrate below, much depends on what people alreadyknow and do (Honig, 2006).

3. Starting point

In pedagogy, where framing is strong, a sharp boundary can bedrawn between what may and may not be transmitted as knowl-edge in the classroom (Bernstein, 1977). Framing refers to controlson communication in a relationship and is manifested in schoolwhen a teacher determines the sequencing of lessons, the pace oflessons and even speaking rights during a lesson. As such, whena teacher maintains a tight grip over what can be said and done inthe classroom, she/he circumscribes what is to be presented asknowledge in the classroom. Given this, teachers, especially thosewho are recent entrants into the full-time profession, quickly learnto use the options at their disposal to regulate their relationshipswith students in terms of the selection, organization, pacing andtiming of exposure to the curriculum. This is done, quite under-standably, to meet institutional and curricula requirements buteven though instruction may be overt (New London Group, 1996, p.86) the end result of the direct, expert transmission of knowledgecan be stultifying and potentially uninformative.

In our first episode, which is taken from an uncorrected tran-script, we see Sophia standing before a class of forty, Secondary 1(13-year-old) students. The class had just completed some work inlighting and using the Bunsen burner and Sophia made thefollowing remarks:

Episode 1: using the Bunsen burner

[To a single student] Can you just turn off the flame, take thecloth and carry the beaker of water to the front bench please?Use the cloth. The rest of you, what are the pluses that you havefor your experiment? You lighted up the Bunsen burner. Prop-erly or not? Okay, very good, so what is the proper way that youshould light your Bunsen burner? You must first close the airhole. Very good. You must first close the air hole. Okay. Close theair holes first then you light the Bunsen burner. What kind of

flame will you get with a closed air hole? Luminous or non-luminous? Luminous? Luminous is what color? Orange oryellow? You can see the flame? It is orange. So if you want tomake the flame non-luminous, what color will it be? Blue. It isbarely visible. You must be more careful when using the non-luminous flame. Can you tell me why? You cannot really see it.So if you are not paying attention you might forget that yourBunsen burner is still lighted. You close the air hole and you willget a luminous flame. When heating your water bath whatflame should you use? Luminous or non-luminous? Non-lumi-nous. So that means you have to pay more attention and watchyour flame. Do you leave your flame unattended? Do you go upto the front at the same time to take alcohol? No. You never,never leave your flame unattended. Always make sure there is atleast somebody one person to keep an eye on it.

In Episode 1, Sophia had some very important advice to give to herstudents concerning safe working procedures. Her lengthy mono-logue was aimed at ensuring that the class was clear about whichpractices were acceptable and unacceptable in the science laboratory.Through a series of comments and mostly rhetorical questionsgarnered from her observations, she instructed the class in what to doto correct and change its faulty and undesirable practices. We are in nodoubt that Sophia’s instructional objectives were well-intentioned butwe are less certain about how educative value, understood especiallyin terms of revealing to students what worthy adult work looks like(Wiggins, 1998), could be drawn from the feedback she provided.

3.1. Formative assessment

There is nothing new in considering the linkage betweenassessment and students’ learning. For example, when syllabusobjectives are expressed in terms of measurable student behavior,then assessment can be taken to be ‘‘.the purposeful, systematicand on-going collection of evidence and its use in making judg-ments about students’ demonstrations of learning outcomes’’(Queensland School Curriculum Council, 2002, p. 5). There is muchagreement that when such evidence is used to provide informationto students that results in improvements in teaching and learningactivities, then formative assessment is said to have occurred (Black& Wiliam, 1998b; Gardner, 1993; Lo, 2006; OECD, 2005b).

There are two broad practitioner approaches to implementingformative assessment: it can either be planned or interactive (Bell &Cowie, 2001). In planned formative assessment, the evidenceprovided by teachers to their students can perform a diagnosticfunction, whereas interactive formative assessment is more spon-taneous and emergent. While it might be accepted as axiomaticthat assessment is one of the most powerful educational tools forpromoting effective learning, it is nonetheless worrying whenresearchers and educational reform interest groups cite multipleand repeated cases of teachers’ weak adoption and poor under-standing of formative assessment practices (of any kind) despiteintensive professional development efforts to increase theircapacity in this area (Assessment Reform Group, 1999; Black &Wiliam, 1998a; Macintyre Latta, Buck, & Beckenhauer, 2007). Apartfrom efforts to work on teachers’ practical questions with authenticexemplars, a key issue in matching teachers’ instructional andassessment practices with their students’ needs is seeing andunderstanding the difference between assessment purposes; inparticular, with the case of Sophia, distinguishing betweenassessment that is conducted of learning (summative assessment)and assessment that is enacted for the purposes of learning(Broadfoot & Black, 2004; McDonald & Bond, 2003). Arguably, thiswould allow Sophia and her students to better know where theyare in their learning journeys and what they need to do next toachieve their learning objectives (Hattie & Timperley, 2007).

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4. Assessment of learning in the laboratory

According to Yung (2006), the assessment of science practicalskills has traditionally been recognized as a form of activity that isperformed and learnt individually. Furthermore, with strongpedagogic framing, learning science practical skills can easily berendered in a highly prescriptive and silent fashion. In our secondepisode, Sophia was preparing her class for a forthcomingsummative SPA task. She had prepared a (formative) practiceexperiment to be completed under mock exam conditions and waskeen to point out that she was interested in the demonstration ofthe students’ individual skills. In line with her previously identifiedstrong pedagogic framing, she issued the following guidance to theclass before it began work.

Episode 2: no talking

All right, now this is an exam question so when you are going todo your experiment there will be no talking. There is going to beindividual work. Individual work. Okay, quiet. Since this isindividual work you have to be resourceful when collecting yourown apparatus. So you only share your water bath and theBunsen burner and tripod stand. You take your own boilingtubes. Any questions? You can share your water bath. AndBunsen burner and lighter. That’s all. All right. No more talking.You only share you only share water bath lighter and Bunsenburner. Cannot share wire gauze. So anything that requiresa water bath you share. But anything else, boiling tubes, youhave your own. White tile your own. Forceps also have yourown. Any more questions? .. Alright? So you will have oneperiod, which is about 45 minutes to do this experiment. Youmay begin now. Read through the experiment. Class, glass rodsare in front. Forceps are in front. You don’t share any of them.[After 3 minutes] You don’t seem to understand this is anassessment. Nobody should be talking. Not even to your partner.

In Episode 2, Sophia exerted a very high level of control over thework to be undertaken by her students in the laboratory. Inparticular, she stressed the importance of: ‘no talking’; ‘individualwork’; ‘quiet’; ‘no more talking’; no sharing of certain items ofapparatus; ‘no sharing of answers’ and no discussion or consultationwith others. These restrictions served to close down the opportu-nities for discussion, peer learning and peer collaboration to occur.

Notably, as far as gathering and using evidence to make judgmentsabout students’ learning was concerned (assessment for learning),Sophia’s reminder to ‘treat this like a proper assessment’ isolated theclass and restricted her scope to provide feedback that could help herstudents improve their learning by reflecting on their own experi-ences. Arguably, her dominance induced passivity in her students andthis effect was a concern when she came to reflect on her teaching ina post-lesson professional sharing dialogue with the researcher.

5. Call to action

While Sophia was pleased that she was able to observe herstudents’ manipulative skills and highlight areas of concern in thelaboratory, a collaborative examination of the full transcript of thelesson revealed a high percentage of teacher-talk. In fact, based ona simple word count in the hour-long lesson, she spoke for about99.6% of the time, which meant there was only limited space for herstudents to give short responses to the questions she initiated.

Once Sophia recognized the extent to which she controlledevents in her classroom, she wanted to know more about how shecould increase her students’ involvement, their collaborations andvoices in the assessment for learning process. However, Sophia alsorealized that she needed a catalyst or trigger that would allow herstudents to engage in a critical re-assessment of themselves andtheir peers without disrupting her overall plan for delivering the

curriculum. Interestingly, the point of departure in reworkingSophia’s assessment practices involved repositioning her instruc-tional objectives around her students’ needs and interests.

Crucially, Sophia acknowledged that her students needed to beguided and encouraged to participate more actively in class.Through co-planning, Sophia and the researcher decided to intro-duce digital video technology in the laboratory in an attempt tocreate opportunities for her students to experience assessment forlearning in science practical directly and meaningfully.

5.1. The digital video catalyst

As is widely known and accepted, digital video technologyallows for a permanent record of events that have taken place andthis, in turn, provides a means for the detailed analysis of thoseevents as unlimited replay is possible. Furthermore, through therepeated examination of selected footage (Erickson, 2006) or byslowing it down or speeding it up, it is possible to notice aspects ofevents that would probably go unseen in real-time, sequentialviewing. Thus, when used strategically, digital video has thepotential to serve as an excellent source of material in support ofevidence-based argumentation and instruction.

Educators and educational institutions have tried to takeadvantage of the reduced cost and increased storage capacities ofdigital technology in teaching and learning in different disciplines;for example, writing across the curriculum (Scot & Harding, 2004)and science (Yerrick, Ross, & Molebash, 2003). Scot and Harding(2004) used digital video to teach fifth graders researching, brain-storming, webbing, organizing and drafting skills by getting themto produce and script their own movies using a digital camera anddigital video-editing software. As far as the content of the presentarticle is concerned, Yerrick et al. (2003) maintained that theappropriate use of digital video in the science classroom canenhance certain scientific processes like planning investigations,collecting observation data, controlling variables and alsocommunicating findings from scientific experiments.

In terms of pedagogy, digital video invites different forms ofengagement and appeals to different learning approaches, whichimplies that a more diverse group of students can be reached whenit comes to the learning of science. According to Yerrick et al.(2003), developing and editing scientific digital videos can behighly motivating as it allows students to share their scientificunderstandings and explanations with one another. Arguably, theclarification process in small-group work can be particularly usefulfor the learning of science. Both good and bad practices can beanalyzed, reviewed and critiqued after an event has occurred. By‘good’ practices, we are referring to those behaviors and actionsthat are considered to be correct by science teachers and profes-sional scientists. Conversely, bad practices are those that wouldeasily be labeled as incorrect or unacceptable in the community ofscience practitioners.

With these affordances of digital video technology in mind,Sophia and her research partner collaborated to modify the labo-ratory experiment previously depicted in Episodes 1 and 2, andprepare supplementary instructional materials, as required. Theresulting lesson, which required double the amount of time (twoclass periods), was conducted with another class at the same level.

Episode 3, is used to illustrate the change in Sophia’s discourseas she spoke only to give instructions to her students at the start ofthe lesson and nominate various students to share their views atthe end of the session. In contrast with the previous session whereSophia spoke most of the time, the innovation seemed to haveresulted in Sophia relinquishing some of her framing power inrelation to the students. Arguably, an aspect of her role as teachershifted from knowledge pusher to being a manager of a learningevent.

Table 1Summary of feedback to students performing practical work

Category Feedback

General planning in carryingout the practical

� She keep reading the paper to make surethat she is doing the right thing. She shouldunderstand what the paper is saying thenstart the activity.� She kept her things aside before beginning

the experiment.

Working with the Bunsenburner

� She opened the air hole when she wasstarting the Bunsen burner. She should closeit when she started the Bunsen burner.� She lit the Bunsen burner properly. She did

not wait too long after turning the gas on.This prevent accidents from happening inthe room.

Preparing the water bath � She should put the beaker of water on top ofthe tripod stand before turning on the Bun-sen burner.� No big bubbles bubbling up when she turned

off the Bunsen burner. She should wait forthe water to boil before turning off theBunsen burner.� She wanted to use her hand to take up the

test tube. She should use the tongs.� She pointed the mouth of the test tube from

her friends.

Making observations � She observed the beaker and the experimentwell. She did not leave the placeunnecessarily.� She pays close attention to the water in the

beaker till it boils. She did not leave thebeaker unattended.� She recorded the experiment.� When the mixture in the test tube has

turned orange, she took it out and observedit.

All comments were taken directly from students’ feedback sheets. No correctionswere made to grammatical errors.

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Episode 3: Read your instructions

Read your instructions carefully, I will be collecting this back atthe end of the lesson. [Sophia moves away and students got towork together. Discussions were allowed and Sophia walkedaround to observe the students.]

In summary, the following sequence of events was carried outduring the task redesign and implementation stages of theinnovation.

1 Sophia designed a practical task, which required the studentsto conduct the Benedict’s test. She also designed and producedthe worksheet and marking rubrics used in the laboratory.

2 The class was told that they would be observed as theyconducted the practical activity and informed consent wasgiven by all members of the class to do this.

3 Additionally, two students, in particular, volunteered to bevideo recorded during the practical and agreed in writing tothis arrangement.

4 During the practical session, two digital video cameras were setup to record each of the student volunteers throughout thepractical.

5 After the practical session, the researcher copied the footageonto a CD-ROM.

6 In the next lesson, the students were briefed and given aninstruction sheet (Appendix 1) for the follow-up activity. Thestudents were tasked to critique what they saw on the CD-ROMand to justify their comments.

7 After reviewing the digital videos, a class discussion wascarried out to consolidate the students’ learning.

6. Tranformations

This section begins the process of bringing the effects of thedigital video innovation and the teacher’s learning from it together.

6.1. Students

The students watched the digital video as a class, worked on thetemplate and discussed collectively what they had observed. Themood in the class was noted by the researcher as relaxed and therewas a sense of excitement among the students. Analysis of thetemplate completed by the 43 students showed that on average,each student was able to identify 3.7 practices which weredescribed as either ‘good’ (acceptable) or as ‘bad’ (unacceptable)which indicated areas where there needed to be improvement.Typically, the students were able to identify areas where theirclassmates exhibited ‘good’ practical skills. And in cases whereerrors were made, they made suggestions for improvements. Theareas that were identified by the students can be broadly catego-rized as follows:

� general planning in carrying out the practical;� working with the Bunsen burner;� preparing the sample for experimentation;� preparing the water bath and;� making observations.

Table 1 below illustrates some of the students’ comments asthey viewed the digital video clip of their classmates performingthe science practical tests.

6.2. Sophia

Sophia was observed to ease her control over what was transmittedas knowledge in the laboratory. An immediate result noted of

implementing the modified lessonprocedure was that it was no longernecessary for her to say as much as she did in the previous lesson.

As part of the on-going teacher–researcher relationship, Sophiamentioned the digital video innovation in an informal conversationthat occurred with the researcher almost 18 months later. This timelapse gave Sophia time to think back or reflect on her actions(Schon, 1987). In a subsequent formal interview, Sophia was askedspecifically what she remembered about the digital video research.As shown in Episode 4, she remembered it well.

Episode 4: i was impressed

I remember the students were enthusiastic about it. Theyespecially liked the digital video taping. I remember there wasone particular thing we did which I thought was very impres-sivedwe took the digital video and we got them [the students]to critique it and some of them came up with really really goodpoints. I was very impressed with how much they had taken in.I think it helped me, it helped in the interaction between me andthe students because in Secondary 1, I think the activities that wedid, we had a lot of fun and interacted a lot and when it comes toSecondary 3, I find that those students I did the SPA [SciencePractical Assessment] with in Secondary 1, I can sort of getthrough to them. I can interact much better with them becauseof this bonding. And some of the other students are in 3B thisyear are all mixed up. I find that they are not so receptive towards

A.L. Tan, P.A. Towndrow / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 61–67 65

SPA because this is the first time they have heard of it. And alsobecause that interaction between them, I didn’t interact withthem that much in Secondary 1, is I find that it’s harder for me tounderstand how they think and how they behave.

Sophia recalled clearly the digital video innovation togetherwith the fun and enthusiasm that the students showed whenengaged in this form of learning. She attributed her ability tounderstand her students who were involved in the innovationbetter, to the interaction she had with them during it. Her assess-ment of her students’ learning in class was also enhanced as itallowed her to ‘hear’ their voices about what they understoodabout Science Practical Assessment (SPA). Whilst Sophia did notexplicitly express how her beliefs and views about SPA had changedas a result of the innovation, it did make an impression thesignificance of which is discussed in the next section.

7. Discussion

To this point in the paper, we have told a story through class-room episodes and modified instructional materials showing howa teacher–researcher partnership examined a teacher’s existingpedagogical practices and attempted, through a student-centeredlearning approach to create the circumstances under which moreinteractive and emergent assessment for learning practices couldflourish in the classroom. This work required providing opportu-nities for students to reflect on their concrete laboratory experi-ences. In this section, we now conceptualize, evaluate and discussthe innovation in terms of changes that occurred in the students andSophia, the teacher.

As far as the students’ involvement in formative assessment wasconcerned, the modified learning task design provided additionaltime for them to share, verify and justify their personal views withtheir peers using evidence from the digital video footage. Further-more, by casting a reflective and analytical eye on what they hadexperienced, the students were more actively engaged in the criticalre-assessment of themselves, their peers and the science, which theyhad experienced. These events and ideas mirror and approach howscientists work in real life. For example, one key activity that scien-tists engage in is to present their findings, theories and experimentaldesigns to their peers to be critiqued. It is only when a piece of workfulfills the norms, rules and standards for scientific practice that itwill be acceptable as scientific knowledge that can be shared andused by the community. Besides the rules and standards, scientistsmust also be able to communicate, substantiate and counter-proposealternatives in the review process. The process through whichscientific knowledge is formulated and accepted requires inputs andacceptance from peers. The students were not in the business ofcreating new scientific knowledge per se but the way they wereallowed to develop their manipulative skills had educative value; thatis, it was in keeping with spirit and intent of accepted, adult scientificpractice.

Instead of relying on Sophia for explicit guidance and instruc-tion, evidence suggests the students were more active in generatingtheir own observations of the science manipulative skills andjustifying these observations. There is a subtle effect at play here.The modified learning task design provided an opportunity for thestudents to pay attention to detail. But before the inquiring eye cansee, it needs to be alerted to what to notice. The digital videofootage played a role in helping the students acquire the ability tonotice in a disciplined way. Specifically, it allowed them to start theprocess of making distinctions between (important) things andtheir surroundings (Mason, 2002). Overall, the video footageprovided a personal account of their learningdin particular, wespeculate, their choice-making.

The students’ learning can be understood as developmental usingKolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Cycle where the stages of concreteexperience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization andactive experimentation are mutually informing and iterative. Thestudents began with a set of concrete experiences having performedthe laboratory task for themselves. This was a common experiencethat they all shared. The screening of the digital video footagerequired the students to reflect on the work they had observed andundertaken. Next, when the students used the teacher’s template(Appendix 1) to state and justify how they thought the experimentshould be conducted they were provided with the opportunity tothink abstractly about how it could be done differently. Finally, as faras active experimentation is concerned, the students were providedwith a basis and rationale for using their laboratory skills differently(in a better way) given the chance to do the same or a relatedexperiment on another occasion.

Sophia’s learning journey began at the point where herdominance in the classroom was a personal concern. Yet, sheshowed she was able to modify her pedagogy and develop instruc-tional materials that gave her greater opportunities to provideformative feedback to and, thereby, notice changes in her students.Admittedly, it took twice the time for Sophia to cover the sameamount of curricula content in the digital video innovation but thereturns on this investment were promising. Crucially, Sophia noticeddifferences in the rapport she had with the students whom she hadworked with earlier using the digital video as opposed to those whohad not. The act of giving responsibility to her students made hermore responsive to them as a result; recall that it was easier for herto understand those students who interacted with each other andwith her in class. There are shifts in perspective here and useful signsthat the seeds of pedagogic transformation had fallen on fertileground. There is, of course, more work that can be done in Sophia’sdevelopment as a teaching professional and it is instructive to thinkabout how the changes in her classroom interactions happened. It isat this point that the dual roles of digital video catalyst finally merge.

There can be no doubt that the introduction of digital video intoSophia’s laboratory brought about desired and immediate changes,but technology cannot catalyze pedagogy alone. Sophia’s adjust-ments depended on seeing changes in and moving with herstudents along a parallel path of experiential and practitioner-based learning. This is a tuning in process. She began with theconcrete experience of observing her students conducting theirexperiments and giving them feedback (refer to Episode 1). Next,she reflected on her own practices and decided that she wanted tochange her practices in pedagogy and formative assessment.Together, the teacher–researcher partnership explored and utilizedthe affordances of digital video technology as an assessment tool.This constituted the teacher’s abstract construction. Finally, a basewas constructed for further active experimentation in sciencepractical pedagogy and assessment. In short, we believe there issupport for the claim that Sophia became more aware of herteaching practices and the capacity she possessed to change (Guba& Lincoln, 1994) through our innovation.

Situated at the junction of educational policy concerning scienceassessment (SPA), her school and her place within it as a junior staffmember with limited teaching experience, we consider that Sophiabecame critically aware, through the video catalyst, of what she didnot know about assessment for learning in laboratory work. Hope-fully, Sophia’s placement at the beginning of a learning journeyassists in answering, in part, the problem of teachers’ learningalluded to at the beginning of our story. In our opinion, teachers canknow better what to observe when they reflect on the work byperturbing (gently, at first) their self-knowledge and beliefs abouteffective pedagogical practices. In our story, the researcher intro-duced an element (the digital video footage) into the classroomwhich could only be accommodated through transformed task

A.L. Tan, P.A. Towndrow / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 61–6766

design and implementation work. Through this action, Sophia wasassisted by a willing and capable researcher acting as a critical friend(Costa & Kallick, 1993). We see no impediment to all teachers sup-porting each other, in situ, in a similar fashion with sufficientmentoring and encouragement from colleagues and researchers.

8. Concluding remarks

This paper began by noting the characteristics of stronglyframed pedagogy and then moved on to consider the impact thishad on assessment practices in science practical work. A teacher–researcher partnership designed and implemented a teaching-based innovation that used digital video footage as a tool to triggergreater student reflection and comments on their own and theirpeers’ learning. It was claimed that these actions producededucative outcomes in both the students and the teacher. Anadditional assertion made was that these developments weremutually informing. What role did the technology play in bringingabout these effects and benefits?

Although we chose not to focus on the technical aspects ofdigital video recording or editing, the technology employed in thestudy offered an alternative and rarely used way, in our experienceas science teacher educators and researchers, of conductingformative assessment in science practical work. This was achievedby opening up an intellectual space for evidence-based dialoguebetween a class of students and their teacher, Sophia, to take place.Importantly, the digital video footage enabled assessment forlearning purposes to be achieved. If we were to take the digitalvideo out of the equation, assessment would still have happenedwith Sophia giving her students feedback on their learning basedon prior observation and generalized comment. However, thisbeing the case, the level of students’ involvement, the depth ofstudent-generated discussion and the possibility of abstractconceptualization would all have been absent. The findingspresented in this paper suggest that digital video technology canfacilitate more dialogue and engagement in classroom interactionsunder particular circumstances.

While we realize the importance of digital video in our study, wewould also like to caution that its role was necessary but notsufficient for (i) teacher development and (ii) formative assessment(assessment for learning) to occur. Technology can serve as a sourceof learning and development but its value as a pedagogical amplifier(Cummins, Brown, & Sayers, 2007) is only manifested when it iscoupled with reflection in and on practice (Schon, 1983). Crucially,once Sophia noticed her actions she was able to transcend andtransform them via purposeful task design (cf. Freire, 1970/2000).

We end on a cautionary note. We are fully aware that our story isbased on a single teacher working with one class on a particularlaboratory experiment. And even though we are unable to providefurther examples of how digital video technology can catalyzestudent–teacher interactions in science practical formativeassessment, we consider that we have, at least, broken the groundfor a richer exploration of teacher and student change throughreflection on action to commence in our local context. Morebroadly, our intentions lie in finding ways to move beyond theindividualized learning of science laboratory skills and the lessprescriptive teaching of science. As far as community building isconcerned, we believe Sophia improved as a teacher because sheresponded with something that was right to do in her local, situatedpractice. We also see great merit in telling a part of her story in thehope that its details will help colleagues provide better feedback totheir students and most importantly notice aspects of their ownpedagogic practices that may be hidden at present (cf. Mason,2002). We wish to move faster along this track and invite others inuncovering the contingencies that hinder more rapid progress.

A.L. Tan, P.A. Towndrow / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 61–67 67

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