Gaining insight into teaching profession by using film: a preservice teachers’ experience

Films can be used as instructional tools in higher education in different disciplines. In the context of teacher education, films with and about teachers and pupils are valuable resources for learning about the teaching profession. The purpose of this study is to examine the pre-service teachers’ reflections on a film with an educational content and message - The Triumph (The Ron Clark Story, 2006). One research question guided the investigation: What are the students’ cognitive and emotional gains for the teaching profession as a result of watching this film? The participants consisted of eighty-two second year students, enrolled in an initial teacher education program at a Romanian university. At the end of a one-semester course, named Pedagogy (Instruction and Students’ Assessment) pre-service teachers were invited to watch a film and then to reflect about it, by completing an open-ended questionnaire. The responses were analyzed through the content analysis technique. Examples of comments made by preservice teachers are presented and analyzed. The results show a range of understandings gained by future teachers through the use of the film