Changing teamwork practices: videopaper as a mediating means for teacher professional development

This study demonstrates the possibilities of videopaper to support teacher professional development in a workplace setting. A team of five mathematics teachers in a secondary school was followed over a period of six months as they worked jointly to improve their teaching and team practice. In a stepwise strategy for deliberate and object-oriented practice transformation based on principles of Developmental Work Research (DWR) methodology, videopaper is used as a tool for mirroring and analysing the teachers' practices. Research data encompassed field observations, video-films of teaching and teamwork discussions in a series of teacher-researcher workshops and videopaper documents. The findings point to changes in teachers' conceptual approaches to learning and teaching, and to the significance of technology-enhanced support for professional development. The study contributes to an understanding of the complexities in bridging practices between social and technological design for teacher development and the development of learning communities.