Effects of Camera Placement on Undergraduates’ Peer Teaching Reflection

Abstract

We investigated whether camera placement affects peer teachers’ focus of attention during reflection. Preservice music teachers ( N = 14) reflected on peer teaching videos that had been recorded simultaneously from a head-mounted camera and a tripod-mounted camera at the back of the classroom. Participants completed the teaching reflection cycle twice, providing their observation comments in response to open-ended prompts. Responses were coded, with a single sentence as the unit of analysis, and a three-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed a significant difference in comment frequencies according to comment type (student-focused or teacher-focused) but not according to camera placement or trial. Our results corroborate previous research indicating that undergraduate peer teachers focus more on themselves than on their peers, and suggest that placing the camera in a position that shows the students, rather than the teacher, does not seem to affect this tendency. We discuss the implications for peer teaching experiences in teacher education courses.

It’s about time: An examination of the importance of timing on positivity of preservice music educators’ teaching reflections

“…Specifics are detailed below, but the overarching conclusion was that preservice teacher perceptions tended toward negativity and teacher-centered comments. Like most previous studies of the reflective process (Buonviri & Paney, 2022;Duke, 1994;Henninger & Scott, 2010;Henninger et al, 2008;Killian et al, 2013;Silvey & Montemayor, 2014;Stegman, 2007), these preservice teachers focused predominantly on themselves (Teacher) rather than their students, further confirming the self-concern versus the student-concern portions of Fuller and Bown Teacher Concerns model (Fuller & Bown, 1975).…”

“…Results confirmed the importance of reflection in the development of preservice teachers; however, our examination of the timing of reflections revealed some important new information regarding preservice teachers’ initial perceptions. Initial perceptions (reflecting immediately after teaching based on memory of the teaching as compared to reflecting after viewing a video of that same lesson) were more negative (Henninger & Scott, 2010; Powell, 2016), more focused on self (Buonviri & Paney, 2022; Henninger & Scott, 2010; Henninger et al, 2008; Killian & Liu, 2018; Powell, 2016); however, current results indicated more emphasis on social aspects of the lessons, a new finding. These immediate reflections were affected by the experience of teaching three different times throughout a semester, becoming slightly more positive (but never more than 50% positive), very slightly less focused on self (but always more than 95% focused on self ) , and including more focus on social aspects of the lesson.…”

“…Teacher (T), Learner (L), or Other (O) modeled after Fuller and Bown (1975) purposefully eliminating consideration of Fuller and Bown’s focus on subject matter for the purposes of this study (Buonviri & Paney, 2022; Killian & Liu, 2018). Other (O) referred to our inability to determine whether a comment referred to Teacher or Learner, for example, “rehearsal went well” or “room was cold.”…”

“…Other music researchers, however, using agreement with a checklist of prepared items rather than participant-generated comments as the dependent measure, found that preservice music teachers rated student-learning items more highly than self-items (Campbell & Thompson, 2007; Miksza & Austin, 2010). While not ignoring the importance of the “concern with content stage,” other researchers have tended to focus primarily on self versus student, sometimes exclusively so (Buonviri & Paney, 2022; Killian & Liu, 2018).…”

“…Much variety exists in the types of prompts provided to stimulate reflection. There are several examples of free form prompts in which participants were simply asked to reflect (Henninger & Scott, 2010; Henninger et al, 2008; Powell, 2016; Springer & Yinger, 2019), to list anything observed from a video of a music classroom (Buonviri & Paney, 2022; Killian & Liu, 2018), or to list questions or concerns (Kelly, 2000; Killian et al, 2013). Other types of prompts have included responses to semi-structured dialogs with prepared questions (Stegman, 2007), ratings on pre-determined aspects of teaching followed by instructions to devise descriptive, non-evaluative statements (Duke, 1994), or responses to a prepared rehearsal analysis form (Killian & Dye, 2009).…”