ABSTRACT
This chapter reports on the making of a film by student teachers at a South African university. The purpose of the project was to assist student teachers to learn about cognitive developmental psychology theory in general, and mathematical cognition of children in particular. Although the student teachers in the production team set out as actors and technical helpers, they gradually appropriated their acting roles and the plot of the story to the extent that they learnt the theory that the film was portraying. Not only did the student teachers show interest in the psychology texts and the story, they also developed agency – they became the owners of the film. The central argument of this chapter is that a multimodal approach in teacher education can give student teachers multiple semiotic entry points into difficult texts and theories; also, if given the opportunity to make a dramatic film about how children learn mathematics, student teachers can learn about the development of mathematical cognition while also learning about film production. I also argue that contemporary teacher education programmes should be multimodal because teachers’ work in schools in the 21st century requires more than just utilisation of language text and oral, in-person communication.
