Abstract

Initial teacher education in the UK is arguably characterised by the signature pedagogies (Shulman, 2005) of lesson observation and evidence portfolios that demonstrate how far a trainee’s practice meets the criterion-referenced teachers’ standards (DfE, 2011). In an international initial teacher training programme, these practices are rendered more challenging by working remotely and asynchronously with trainees across time zones. To fully understand and assess professional practice carried out at a distance requires a change in assessment practices. In recent years, the technological affordances of video-enhanced lesson observation and video calling with desktop sharing functionality have augmented the work of teacher educators (Hidson, 2020). This has the advantage of connecting candidate and assessor in a shared online dialogic space, as outlined by Wegerif (2007). From this perspective, dialogue can encourage reflection, elicit tacit knowledge, help construct additional evidence and lead to a negotiated appreciation of strengths and areas for development. The Video-Enhanced Dialogic Assessment (VEDA) process used on these programmes makes use of these principles to complement formative and summative assessment of teaching practices and portfolios. It can most easily be imagined as an online viva voce interview, building on similar work in this vein by Carless (2002) and addressing logistical issues highlighted by Scott and Unsworth (2018), who used video vivas. This presentation will share two case studies from current practice, showing how valuable video-enhanced dialogic assessment is to the central work of preparing trainee teachers.