Epistemic mediation: Video data as filters for the objectification of teaching by teachers

Learning science researchers attempting to understand situated human practices traditionally have relied on ethnographic observation and field notes recorded after the events have occurred. However, as Jordan and Henderson articulated in the opening quote, they are faced with the gap between accounts of action and (situated) ac-tions themselves. The problem is heightened when learning science researchers become themselves participants in the setting under study. Thus, a number of learning science researchers-including Magdalene Lampert, Jim Minstrell, David Hammer, and myself-conducted research on cognition and instruction all the while teaching the lessons that are the focus of their studies. Furthermore, an increasing number of teachers continue their formal education and become learning science researchers and teach at elementary and secondary schools. Teacher-researchers are confronted with particular challenges arising from the fact that they are participants in rather than onlookers to the situation to be analyzed and theorized. They are interested rather than disinterested participants, and therefore have something at stake, which harbors particular dangers for the quality of the analyses of learning and instruction in their classrooms that accompany the analytic advantages that derive from their insider role (Roth & Tobin, 2002). Video, as the second quote shows, provides opportunities to teacher-researchers to see themselves and their experiences differently, even pertaining to their own actions. In the second quote, Christina described how watching herself on videotape allowed her notice that she was standing a lot next to the chalkboard even when it was not used during interactions with students. That is, by means of the video, she became aware of her own actions in a different way.