Teacher collaboration across and within schools: Supporting individual change in elementary science teaching
✍ Scribed by Carol Briscoe; Joseph Peters
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 80 KB
- Volume
- 81
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0097-0352
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The purpose of this study was to develop an understanding of how collaboration among teachers from several schools, and with university researchers, facilitated these elementary teachers as they attempted change in their practices. The collaboration effort was built into an in-service project for elementary teachers that focused on assisting teachers to implement a curriculum emphasizing problem-centered learning in science. The project involved 24 teachers in a 3-week summer workshop and an intensive follow-up research program during the following school semester. Our understanding of the relationship between change and the collaborative experience was developed from multiple data sources, including transcripts of interviews and group meetings, lesson plans and other teacher produced artifacts, and field notes from classroom observations. Our analysis of the data indicates that collaboration facilitates change because it provides opportunities for teachers to learn both content and pedagogical knowledge from one another, encourages teachers to be risk takers in implementing new ideas, and supports and sustains the processes of individual change in science teaching.