Videocases for Science Teacher Analysis (ViSTA)

BSCS ViSTA Modules are online, videocase-based materials designed to support teacher education courses. Access to review one module for 14 days is free to methods instructors. To use a module in a class, instructors need to register the course and preservice teachers (students) pay $15 per semester for use of one module.

About the ViSTA Modules

Preservice teachers explore videos of science teaching, videos of teacher and student interviews, samples of student work, student pre-posttests, lesson plans, and supplementary materials used in the lessons. The modules scaffold preservice teachers’ analysis of the videocases through a series of carefully sequenced tasks that challenge preservice teachers to deepen their content understanding and to analyze the teaching through two lenses they do not typically use in looking at teaching: the Student Thinking Lens and the Science Content Storyline Lens. Each module accounts for 15 hours of class time and 15 hours of online homework time within the methods course.

BSCS ViSTA Modules: Electricity

The Electricity module features two classrooms

• two fourth-grade classrooms in which students are learning about simple, series, and parallel circuits

BSCS ViSTA Modules: Plants

The Plants module features two classrooms

• a first-grade classroom in which students are learning about seeds and plant growth
• a fifth-grade classroom in which students are learning about photosynthesis

BSCS ViSTA Modules: Water Cycle

The Water Cycle module features two classrooms

• a third-grade classroom in which students are learning to use the ideas of evaporation and condensation to explain cloud formation
• a fifth-grade classroom in which students are learning to explain the water cycle using ideas about evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and molecules

BSCS ViSTA Modules: Force and Motion

The Force and Motion module features two classrooms

• a first-grade classroom in which students are learning about force and motion
• an eighth-grade classroom in which students are learning about Newton's Second and Third Laws

ViSTA: Inquiry

The Inquiry module is unique among the ViSTA modules because it focuses on deepening preservice teachers’ understanding about inquiry science teaching through examination of nine different K–8 classrooms

• second and third graders investigating decomposition
• first graders studying about seeds and growth
• first graders studying about force and motion
• second graders exploring sound
• third graders thinking about how clouds are formed
• fourth graders studying about electricity
• fifth graders learning about plants' making of food
• fifth graders examining what happens when water evaporates and condenses
• eighth graders learning about force and motion

The sequence of analysis tasks focuses primarily on one multi-grade classroom where students are developing scientific practices as they study about decomposition. The in-depth focus on this classroom enables preservice teachers to see how inquiry practices are integrated and used to develop conceptual understandings across a series of four lessons. Examples from the other eight classrooms provide interesting comparisons to stimulate discussion and debate.

Preservice teachers are guided by a series of analysis tasks as they interact with videocases of K–8 science teaching and learning.

Research

A research study of the modules involving 30 universities compared preservice teachers’ learning in methods courses where a ViSTA module was used with courses at the same universities where no VISTA module was used. The results showed that, compared with control teachers, preservice teachers using a ViSTA module showed greater pre-post course improvement in their science content knowledge and in their ability to analyze science teaching in terms of student thinking and the science content storyline.

Click here to read research study results presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST).

The ViSTA modules were developed at LessonLab Research Institute in Santa Monica, CA and at BSCS in Colorado Springs, CO. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

For more information about ViSTA, contact Dayna Garland.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL-0957996. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.