Video as a tool for fostering productive discussions in mathematics professional development

Source: Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 24, Issue 2, February 2008, Pages 417-436.

This article explores the use of classroom video as a tool for fostering productive discussions about teaching and learning. The setting for our research is a 2-year mathematics professional development program, based on the Problem-Solving Cycle model.

This model relies on video from the teachers’ own classrooms and emphasizes creating a community in which members feel comfortable learning from video. We describe our experiences carrying out the Problem-Solving Cycle model, focusing on our use of video, our efforts to promote a supportive and analytical environment, and the ways in which teachers’ conversations around video developed over a 2-year period.