Approaches to Using Video Cases in Teacher Professional Development

Design In The Classroom (DITC) is a teacher professional development program that uses videos and related materials to support middle-school science and tech ed teachers in learning about, implementing and managing design tasks successfully in the complex realm of classroom teaching. Cases are reported of how these interactive multimedia materials were used by teachers in Massachusetts and Georgia. One study compared one group of teachers who used DITC in conjunction with doing a model parachute design challenge with a similar group that relied upon published teacher materials. The effects of using “video timelines” in providing a video gestalt of an entire instructional unit and “video hotspots” in focusing users’ attention on specific movie events are discussed.