An introduction to didactic classroom studies

Recent developments in video technology and supporting methodological designs have boosted the way for a new generation of classroom studies and today both large scale classroom studies together with targeted and more subject specific studies have contributed to a renewed interest in classrooms designs as a way to gain insights into teaching and learning processes. Today classroom studies serve as the meeting ground for understanding teaching and learning processes capturing different aspects of teaching and learning such as interaction patterns, teachers use of scaffolding techniques and student support, subject specificity such as how the teachers represent content, quality of explanations and tasks, and supporting climate. In this commentary essay I summarize recent developments in classroom studies in terms of technologies, research design and analytical frameworks and relate these developments to the essays in present in this volume. A key argument is how video recordings nurture a new generation of didactical classroom studies which enables us to systematically investigate key features of classroom teaching and learning across grades, content areas, environments and groups of students.