Discussing discussion: a video club in the service of math teachers’ National Board preparation

Abstract

This paper examines a group of secondary mathematics teachers who met 16 times to discuss video excerpts of their teaching. The explicit purpose of the meetings was to assist the teachers in preparing video for submission to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Analysis of meeting transcripts reveals that teachers engaged in intensive discussions about mathematical discourse. Specifically, the teachers investigated three discourse‐related themes: techniques for facilitating discourse, contextual factors affecting discourse, and criteria for evaluating discourse. The meetings also supported the development of a professional community among participants as they collaboratively and substantively examined each other’s practices. This research adds to our understanding of teacher professional development and provides particular insights about how preparing for National Board Certification can facilitate teacher learning and the development of professional teacher communities.

Keywords:

• professional development
• National Board Certification
• video
• teacher professional community
• mathematics education
• mathematics department

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association in April 2006. This research is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. REC‐0133900. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporting agency. The authors wish to thank Elizabeth van Es, Lauren Parnell, and Lukas Johnson for their help with this project, as well as the teachers who participated in the study.

Notes

1. Teachers in the state in which this study took place receive a stipend of $3000 per year for 10 years after receiving National Board Certification.

2. The names of the school and teachers are pseudonyms.

3. To be eligible for National Board Certification, a teacher must have completed a minimum of three years of teaching.