Using Video Clubs to Support Conversations among Teachers and Researchers

Abstract

This paper examines how video clubs - ongoing group meetings to discuss videotapes of classroom instruction - can support the development of productive conversations among teachers and educational researchers. A series of six video clubs were analyzed in which two high-school mathematics teachers met with a researcher from a local university to discuss excerpts of videotapes from the Teachers' classrooms. Analysis of the data illustrates the complementary character of expertise brought by the teachers and the researcher to the video club meetings, and how this helped to shape the understandings of all participants of what took place in the classroom. In addition, the analysis reveals how shifts in participants' roles over the course of the video club provided important opportunities for both the teachers and the researcher to learn new practices.