Changes of Microteaching Performances by Tangible Puppetry Teaching Simulation

Analized by Epistemic Network Analysis

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of a puppetrybased tabletop microteaching support system called EduceBoard which was used for improving student teachers’ professional development. The study analyzed student teachers’ discourse of microteaching role-plays when the student teachers used the system in an undergraduate teacher training course. The student teachers conducted three microteaching sessions, and they experienced microteaching with tangible puppetry by introducing EduceBoard for the second time. The student teachers’ discourse was analyzed by epistemic network analysis to extract characteristic changes in the discourse of microteaching and was further analyzed qualitatively. The results indicated that in the puppetry microteaching using EduceBoard, teacher-role student teachers conducted improvisational facilitation with children-role student teachers for the latter to deepen their learning as well as to smoothly proceed with the lesson.