# Using a Cloud-Based Video Platform for Pre-service Teachers' Reflection

Tomohito Wada, Chikako Kakoi, Koji Hamada, Chikashi Unoki

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Tomohito Wada, Chikako Kakoi, Koji Hamada, Chikashi Unoki. Using a Cloud-Based Video Platform for Pre-service Teachers' Reflection. IFIP World Conference on Computers in Education (WCCE), Aug 2022, Hiroshima, Japan. pp.373-378, 10.1007/978-3-031-43393-1_34. hal-05533324

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# Using a Cloud-Based Video Platform for Pre-service Teachers' Reflection

Tomohito Wada✉, Chikako Kakoi✉, Koji Hamada✉, and Chikashi Unoki✉

National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Kanoya, Kagoshima 891-2393, Japan
{wada,chichicaco,hako,unoki}@nifs-k.ac.jp

**Abstract.** A cloud-based video platform was deployed into the pre-service PE teacher training course. One hundred and five students were enrolled in the course, and all demonstration (demo) lessons performed by students were video recorded and shared with the system. After each demo lesson, students were required to conduct two types of assessments by marking up the video with tags. As a result, the tags marked into each video clip were widely spread, and this suggests that it prevented a decrease in a student's concentration to observe them. The number of tags became relatively large in some teams, and this suggests that marking may be influenced by tags that were marked in advance by their peers. Except for a few cases, students conducted the assessments correctly through the system. According to the survey completed by students, most of the comments were positive. This trial gave a direct and visual feedback of the demo lessons, and it provided a good opportunity for students for their reflection.

**Keywords:** Cloud-based video platform · Microteaching · Reflection · Teacher training

## 1 Introduction

In pre-service teacher training courses at higher education institutions, demonstration (demo) lessons are generally implemented to develop students' teaching skills. In these demo lessons, students are divided into two groups, one as the teacher and the other as students, and are required to conduct lessons which simulate real lectures. Demo lessons in a planned series of five to ten-minute encounters with a small group of real students, often with an opportunity to observe the results on video tape, are called microteaching [1]. Video viewing in teacher education and professional development is a unique and potentially powerful tool [2], and there appears to be a general consensus on the benefit of using video to develop reflection among teachers [3].

In our pre-service teacher training courses, the microteaching method was adopted and video recordings have been used for reflection [5]. Since 2013, the video has been shared using a Learning Management System (LMS), a web-based application installed at university, so that students can replay video regardless
of time or place. However, LMS has only a simple playback function so the video was used just for a means of observation. Thus, more sophisticated functions that utilize video recording were expected.

To make a qualitative assessment of physical education lectures, Takahashi proposed a method called “duration recording of teaching episodes” [6] which classify a lecture into four category, i.e. instruction, management, cognitive activity and physical activity. This is one well-known method to assess PE lectures which contain comparatively long physical activities. A dedicated application for duration recording of PE lessons has been developed and is available in Japan [4].

Video recordings of a demo lesson and the duration recording of teaching episode are effective methods to develop teaching ability of pre-service teachers. However, it is not easy to employ them especially into a class with a lot of students. To share video with the LMS it takes a lot of work e.g. preparing camera, shooting, copying into a computer, trimming, encoding and then uploading. The dedicated application can simplify these processes, however due to cost it is often difficult to implement the application into university classes.

Recently a cloud-based video platform service called Vosaic was released [7]. Vosaic provides fundamental functions for video sharing with user management, and a mark-up function into the video. The mark-up function is often called ‘tagging’. Users can access all of these functions with a web browser, so it is easy to deploy the system into our courses.

Therefore, through the use of the cloud-based video platform, this study will examine where this service can be effectively used in a course for pre-service teacher development.

## 2 Methods

This study was carried out at a college which provides courses for pre-service physical education teacher. The Vosaic system was introduced into “Methods of Teaching Health and Physical Education IV”. This course was for the 3rd grade students, and 105 students were enrolled in 2021.

The students were divided into 18 teams of 5 to 6 students. Six teams of students formed a group, and each group conducted a demo lesson in parallel. Four members from a team took turns as a teacher, the remaining team member recorded a video with an iPad which the lecturer provided. The remaining members in the group (around 30 students) played the role of students for the demo lesson. The lesson themes were Softball, Judo, Physical Fitness, Gymnastics, Creative Dance, Rhythm Dance and Health. Lessons were held in the gymnasium or the dance studio except Health. The duration of demo lesson was around 30 min.

The Vosaic system [7] was hired as a video platform. The system administration including user management was carried out by a IT staff in the college. Lecturers of the course were registered as “Educators” and students were registered as “Users” on Vosaic. After the class, the video recorded during demo lessons were uploaded by a lecturer of the course.
After the demo lesson, students of the team who took charge of teachers used Vosaic to conduct two types of assessments of the lesson. The first one was named “Good/Bad (GB) assessment”. Students marked good acts as “Good” and moments that need improvement as “Bad” by observing the video. The second one was “Duration recording of teaching episode” proposed by Takahashi [6]. Every moment of the demo lesson was marked into four episodes: “Instruction”, “Management”, “Cognitive activity” and “Physical activity”. All team members individually completed the GB assessment, while a team representative performed the duration recording because it might have less individual difference. Timelines marked by teammates were shared and every team member could see the results of other team members’ assessments.

With Vosaic, results of assessments can be marked as tags with buttons displayed on a web browser. Figure 1 shows an example of a display with Vosaic. Users can tag the scene with the green and red buttons at the right side while playing the video. These tags are then displayed on the timeline at the bottom of video. In Fig. 1, Good/Bad assessments tagged by team members are shown in five separate timelines.

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. An example of Good/Bad assessment with Vosaic.</figcaption></figure>
# 3 Results

As a result of conducting the course, two demo lessons' video clips for each team, 36 clips in total, were uploaded to the Vosaic. The total time of the video clips was 20 h 30 min (1230 min). At the beginning of the semester it was planned that each team would have 3 demo lessons, however it was decreased due to the coronavirus pandemic. The total number of tags marked into the video was 3,553 for the GB assessment, 1,439 for the duration recording method.

Time variation of the number of GB tags per minute marked by students into video clips is shown in Fig. 2. This shows that tags were widely spread on video clips. In general, people tend to get tired of watching the long video clips. However, by requiring to mark moments as an assessment, it might prevent a decrease in a student's concentration to observe these video.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2.** Time variation in the number of GB tags per minute.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3.** The total number of GB tags for each team.</figcaption></figure>

The total number of attached GB tags for each team is shown in Fig. 3. The average number of Good tags were 86.8±49.9 and 53.1±21.0 for the first and the
second demo lesson, Bad tags were 34.6 ± 18.3 and 22.9 ± 12.1. In some teams, a larger number of “Good” tags were identified in the first demo lesson as if clicking a lot of “like” buttons in SNS. In this Vosaic setup, all marked tags were shared with teammates, and it can be considered that some students may have been influenced by tags marked in advance by their teammate. Therefore, before the second demo lessons, lecturers told students that a tag should be attached to one teaching action, and too many tags may obscure the salient features of the demo lesson. This should be one of the reasons in the decrease of tags in the second demo lesson.

Results from duration recording tabulated by lesson theme are shown in Table 1. In most of clips, teaching episodes was assessed correctly through the system. However, in four demo lessons in three teams, the duration recording assessment was not carried out properly, even though GB assessment was carried out in these lessons. On the Vosaic system, the buttons for the duration recording assessment were set as “Toggle button”. The toggle button allows users to control the length of the moment by pressing it once to mark the beginning, and press it again to mark the end of the moment. This difference in operation between two assessment forms might confuse some students.

<table><caption>Table 1. The ratio of activities of demo lesson by duration recording.</caption><thead><tr><th>Theme</th><th>Instruction</th><th>Physical Activity</th><th>Cognitive Activity</th><th>Management</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Health</td><td>57%</td><td>1%</td><td>33%</td><td>8%</td></tr><tr><td>Judo</td><td>52%</td><td>39%</td><td>2%</td><td>7%</td></tr><tr><td>Creative Dance</td><td>48%</td><td>31%</td><td>9%</td><td>12%</td></tr><tr><td>Gymnastics</td><td>37%</td><td>39%</td><td>7%</td><td>17%</td></tr><tr><td>Softball</td><td>35%</td><td>33%</td><td>10%</td><td>21%</td></tr><tr><td>Physical Fitness</td><td>32%</td><td>22%</td><td>25%</td><td>21%</td></tr><tr><td>Rhythm Dance</td><td>31%</td><td>37%</td><td>19%</td><td>13%</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>43%</td><td>25%</td><td>18%</td><td>14%</td></tr></tbody></table>

## 4 Conclusion

A cloud-based video platform enabled students to share and assess videos of demo lessons in a simple operation even in a class with over 100 students. There was little guidance for the system, but most of students were able to use it without trouble. According to the survey taken at the end of the course, most of the comments regarding the use of the system were positive. This trial gave direct and visual feedback of the demo lessons, and it brought a good opportunity for pre-service teachers reflection. In the GB assessment, many students pointed out that criteria for assessments were similar to those of other students. The
duration recording and its timeline display also made students reconsider their
time management.

In this research, we propose a method with binary tags called GB assessment.
The previous study [8] which utilized video for pre-service teachers indicated
that students were able to discern particular aspects of teaching that were both
strengths and weaknesses. The GB assessment can enable students to focus on
their distinctive features, and had the effect of promoting this type of reflection.

In this trial, some students tended to mark too many GB tags into the
video. The video-enhanced reflection facilitates teacher reflection and increase
the quantity of things teachers notice about their teaching [9]. Vosaic provides
a brief and intuitive method and it might boost the number of GB tags for
some students. The appropriate number of tags is still unclear, and it should be
clarified in future studies.

Some students also pointed out that they could not understand the reasons
for tagging by peers in some cases. Adding a comment to a GB tag or increasing
the type of tag could be a solution for that. These also will be the subjects of
future studies.

At last, it is worth mentioning that even during the coronavirus pandemic,
we were able to continue and enhance our course activities by utilizing the cloud-
based video platform.

References

1. Allen, D.W. (ed.): Micro-teaching: A Description. Stanford Teacher Education Program, Palo Alto (1967)

2. Gaudin, C., Chalies, S.: Video viewing in teacher education and professional development: a literature review. Educ. Res. Rev. **16**, 41–67 (2015)

3. Hamel, C., Viau-Guay, A.: Using video to support teachers’ reflective practice: a literature review. Cogent Educ. **6**(1), 1673689 (2019)

4. Lesson Study Analyst for Physical Education. https://pes-analyst.jp/. Accessed 27 Feb 2022

5. Sato, Y., Kakoi, C.: Case study reports and reflection of Health and Physical Education Teacher Education IV (2014) in NIFS – For construction of practical leadership development system in active learning type tuition for Experiential Learning Model. Ann. Fitness Sports Sci. **52**, 35–67 (2016). (in Japanese)

6. Takahashi, T.: Observation and Evaluation of Physical Education Class - Authentic assessment for improvement. Meiwa Publishing, Tokyo (2003). (in Japanese)

7. Vosaic: Video Coaching, Video Feedback, Video Analysis. https://vosaic.com/. Accessed 27 Feb 2022

8. Coffey, A.M.: Using video to develop skills in reflection in teacher education students. Aust. J. Teach. Educ. **39**(9), 86–97 (2014)

9. Wright, G.A.: Improving teacher performance using an enhanced digital video reflection technique. In: Spector, J., Ifenthaler, D., Isaias, P., Kinshuk, Sampson, D. (eds.) Learning and Instruction in the Digital Age, pp. 175–190. Springer, Boston (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1551-1_11