Promoting student teachers' lesson analysis and observation skills by using Gagne's model of an instructional unit

This paper introduces a study of an experimental training methodology for promoting lesson analysis skills in student teachers. This methodology is based on the idea that the quality of lesson analysis skills depends mainly on teachers' perception of relevant instructional events and on their understanding of these events. The experimental intervention consists of student teachers' participation in sessions on guided analysis of videotaped lessons and writing lesson analysis reports. The experimental group progressed more than the control group. Gagne's model of an instructional unit is used as a theoretical framework for defining a lesson and identifying its critical events. The effectiveness of the proposed training approach was assessed on the basis of qualitative content analysis of lesson analysis reports written by student teachers in experimental and control groups at the beginning and end of their 10-week pedagogical school practicum. A comparison of progress made by the two groups was carried out in terms of the number of analytic idea units produced, categories of these units and their distribution across the relevant lesson events.