Reflection on Classroom Practice and Professional Identity Building: Video Recordings from the Academy of Educational Sciences in the GDR in the 1980s

The paper introduces video recordings from an archive of a research school of the Academy of Educational Sciences in the GDR as a relatively new source in the history of education. Based on selected video recordings, it presents a case study which focuses the practice of classroom research and reflection within this institution. The video recordings were part of a research study on the enhancement of students’ cognitive activity through the implementation of problem-based instruction. While this new approach can be seen as a part of a broader educational reform in the context of the scientific-technological revolution, this case study addresses, in particular, the implementation and reflection of this new approach in practice. Doing so, it interprets the video recordings as a document of the strained relation between political expectations and the inherent logic of educational research in the GDR.