ABSTRACT
Professional preparation and continuing professional development for classroom teachers are fields that are challenged by their reliance on two distinct traditions: the tradition of academic research, which seeks to provide scholarly and theoretical foundations for effective pedagogy; and the tradition of clinical practice, which supports practitioners to value their classroom experiences and use those experiences as a text to study and analyze in order to better understand their craft. Each of these two distinct traditions relies on a distinct discourse for articulating the schemas, scholarship, and terminology for communicating its values and perspectives. Many of the professionals whom these discourse traditions seek to engage find each of the traditions somewhat lacking. For some, academic discourse lacks the vitality and engagement of the classroom. For others, classroom-based research provides little opportunity to explore broad themes that inspire intellectual growth. In an effort to bridge the gulf between these two discourses, educators have been exploring the potential of new technologies and software. This chapter will discuss one of these innovative products, VideoPaper technology. A VideoPaper is a multimedia document representing analysis of video data. VideoPaper offers opportunities for integrating educational theory and academic research with the excitement of classroom practice and, thereby, transforming teacher education and professional development.
Real teaching, I learned in time, happens inside a wild triangle of relations— among teacher, students, subject—and the points of the triangle shift continuously … what shall I teach? How can I grasp it myself …? What are [my students] thinking and feeling? … Inside the triangle, clear evidence is very rare … Yet out of uncertainty, craft emerges. The wildness of the triangle provokes it. (McDonald, 1992, p. 1)
