Inquiry into practice in school-based teacher team activities: Comparing video analysis, peer consultation and pedagogical planning

This study contributes to growing scholarly interest in teacher-led, on-the-job learning communities and how collaborative inquiry into practice can be supported in such contexts. We particularly focus on the relative advantages and limitations of three teacher team activity types: video analysis, peer consultation and pedagogical planning. Fifty-four transcribed teacher meeting excerpts were analyzed using the CLIP coding scheme for teacher collaborative inquiry into practice, assessing aspects of inquiry-based reasoning, collaboration and focus on pedagogy (teacher actions, student thinking and disciplinary content). Quantitative comparisons showed that, overall, collaborative inquiry into practice was lowest during peer consultations, in part because teachers were often not positioned as agents of change in such conversations. Teachers tended to inquire into each other's ideas more often during pedagogical planning. Surprisingly, teacher team video analysis activities were not characterized by higher measures of attention to student thinking, nor inquiry orientation. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.