Understanding affordances and challenges of three types of video for teacher professional development

Although researchers have reported positive effects on teacher learning from observing published video, teachers’ own video, and their colleagues’ video, very few professional development programs have integrated all three types of video to improve teacher learning. In this study, we examined the affordances and challenges of the three types of video when they were used in a Problem-Based Learning professional development program, drawing upon multiple data sources from 26 K–12 science teachers. We present a case study to illustrate how one teacher might learn from each type of video, and conclude with recommendations for using video in professional development.

Research highlights► Published video, own video, and peers’ video differed in affordances and challenges. ► Teachers learned from watching video multiple times and discussing video with peers. ► PBL can be a promising discourse structure for guiding video-based discussion.