From Knowledge to Action in Technology-Enhanced Teaching: An Integrative Approach to Action-Oriented Teacher Professionalization

Abstract

Teaching with technology is a demanding task that requires teachers to respond to rapidly unfolding classroom events. A central competence is teachers’ professional vision – the ability to notice instructionally relevant events and interpret them using professional knowledge (knowledge-based reasoning). Research shows that pre-service teachers often focus on salient features and struggle to use knowledge to interpret and respond to classroom situations, underscoring the need to foster professional vision early in teacher education. Despite substantial work on professional knowledge, professional vision, and video-based learning, an integrative, action-oriented account of professionalization for technology-enhanced teaching remains limited. First, little is known about how professional knowledge is connected and applied across instructional contexts, so it is not readily usable for noticing and reasoning. Second, evidence is fragmented regarding which design features of video-based analysis reliably foster professional vision and how learner prerequisites shape effects. To address these gaps, this dissertation pursued two complementary aims across four studies using context-based assessments. First, it examined knowledge integration across systematically varied instructional contexts involving technology use and across levels of teaching experience (Study 1). Findings indicated context-sensitive differences in knowledge application, consistent with more fragmented patterns among pre-service teachers and more connected patterns among in-service teachers. Second, it investigated how video-based analysis can be designed to foster professional vision by disentangling technological affordances (annotation tool) from instructional guidance (prompts, modeling examples) and considering prior knowledge and cognitive load (Studies 2-4). Tool support primarily strengthened noticing; modeling examples supported knowledge-based reasoning; prompt-based guidance was not beneficial and could disadvantage learners with low prior knowledge, and cognitive load effects were less pronounced than expected. Overall, the dissertation advances an integrative, context-specific account of action-oriented professionalization in technology-enhanced teaching and shows that fostering professional vision in video analysis requires differentiated support rather than one-size-fits-all guidance.

Die Dissertation ist gesperrt bis zum 19. Mai 2028 !