Using video data to research pedagogic practices in new generation learning environments in schools: Development of a framework for analysing and presenting teacher practice

This paper discusses the use of video data to research pedagogic practices in new generation learning environments (NGLEs) in primary and secondary schools. Using video footage drawn from a collaborative research project between the University of Melbourne and the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (2013), the paper charts the development of a framework for analysing and representing teacher practice across a range of NGLEs: learning spaces that provide a greater degree of spatial variation, geographic freedom and access to resources for students and teachers than traditional classrooms. Video of teacher practice collected in four Victorian government schools was used as the basis for developing the framework. This footage was initially coded using Studiocode, a software tool that has been employed to analyse teacher practice in classrooms across the world, including by the International Centre for Classroom Research (ICCR), but not as far as we know used to analyse teacher practice in NGLEs through a human geographic or spatial lens. The paper describes the research methodology, the data collection methods and the analysis framework that was developed to represent data about the ‘intersections’ between people, space, practice and time i.e. the complex spatialized pedagogic practice of teachers in NGLEs. The practical dilemmas and hurdles that were encountered during the process of developing a simple coding system and visual tool that could represent teacher practice in NGLEs are discussed, along with the final analysis framework and representational tool that arose from the empirical data