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Personalizing and Contextualizing Multimedia Case Methods in University-based Teacher Education: An Important Modification for Promoting Technological Design in School Science

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Abstract

Results of various studies suggest that multimedia ‘case methods’ (activities associated with case documentaries) have many benefits in university-based teacher education contexts. They can, for example, help to ‘bridge the gap’ between perspectives and practices held by academic teacher educators and those held by student-teachers – who may adhere to perspectives and practices commonly supported in schools. On the other hand, some studies, along with theoretical arguments, suggest that there are limits to the effectiveness of multimedia case methods – because, for example, they can never fully represent realities of teaching and learning in schools. Furthermore, often missing from multimedia case methods is the student-teacher in the role of teacher. To address these concerns, we modified an existing multimedia case method by associating it with a special practice teaching situation in a school context. Qualitative data analyzed using constant comparative methods suggest that student-teachers engaged in this modified multimedia case method developed relatively deep commitments to encouraging students to conduct technology design projects – a non-traditional practice in school science. Factors that appeared to influence development of this motivation included student-teachers’ pre-instructional perspectives about science and the personalization and contextualization inherent to the modified multimedia case method.

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Notes

  1. We use the term ‘case’ (or case documentary) here to refer to documentary materials that depict a particular teaching and learning situation; whereas, the term ‘case method’ refers to a case and associated pedagogical activities.

  2. To ‘reify’ is to treat an abstraction as substantially existing or as a concrete material object. If the term ‘Americans’ is used in a sentence, it could misleadingly suggest, for example, that all citizens in the USA are alike.

  3. Since 1998, science and technology education have been integrated in one course, ‘Science and Technology’ (MoET, 1998), in each of grades 1–8 in Ontario. Each course has 5 units, corresponding to the five ‘strands’ that apply across all elementary grades. These strands are: Life Systems, Matter & Materials, Energy & Control, Structures & Mechanisms and Earth & Space Systems. For each unit, teachers are required to address ‘Expectations’ (outcomes/objectives) in three domains; i.e., Concepts (e.g., laws, theories & inventions), Skills (e.g., for inquiry and design) and Relationships (e.g., amongst Science, Technology, Society and Environment).

  4. This group of student-teachers represented a range of ethno-cultural backgrounds. Of the 19 class members, 12 were female. All of these student-teachers had a B.Sc., with at least some concentration in biology, although three also had M.Sc. degrees (and one was about to complete one).

  5. Roughly, this model depicts science as involving cycles of process such as: observing, questioning, predicting & hypothesizing, testing (e.g., via experiments), data organization and display, concluding and negotiating conclusions. Such cycles are shown integrated with cycles of processes in technology, including: observing, problem-identification, solution-development and explanation, testing (e.g., involving quasi-experimentation), data organization and display, and negotiation of product values.

  6. The ‘Scientific Theory Profile’ consists of two continua (with ‘ordinal’ scales), intersecting in the middle at right angles, that depict various views about the nature of science. On the Rationalist to Naturalist continuum, for example, placing a mark close to the ‘Rationalist’ end indicates a ‘strong’ Naturalist view about science. Placing a mark about mid-way between the two poles, by contrast, indicates that science has moderately Rationalist and Naturalist features.

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Acknowledgements

This project was funded, in part, by a generous grant from The Imperial Oil Centre for Studies in Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, under the Directorship of Dr. Derek Hodson, at OISE/UT. That support is gratefully acknowledged. We also acknowledge and appreciate financial support from the province of Ontario for this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning, OISE, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON, M5S 1V6, Canada

    Larry Bencze, Jim Hewitt & Erminia Pedretti

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  1. Larry Bencze
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  2. Jim Hewitt
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  3. Erminia Pedretti
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Correspondence to Larry Bencze.

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Bencze, L., Hewitt, J. & Pedretti, E. Personalizing and Contextualizing Multimedia Case Methods in University-based Teacher Education: An Important Modification for Promoting Technological Design in School Science. Res Sci Educ 39, 93–109 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-007-9076-3

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