What Teachers Think

Many teacher educators believe multimedia cases can
improve teacher development because of these cases
potential in facilitating the acquisition of complex,
ill-structured knowledge needed for classroom
teaching. However, there is a general lack of
evidence on how cases impact thinking and practice of
teachers, and the evidence for multimedia cases is
even more sparse. Hence, the current study explores
the cognitive activities of several teachers before,
during, and after their interaction with video
ethnography, a specific form of multimedia cases. It
employs grounded theory to discover embedded meanings
and relationships that emerge from descriptive data.
Findings of the study include the identification of
categories of cognitive activities revealed in
teachers thinking and patterns that emerged from
case studies of individual participants. Using
cross-case analysis, four theoretical propositions
are generated to describe the cognitive development
process and its two influencers: learning orientation
and beliefs/experiences. The study has implications
for improving technology use in teacher development,
production of multimedia cases, and research on
case-based pedagogy.