Establishing a positive learning atmosphere and conversation culture in the context of a video-based teacher learning community

Teacher professional development (TPD) research emphasizes the role of learning communities as powerful contexts for teacher learning. In this study, a framework for fostering teacher learning communities was explored. We further systematically investigated the development of a learning community among teachers and a facilitator in the context of a one-year, video-based TPD program, called the Dialogic Video Cycle (DVC). Thus, the analysis is focused on the learning atmosphere and conversation culture as a central feature of teacher learning communities. Based on a high-inference video-coding of four reflection workshops in two DVCs, our findings describe how the learning atmosphere and conversation culture among the group of teachers and their facilitator developed from the beginning of the TPD program to the end. The findings indicate that the learning community started at a level where the teachers had not yet incorporated discourse norms completely and evolved to a level where the teachers discussed their teaching critically by suggesting various teaching alternatives for each other’s teaching. The findings are underpinned by qualitative examples illustrating the shifts that occurred over the course of the year-long process.