Decisions and Reasons: Examining Preservice Teacher Decision-Making Through Video Self-Analysis

M ETHODS USED TO STUDY TEACHER THINKING have both provided insight into the cognitive aspects of teaching and resulted m new, as yet unresolved, relationships between practice and theory. Recent developments in video-analysis tools have allowed preservice teachers to analyze both their practices and thinking, providing important feedback for self-improvement as well as insights into their thinking. In this study, four student teachers used the Video Analysis Tool to enquire about and analyze their teaching. Constant-comparative methods revealed different decision-making and reasoning patterns, indicating decisions driven primarily by teachercentered thinking and decisions driven primarily by student-centered thinking. We discuss how understanding these differences might benefit the teacher education community and describe the implications of video analysis m both research and practice. (