Methodology
Research problem
In the last decade and a half, intensive changes and reforms have been taking place inour educational system, more specifically within the framework of primary andsecondary education, which result in continuous changes in curricula and programs(conceptual and content aspects), while the tendencies to innovate the curriculumprocess become more and more visible. The changes are based on the new knowledgeabout the development of quality education, on the world and European trends foreducation based on competences, on the digitization of education, as well as on all ourprevious experiences and aspirations to improve the quality of teaching and learning inour schools, which should become a place for learning and development of motivatedstudents ready to acquire the expected competencies.
In terms of competences, in 2004 a document on Key European Competences wasprepared by the European Commission, which are essentially based on the needs of asociety that has knowledge as its basis, which must not remain one and a uniquecomponent that is acquired in education. Therefore, in addition to learning,competencies emphasize developing skills and attitudes, that is, values among students.(Key Competences for Lifelong learning, 2006). So, the competencies have these threeextremely important components that should be developed through the educationalprocess in compulsory schooling.
Consequently, investing in basic skills is becoming increasingly important and isrequired of any quality education. In particular, new ways of learning are becoming moreand more unconventional and above all digital, given the great impact that digitaltechnology has today in education, as a result of numerous more flexible learningenvironments. Therefore, memorizing facts and information can sometimes havemeaning, but it is not at all enough for a person’s progress and success. On the contrary,skills such as: problem solving learning, critical thinking, ability to cooperate, self-control,etc. are skills that are very essential in a rapidly changing society. Those skills cangenerate new ideas, new theories, new products and of course – knowledge.
As a result of the rapid and daily changes in society and the economy, giving a realmeaning to the future and the need of future generations in the digital age, in May 2018,the European Commission recommended a review and revision upgrading the KeyEuropean Competences.
The innovative set of competencies in 2018 needed for personal development, healthpromotion, employability and social inclusion is being formed not only for social andeconomic development, but also due to various initiatives that Europe has beenundertaking in the last decade. Special attention is paid to language learning, to thepromotion of digital and entrepreneurial competences, to the importance of commonvalues in the functioning of our society, as well as to the motivation of young people.(Council Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong education 2017).
All reforms and changes in education in a special way affect the teacher, who was, isand will be the pivot of the modern educational process, the number one factor onwhich the successful implementation of teaching depends, despite the increasingapplication of modern teaching and audio- visual aids. (Popova-Koskarova, 1997:185).Not by chance, the great German pedagogue Disterweg emphasized that “the school isworth as much as the teacher” (Disterweg, quoted according to L. Gogoska: 1994:25).For those reasons, it can be emphasized that the continuous professional developmentof teachers (openness to trainings that will contribute to a dynamic and creative teachingprocess) is a very significant, both social and personal need.
We are aware that nowadays students receive a range of information from a very youngage outside of teaching, and with the raising of the general, material and culturalstandard of parents and with the development of mass communication tools, then homeelectronic microcomputers, videos, etc. many sources of information become availableto them, sometimes of the highest quality. On the other hand, it is quite natural forstudents to turn to teachers for various explanations, explanations or broader insightsrelated to the specific subject or outside of it, for example, from everyday life. Theirneed will be met by those teachers who are not only well versed in their profession, butare distinguished by a wider general culture.
Therefore, we will once again emphasize that the nature of the teaching profession issuch that it requires the teacher to learn permanently, to follow the achievements in hisprofession and to improve systematically in it.
According to the words of Brajsa, “the teacher is the software in the school. And themost valuable hardware is worthless if there is no software that starts, moves, maintainsand develops it” (Brajsa, 1995: 10). That is why it is not by chance that it is said that thesecret of a successful school lies in the active brain of both the teacher and the student.That’s why the essential question: how to increase the teacher’s creativity andwillingness to adopt and apply innovations, so that at the same time the students’motivation to learn, which unfortunately is very low nowadays in our schools, can alsoincrease.
Every day we witness outbursts of dissatisfaction on the part of students from themonotonous teaching process that does not contribute to the acquisition of functional(applicable) knowledge.
For those reasons, the willingness of teachers to use a variety of audio-visual materials,but also to create them themselves (ex. short videos) that can be successfully used foreducational purposes in the overall educational process becomes imperative forincreasing the quality, that is its effectiveness and efficiency. Educators agree with thefact that teaching in which audio-visual means are used (and nowadays digital, such asvideo content) brings freshness and liveliness and makes the educational process muchmore interesting, but at the same time more efficient, because of the great possibilitiesthat film has as a teaching tool.
The application of video content in teaching can be successful in all levels of education,it is suitable for the younger school age, but also for the older school population. Amongits advantages, we can single out the following:
• Video contents in teaching bring freshness and break the monotony in educationalwork.
• The skill to notice reactions, processes, events, incidents, human behaviors, etc.increases.
• The knowledge acquired in teaching in which video content is applied is much clearer,more understandable and can be more easily applied in practical life.
So, the teaching in which video content is applied as a teaching tool has a much greatervalue and encourages the creativity of students, and mastering the teaching content ismuch easier, more dynamic and with greater durability of knowledge, but also with agreater possibility of their applicability.
Video contents can be successfully used in all teaching subjects, and are especiallysuitable for teaching: foreign language, history, native language, but also in naturalsciences (biology, geography), and they are also significant and can be applied in thearts subjects. A large part of video content for educational purposes can be found onYouTube, however, there are also educational content for which no suitable video clipscan be found. Therefore, it would be best if teachers could train themselves to create avideo of a few minutes, with content from the curriculum in appropriate subjects, whichwould then be presented to the students.
It is the best way to develop creativity among the teaching staff, and when there is acreative teacher, there will be creative students who will also be encouraged to takepart in the creation of video content. This is the essence of our project “…and Action”,which has the ultimate goal: training teachers to create video content for educationalpurposes, in order to make teaching more interesting, creative, innovative, dynamic and,most importantly, appropriate to acquire functional (applicable) knowledge.
To motivate teachers to develop their creativity and to get out of the traditionalframework of teaching activity and to motivate students to achieve greater results.
However, in the creation of video content, it is necessary to observe pedagogicalcriteria and principles:
- Compliance with the age and abilities of the students.
- Compliance with the curriculum and the thematic contents arising from it.
- The contents to encourage intellectual activities from a higher level of Bloom’staxonomy (both from the cognitive and affective areas) – application of learning, analysis,synthesis, evaluation, and not just memorizing facts and data or passively perceivinginformation.
- The content should contribute to building attitudes and developing values amongstudents for sustainable development.
- To observe the tasks of moral education and not encourage stereotypes, prejudices,etc. differences in terms of gender, race, political affiliation, etc..
In the context of the pedagogical criteria presented above, it is necessary that thecontent that will be the subject of video creation should be carefully selected by a teamof teachers and pedagogues.
Subject of research
The subject of our research is the training of teaching staff to create video content foreducational purposes.
Purpose and tasks of research (general and special)
The general goal of the research is to examine the need of schools, that is, of teachersfor the creation and application of video content for teaching purposes and theircapacity for development in that context.
The special (specific) goal is to train 16 teachers (per partner country) from 4 schools(primary and secondary) to create and apply video content for teaching purposes:
From the goal set in this way, the following tasks of the research arise:
– To examine the opinions of teachers as to how ready they are (have the desire) toparticipate in training in the creation of video content for teaching purposes, i.e. toacquire digital competencies.
- To examine the views and opinions of teachers regarding the importance of usingvideo content within the teaching process: in terms of student motivation, dynamism ofteaching, achieving better results, etc.
- To examine the opinions of teachers if they have had experience in creating videocontent.
- To investigate teachers’ opinions on how much knowledge they have of some tools forcreating video content.
- To examine the teachers’ opinions about the most effective way of integrating videocontent into the programs by separate event subjects
Sample of the survey
The sample will consist of 100 teachers from primary and secondary schools from all thepartner countries, who will be randomly selected.
A preliminary survey of 15-20 teachers is planned to check the questionnaire.
Research methods, techniques and instruments
The choice of research methods, techniques and instruments depend on the nature ofthe subject, that is, on its essence and character. Given that our research has atheoretical and empirical character, we consider the following research methods to bethe most appropriate: – theoretical analysis method – descriptive method.
With the method of theoretical analysis and the descriptive method, we study thetheoretical basis of the overall research. In fact, the mentioned methods will be appliedwithin the theoretical part of the research, where appropriate sources that are in thecontext of our research subject will be covered and analyzed.
From the research techniques, we consider the survey technique as the mostappropriate for our research, and for those reasons we decide on the appropriateresearch instrument that will be applied, which is a survey sheet (questionnaire) withclosed-ended questions with which we will collect opinions and attitudes of teachersaccording to the research problem. The questionnaire will contain 20-30 questions, ofwhich the first 4-5 are general and refer to: the school where they work: primary orsecondary, years of work experience, age, etc. as independent variables, which we willthen pass through the answers of the teachers.
We opt for an online survey via Google form.
Standard statistical package SPSS (Statistic package for Social Sciences) will be used inthe statistical processing.
According to the standard research methodology, after the data are processed, theiranalysis and interpretation follows.