Through the lens of teacher professional development components: the ‘Dialogic Video Cycle’ as an innovative program to foster classroom dialogue

Abstract

For developing professional development (PD) programs, research suggests referring to effective components. In developing a PD program on classroom dialogue, we explored to what extent effective components could be addressed. We conducted a study with two groups. In the ‘Dialogic Video Cycle’ (DVC), six German teachers participated in a one-year intervention including effective components such as pedagogical focus, active learning, collective participation, coherence, transfer and reflection. Furthermore, four German teachers enrolled in a second, rather ‘traditional’ program with single workshops. As an advanced collaborative element, this group met twice to exchange about their PD experiences (an advanced traditional program [ATP]). The DVC workshops as well as the ATP roundtables were videotaped. We investigated the extent to which the PD components were implemented. As we were further interested in teachers’ perceptions, we also explored to what extent teachers were satisfied with their programs and how they perceived the learning environment. The findings show that two independent raters strongly agreed on the implementation of effective components in the DVC. Both programs differed regarding perceived teacher satisfaction (decrease in the ATP program) and autonomy support (increase in the DVC program). Consequences for further analysis on program effects and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• teacher learning
• professional development
• classroom dialogue
• intervention
• video
• teacher perception

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the teachers who participated in the project ‘DIALOGUE’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Research Foundation under Grant SE 1397/5-1.