Multimedia Cases, Teacher Education and Teacher Learning

Abstract

Hypermedia platforms allow for the integration of visual, audio, graphical and textual information into an advanced technological learning environment. These environments, labelled as multimedia, are capable of representing classroom practice in a multimode and multilayered way. In this chapter, we explore the potential and practice of multimedia cases as vehicles for teacher learning. We begin by relating four aspects of the learning process – thinking, acting, reflecting and transferring. These aspects may be integrated in teacher education in different modes. Teachers videotaping their lessons for case construction and self analysis reflect the primary mode. Teachers learning new principles and practices directly from finished, exemplar cases illustrate the secondary mode, and teachers using existing cases to stimulate discussion and action demonstrate the tertiary mode. Finally, we suggest that effectively anchoring multimedia cases in teacher education programs involves several considerations: intentionality, creating context, scaffolding, quality conversations and praxis.