THE USE OF VIDEO IN SCIENCE CLASS EVERYDAY PRACTICE

Author ID: 506

Luiz Augusto Rezende Fernanda L. K. Vidal
NUTES-UFRJ (Brazil) NUTES-UFRJ (Brazil)
luizrezende@ufrj.br fernanda_luise@ufrj.br

ABSTRACT
The use of video in science classes demands the mobilization of several kinds of teaching
knowledge. Taking the use of video in science classes as a particular teaching knowledge, this
paper presents some of the results of a research on everyday Science and Biology teachers’
practices on the use of video. In order to investigate how teachers’ tactics respond to institutional
strategies – in the terms of Michel de Certeau (1994) – for the use of video in science classes,
interviews and questionnaires were applied to ten in-service (recently graduated) Biology
teachers. The results show that video use in science class is considered a personal choice, since
most teachers haven’t had specific training on this subject. Documentary film is the most used
film genre, but teachers also use cartoon and animation feature films in order to fulfill student’s
expectations or to motivate learning. The ways videos and films are exhibited may indicate that
teachers lack of reflection and autonomy for the use of such materials. In the other hand,
teachers create and adapt existing resources to achieve their teaching objectives, which also
reveal some innovative practices. Scarcity of infrastructure and video resources are the major
factors contributing to low use of video resources in Brazilian public schools. Results indicate it is
necessary to better understand teacher’s practices with video, since the supposed inadequacy of
pre-service training hasn’t been enough to restrict teachers’ creativity.
Keywords: science teaching; teacher training; video; everyday life practices.

INTRODUCTION

The use of video in science classes demands the mobilization of several kinds of
teaching knowledge: not only knowledge acquired in pre-service training, but also knowledge
acquired in teacher’s school life and professional experience. According to Nunes (2001),
researches on pre-service teacher training and in-service teacher’s practice point out that
teachers build and re-build their knowledge according to the needs of everyday practice in their
professional trajectory. Tardif, Lessard & Lahaye (1991) indicate that teachers create their own
practices according to situations and limits actually experienced by them.
Considering the use of video in science classes as a particular aspect of teacher
knowledge, this paper presents some of the results of a research on everyday science and
Biology teachers’ practices with video. Teacher knowledge, discipline knowledge and curriculum
knowledge, as defined by Tardif, Lessard & Lahaye (1991) and Zibeti & Souza (2007), can be
related to the use of video in Science Education. Knowledge from experience has been
investigated according to the “everyday life theory” proposed by Michel de Certeau (1994, 1997).
Certeau suggests that the use of objects and technology by ordinary people is creative, and
categories like tactics and strategies are useful to understand this creativity.
In order to investigate how teachers’ tactics respond to institutional strategies and
recommendations for the use of video in science classes, a research was conducted with ten (six
men and four women) recently graduated science teachers (former students in Federal University
of Rio de Janeiro Biology course). The instrument was constructed in order to gather information
about work experience, topics addressed in the videos, frequency, duration and objectives of
activities with video, criteria for video selection, origins of used materials, most common types of
video used and existent infrastructure in schools. At first, a simple 22 multiple-choice questions
questionnaire was applied and, in a second moment, semi-structured open interviews were
carried out. In the interviews, questions about the actual “doings”, procedures, movements and
attitudes of teachers in the actual moment of using video in science classes were stressed. Also
participant’s awareness of the existence of pedagogical recommendations for the use of video
and their response to these recommendations were addressed in the interviews. There hasn’t
been any observation of science teachers’ classes with the use of video so far.
All the researched teachers work on Brazilian public and private primary schools (11-15
year old students). They are 25-28 year old teachers. None of them have less than six months or
more than three years of work experience. Some of the results of the questionnaire and
interviews are presented in the end of the paper.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

As referred above, the ways in which technological devices, such as computer, video and
television, may be used constitutes a particular aspect of teacher knowledge. This knowledge is
built among other kinds of knowledge and experiences the teacher gets in contact not only in pre-
service training but also in-service. In this case, and due to the lack of disciplines addressing the
use of media technologies in the science classroom in pre-service training in Brazil, it is possible
to state that this kind of knowledge is built in the everyday life experiences of the teacher as a
teacher (how he organizes and adapts curriculum and what he chooses to do in the science
classroom) and as a student himself (since he might “inspire” himself by the way his own
teachers have used video and computer). From this perspective, the use of video in science
classrooms should be addressed as an everyday life problem and the everyday practices should
be taken as the locus for understanding the agency of teachers in constructing a specific
knowledge concerning the use of technologies.
As Michel de Certeau argues (1994, 1997), everyday life “practioneers” or doers invent
and reinvent ways to deal with, to resist and/or to use the rules and conditions that guide and
organize their practices. Teachers, as everyday doers of the science curricula and of the school
infrastructure, redefine and adapt these rules and conditions, according to which they might be
obliged to work. In his book The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel de Certeau points out that
consumers are not passive, because they produce ways of consumption that might not have
been foreseen by producers. This kind of production, or “invention” as Certeau calls it, cannot be
perceived in the social-economic order or in the products themselves but in the different and
particular ways of using what is of common use.
In the case of teachers practices, we may consider curricula and technologies (learning
materials and learning environments) as products that come embedded in certain ways of using
and/or consuming, which encompasses rules and conditions that teachers have to follow and/or
apply in certain ways. But we also may consider that teachers, as non-passive consumers, might
have some degree of freedom to use these products and rules, according to their creativity. Out
of the opportunities that might come from an imposed situation, teachers themselves produce
ways of doing their work. This productiveness remains usually unformulated and silenced.
This research locates itself in this particular field: how teachers actually (can/may) use
the degree of freedom they have to use video in the teaching of school science. Michel de
Certeau suggested two categories that may be used to understand and analyze how doers deal
with products and consumption and how they “invent” in the act of consumption itself. These
categories are tactics and strategies.
Strategies are related to the way producers build constraints and implicit rules in order to
control consumption towards to a certain desired end. In this way strategies are supported by
some kinds of power (governmental, politic, economic, corporative, military or institutional) that
prescribe the ways consumers should accomplish certain practices. Tactics, instead, are related
to the ways ordinary consumers and “practioneers” may respond to given strategies in order to
escape their power and constraints or to give a particular sense to them in everyday life practices.
Strategies are usually planned and recorded in documents. Tactics, depending on opportunities
created by chance, remain off the records and in silence. They only can work in the “enemy field”,
altering and manipulating the conditions and rules imposed by strategies, fostering new forms of
“doing” (Certeau, 1994).
As Michel de Certeau suggests, many ordinary everyday life practices are accomplished
as tactics: talking, reading, walking, shopping and cooking. Language itself is used in a tactical
way according to the opportunities. The system of language is a large controlled way of producing
signification and circulation of sense which is imposed to all of it users. But users are frequently
able to find ways to say and create meaning in a way that was not yet defined, forming new
codes and associations of idea.
The act of walking is taken by Certeau as another example. The urban system and
architecture impose ways of circulation in the cities by the establishment of certain strategies, like
the separation of spaces for cars and people, the verticalization of houses and buildings in big
cities, the creation of paths of circulation etc (Certeau, 1994). In this situation, walking becomes
to Certeau an individual appropriation of space in order to use it in the more suitable ways.
Walkers invent their own paths, select the permitted ways (creating short-cuts in the rush hours or
longer ways in a leisurely walk), subvert the interdictions and thus manipulate the constructed
order of urban space.
In the case of teachers using video in science classes, many of their actions could be
understood as tactics that respond to strategies created to organize and direct their work by
curricula, schools, institutions, governmental guidelines, available technology resources and/or
learning materials. Departing from the existing strategies that limit and condition their work,
teachers may define their tactics according to the particular opportunities provided and may
create unexpected procedures.

NATIONAL GUIDELINES AND OTHER STRATEGIES FOR THE USE OF VIDEO IN THE
SCIENCE CLASSROOM

In Brazil there are National Curriculum Parameters (the PCNs) to orient teachers and
schools. The PCNs (Brasil, 1997) are a large set of guidelines created to promote a national
curricular basis and minimum common contents. In order to respect regional diversity, the PCNs
allow adaptation: teachers and schools may choose how to apply and what methods to use, what
contents to privilege and to add. This gives enough freedom for the teacher to organize and to
create new methods in his/hers classes.
Several indications for the use of video can be found in the PCNs. The use of television
and multimedia resources is mentioned as one of the main necessities for the improvement of
education. This stands for the importance given to technology in the Brazilian national guidelines.
In the case of natural sciences curriculum, the PCNs are more explicit as they refer to
video resources in the classroom. As an example, television shows or films are supposed to be
used as inquiry themes or objects. Nevertheless, the guidelines do not define if these resources
should be taken to the classroom (screenings in the classroom), nor if this is a teacher or student
attribution. The objective of showing television shows and films in the classroom is to foster
competencies like autonomy to use different sources of information and technologies in order to
construct knowledge in a multidisciplinary perspective. Thus, it is possible to state that the PCNs
clearly consider media as a kind of material that teachers should use in their planning, since
mass culture is a constitutive part of students representations of life, nature and science.
PCNs also stress the need of using imagetic resources in order to develop activities that
involve observation of scientific phenomena. According to the national guidelines, films should be
recorded in videotape to be used in the “appropriated moment” (Brasil, 1997). The teacher should
watch previously the film and indicate which aspects students should consider and what
information is relevant to the scope of the activity being held. Although there are clear
acknowledgment of the importance of teacher’s role and motivation for the use of video
resources, the PCNs are still ambiguous and uncertain about what would be, for instance, the
“appropriated moment” or how teachers should choose films, videos and images.
As a general guideline to the use of video in science teaching, and despite mentioning
several times this issue, the strategies addressed by the PCNs remain quite open and flexible,
giving substantial space to teachers’ agency and creativity. Nevertheless, as general
recommendations, they may be understood as a parameter of what is right and what is wrong in
teachers practices with video, and also as a source of legitimacy of some practices instead of
others.
Other element to be considered as encompassing strategies for the use of video is school
infrastructure. Schools that provide teachers with video equipment are more likely to have rules
and orientations for the use of video. The existence of a separated room for video screenings and
of a video archive, for instance, may function as a conditioning or limiting factor of what teachers
can or cannot do in a class using video, since it concerns how time is used, what film or show is
available or should be chosen, how students attribute value to such activities etc.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: IDENTIFING TEACHERS TACTICS

In this section we present and discuss some of the results of our research.
Like in the act of walking, teachers found opportunities and limits in their everyday
practices with video in the science classroom. Thus they adopt some practices, but refuse and
avoid others. Our first finding is that teachers reproduce, reformulate and discard certain
possibilities according to the concrete situations in which they are supposed to work (tactics are
highly dependent on the existent strategies in a given context).
All researched teachers considered video use in science class as a personal choice,
since they said they haven’t had specific training on this subject. As the researched literature and
the curriculum analyses point out, orientations or recommendations for the use of video in
science classes are inexistent in most of science teacher training curricula and programs in Brazil
(Arroio et al., 2005; Silva et al., 2006; Buzato, 2008). In despite of that, a few teachers (four)
related receiving some orientations in their pre-service training or from work colleagues. Others
(three) related using video in order to consider mainly students’ requests or preferences. One of
the interviewees reported that her choice to use video was related more closely to her own
experience as a student in primary school and personal preferences than to her pre-service
training. Nevertheless it is hard to identify where these diffuse orientations appear, since teachers
stress the fact of not being obliged in any ways to use video. Thus, video classes may be
understood as a means to get out of the “daily boredom” of regular classes, as many teachers
state.
Documentary film is the most used film genre (nine out of ten researched teachers use
documentaries). Bruzzo (1998) relates teacher preferences for documentaries and student’s
preference for action/fiction films. Bruzzo (1998) also explains the use/preference for
documentary in science classes is due to the general consideration that this film genre is
“informative” and “real”. According to this author, documentary is considered “truthful”, “serious”
(for this reason, “appropriated” for school use) and “learning providing”, especially when it is
about science and technology activities or natural world. Most teachers use documentaries to talk
about what the film contains (the theme or subject), ignoring any possible questions about the
claims to real or truth implicitly constructed by most documentaries. But, from another point of
view, the privilege documentaries have in the science classroom may be understood as a way to
resist to certain products of mass culture, even if the PCNs acknowledge its importance, as seen
above. Science teachers resist adopting mass culture in a broader way as they resist adopting a
larger variety of media products (soap operas, talk shows, etc). In our research, only one teacher
reported accepting to consider mass media as a means to establish communication with her
students.
In the other hand, since teachers do consider student’s requests, some related using long
feature/commercial films, cartoons or animation films in their science classes. The use of cartoon
and animation may be understood as a way to fulfill students’ expectations or to motivate
learning. Nevertheless, some of the researched teachers (three) relate been uneasy when
screening cartoons, since discussion on science is frequently deviated to students’s interest
topics or to less important subjects (as the discussion of humanization of animals in cartoons).
The representation of animals and nature in cartoons and in long feature animation films are
criticized by most of teachers in this research.
The ways videos and films are exhibited may indicate that teachers lack of reflection and
autonomy for the use of such materials, as suggested by Arroio et al. (2005), since most of the
researched teachers (seven) always exhibit films and videos in their complete duration (full
exhibition) without pausing or fragmenting them. In the other hand, some of the researched
teachers (three) use to pause the videos to add explanations. One teacher related adapting the
contents of a science documentary whose language was too elaborated for her 11 year-old
students. As the documentary she intended to use had good images, but not interesting or
adequate narration, she cut off the sound and exhibited only images followed by her own voice.
These practices may indicate that teacher’s autonomy can be found in a larger range of small
actions.
Although the apparent lack of autonomy towards audiovisual materials, teachers’
answers suggest some attention to orientations for the reading of videos, even if this is only
directed to subject/content apprehension. Eight teachers always or frequently do corrections,
notes and reminders about the contents of videos. Only one of the researched teachers related
not or rarely doing this practice. But in all cases, teachers admit that video should be related to
some other activity before or, mostly, after the screening. All teachers in this research consider
the sheer exhibition of films and videos to be “senseless”. These habits may indicate that
teachers do know (at least implicitly) that films and videos are not autonomous resources, and
that teacher orientation is always needed in activities with video, as several authors have pointed
(Ferrés, 1994; Alves, 2003; Duarte, 2005, Arroio et al, 2005; Rezende & Struchiner, 2009).
Reinforcing this conclusion, data have been found about teacher intervention on the
contents of videos. All researched teachers lecture about the video after exhibiting it. Notes and
short statements during the exhibition are also frequent (six out of ten teachers do it).
Explanations before video exhibition are not a frequent practice, although this is one of the
recommendations on video use by the PCNs (in Brazilian curriculum guidelines for Science
Education).
When asked about obstacles for the use of video in science classes, teachers referred to
unavailability or lack/difficulties of access to equipment in Brazilian public schools, as Marcelino-
Jr et al. (2004) have already indicated. Besides the inadequacy of science teacher training for the
use of video and technology, scarcity of infrastructure is one of the major factors contributing to
low use of video resources in Brazilian public schools. In schools which have video equipment
and infrastructure, one teacher related resisting using them due to the inconvenience of moving
students to the video screening room and to the bad quality of image and sound in these facilities.
Two teachers related taking their own equipment to school in order to get better screening quality
or avoiding moving students around.
Other obstacles related are students’ behavior (according to Morán, 1995; Marcelino-Jr et
al, 2004; Duarte, 2005; Albuquerque, Morais & Ferreira, 2008, students understand video
activities as entertainment) and content inadequacy of available material (for instance, lack of
national or regional oriented contents). Also the difficulty to get certain kinds of video is related by
many teachers as an obstacle to the use of this resource. In schools that do not have video
archives teachers use to borrow films and videos from colleagues (most frequent) or to rent in
video stores (less frequent).

CONCLUSION
Although teachers have extensive freedom to use video in science classes in Brazilian
primary and secondary schools, there is enough evidence to say that teachers respond with
particular tactics to the subtle strategies perpetrated by curriculum, national guidelines, school
infrastructure or pre-service training contents and didactics.
The capacity to cut, to compare and to articulate fragments of videos and films is a clear
indicator of teacher’s autonomy, but the absence of such actions cannot be necessarily taken as
lack of autonomy. Screening the complete feature may also be the product of a well elaborated
class activity, even if this is not the case most of the times.
Departing from the existing strategies that limit and condition their work, teachers will
define their tactics according to the particular opportunities provided and will create unexpected
procedures. Although strategies pointed here have mostly the aspect of general
recommendations, it is important to understand them as parameters of what is considered right
and wrong in teachers practices with video, and thus as a source of legitimacy of some practices
instead of others. This is especially visible in the ways teachers see each other’s practices or
habits, and how they criticize or adopt a colleague’s invention. Teachers implicitly recognize the
issues of power and ethics involved in the act of using video in school when they discursively
justify then. For this reason, the way teachers justify their practices may also be enough to
acknowledge teacher’s sense of their own tactics.
As far as it concerns the theoretical framework of this research, after the analyses of the
data it became clear that tactics and strategies should not be taken as separated entities. The
relations between these two categories should be seen as complementary and mutually
dependent. The more the strategies are identified the more we are able to understand teachers’
actions as tactics responding to power, constraints and scarcity.
As indicated above, results confirm partly other researches about the use of video in the
science class. In the other hand, they also indicate the need of better understanding of teacher’s
practices with video, since the supposed training inadequacy hasn’t been enough to restrict
teachers’ creativity and the invention of new practices.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Authors want to acknowledge funding received from Brazilian agencies CAPES (scholarship) and
FAPERJ (research project). We also want to thank to the teachers and schools that helped in
this research.

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