Effect of an Animated Classroom Story Embedded in Online Discussion on Helping Mathematics Teachers Learn to Notice

Rich-media representations of teaching using animated cartoons can be effective at stimulating teachers' discussion about practice and hence help them learn productively from one another about their profession. Our research aims to design web-based interactive rich-media virtual settings for teachers to learn to do the practice of teaching. For that purpose, we seek a set of operational design principles that could be used to optimally exploit web-based interactive rich-media technologies. By operational design principles, we mean guidelines that facilitate decision making in the creation of learning conditions. In this article, we report on a study of the effect of embedded animated clips of instructional practice in online interactive forum/chat to support teachers in learning to notice and interpret critical events of classroom interactions. The study showed that both novice and experienced teachers actively participated in discussion and effectively noticed important events of teaching practice. The m...