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The purpose of this paper is to analyze factors that determine the demand for single family houses in Alabama urbanized areas, commonly referred to as metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs).

This paper builds and estimates a housing demand model that incorporates both macroeconomic and housing‐related variables using a panel time series data for 1988‐2007. The study is different from past research, which mainly focuses on housing demand at the state or national level, by looking at the factors influencing demand for housing at the MSAs level.

The study finds that demand for new single family houses in Alabama MSAs is influenced by both national economic factors and local factors. Population growth and increased sale of existing houses increase demand for new single family houses in the MSAs. On the contrary, increased cost of building a new house, higher real mortgage interest rates and unemployment rates are found to reduce the demand for new houses.

This study is one of the few studies that focus on housing demand at the local level, particularly in the US housing market. Since demand for housing will always be local and therefore influenced mostly by local conditions, the result reveal unique dynamics that are specific to the MSAs.

This paper aims to explore the potential for instructional video to build capacity in culturally responsive teaching, and outline an approach developed at NYU’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools (Metro Center) for using inquiry-based, teacher-led teams to study, develop and film culturally responsive teaching in action. The paper explores the use of instructional video in an asset-focused model of professional development that develops culturally responsive teaching through digital videos that can be shared among colleagues, posted online and presented at professional conferences.

The primary aims of the paper are conceptual and include drawing on a review of the literature on instructional video to map onto one model of professional development the learning goals and reflective activities that are most likely to develop the potential of instructional video to change beliefs and develop critical consciousness, and providing anecdotal evidence to explore the potential for using instructional video in an asset-focused, transformative and responsive model of professional development in culturally responsive teaching.

Instructional video can be effective for professional development in culturally responsive teaching because people often need to see transformations in teaching and learning before they can believe such transformations are possible. Instructional videos of effective culturally responsive teaching, in this manner, highlight best practices and provide a way for schools to post an “early win” in their work in addressing achievement gaps.

Instructional video can assist educators in confronting and challenging prevailing deficit-based beliefs about ostensibly “low-achieving” students that limit possibilities for culturally responsive teaching; opening up opportunities for transformative learning and inviting the shift to a culturally responsive mindset; and examining and discussing models of excellent teaching. This model of professional development is asset-focused and transformative because it moves teacher voices from margin to center and empowers teachers as models and stewards of transformative learning.

Although numerous studies have documented the potential of instructional video in asset-focused and transformative models of professional development, only two studies explore the potential of instructional video specifically in the development of culturally responsive teaching (Lopez, 2013; Rosaen, 2015). This paper contributes to this nascent literature through documenting an approach to instructional video that was developed for and with teachers at a K-8 public school in Brooklyn.