Nelson et al. DRAFT – Do not cite without permission of authors 1

Supported Collaborative Inquiry & Teacher Learning

Tamara Holmlund Nelson

David Slavit

Angie Foster

Washington State University Vancouver

Paper presented at the annual meeting of the

National Association for Research in Science Teaching

New Orleans, LA April, 2007

Tamara Nelson is Assistant Professor of Science Education in the Department of Teaching & Learning at Washington State University Vancouver

14204 NE Salmon Creek Avenue

Vancouver, WA 98686-9600

360.546.9663 *

David Slavit is Associate Professor of Mathematics Education in the Departments of Teaching & Learning and Pure & Applied Mathematics at Washington State University Vancouver

360.546.9653 *

Angie Foster is a research assistant with the NSF-supported grant, Supporting Teacher Research: Inquiry, Dialogue, & Engagement, at Washington State University Vancouver

The authors wish to acknowledge Katy Absten, Tom Archer, Teresa Barry, Sue Bluestein, Gloria Ferguson, Tom Hathorn, Kay Jones, Bill Kring, Wendi Laurence, Bob McIntosh, Mart Perkins, Jane Wilson, and especially Anne Kennedy for their collegial support and numerous insights into the ideas contained in this paper.

Support for this work has been provided by a Mathematics Science Partnership grant from the US Department of Education and by the National Science Foundation Grant ESI-0554579. The opinions expressed in this document are solely those of the authors.

Abstract

Two case studies are presented as a view into the “black box” of teachers’ professional learning communities. Over the course of one school year, these two groups of science teachers engaged in a collaborative inquiry process. They identified gaps between their vision of high quality teaching and learning and their students’ achievement. Based upon these gaps, teachers developed inquiry questions and undertook collective actions to address them. In the process, questions emerged that were both critical and practical. The PLC that raised and addressed critical questions was found to hold an inquiry stance toward their collaborative work. They grounded their collaborative work in student needs, and continued to question the intersection of their values about middle school science education, science education standards imposed by the state, and the support students needed to be successful. The other PLC focused on more practical questions, and made use of the opportunity to collaborate by focusing on curriculum development and lesson alignment with state inquiry standards. The contrast between these two cases illuminates the potential of collaborative inquiry and some of the challenges teachers face when undertaking this type of work.

Introduction

It’s given us a vehicle for being professional and collaborative. Acting as colleagues in a professional manner and not just a bunch of teachers griping. And I can see how it’s affecting my classroom. (Corinne, middle school science teacher, April, 2006)

The engagement of teachers in professional learning communities (PLCs) is proliferating in practice and in the research literature. Teachers are forming groups with their colleagues, administrators are mandating teachers work in departmental or cross-grade teams, and professional development providers are providing support for teachers to come together to study their practice. Corinne’ statement, above, stems from her participation in collaborative inquiry as part of a three-year professional development (PD) project. This PD project supported the teachers in developing professional learning communities to undertake collaborative inquiry. Comments such as Corinne’s, in conjunction with the increasing popularity of a PLC approach to professional development, raises questions such as: What makes this work so valuable to teachers? What do they learn – about teaching, learners, learning, and their content areas of mathematics and science? What are they able to do together, and what support do they need to do this work? In what ways might collaborative inquiry lead to impacts beyond individual teachers’ classrooms? In this paper, we address these questions by looking at two science teacher PLCs and their members’ development and work as a learning community across a school year. We describe the actions undertaken by each group, and consider the collective stance teachers adopted toward their collaborative work. Based upon an examination of the intersection of their work and their stance, we discuss the impact of PLC participation on teachers’ learning. Given the “optimistic premise” (Little, 2003) assigned to professional learning communities in the literature, we derive implications for support of this type of professional activity.

Theoretical Framework

The creation and support of teacher learning communities as an environment and structure for professional growth and transformative change has been promoted in the literature and has been increasingly viewed as a promising practice for teacher learning. Herein lies the “optimistic premise” or postulation that teachers working collaboratively to understand some selected aspect of teaching and/or learning contributes to significant growth across the group and, possibly, beyond the group. A PLC approach facilitates teacher learning through a structure that fosters collaboration, dialogue, and inquiry over an extended time period (Eaker, DuFour, & DuFour, 2002; Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001). The concept of “professional learning community” (PLC) captures many recommendations for promising professional development; among other characteristics, PLCs:

  • provide sustained opportunities for teachers to engage dialogically as learners and build pedagogical and disciplinary knowledge;
  • are grounded in reflection, inquiry, and action directly related to teachers’ work and students’ learning;
  • provide a collaborative environment for developing a shared vision of student learning; and,
  • focus on collaborative actions to improve student learning by closely examining relationships between teaching and learning (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1996; DuFour & Eaker, 1998; Huffman, Hipp, Pankake, & Moller, 2001; Little, 2003; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006; Seashore Louis, Kruse, & Bryk, 1995).

We attribute some of the optimism about the power of PLCs to an image of teacher knowledge described by Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999) as “knowledge-of-practice.” As contributors to the development of this professional development project as well as researchers, we have come to believe that an essential component of PLC “work” is teachers’ development of an inquiry stance (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Sirotnik, 1988). An inquiry stance involves knowledge negotiation (Nelson, 2005) amongst teachers as they engage dialogically to develop common understandings about learning, students, curriculum, subject matter, teaching practices, or contextual influences on these components. Rather than rejecting ideas outright or accepting ideas from another (teacher, external source) based on perceived authority or expertise, teachers adopting an inquiry stance sustain “a willingness to wonder, to ask questions, and to seek to understand by collaborating with others in the attempt to make answers to them” (Wells, 1999, p. 121). Asking and addressing critical questions serves to surface the different beliefs and values that frame each person’s actions. Teachers make explicit the context in which their work is embedded, challenge whose goals are being addressed, focus attention on knowledge that is relevant, and recognize that actions they take are not the final step, but can be evaluated, reformed, and retaken (Sirotnik, 1988). In this research, we are interested in how “teachers across the professional life span play a central and critical role in generating knowledge of practice by making their classrooms and schools sites for inquiry, connecting their work in schools to larger issues, and taking a critical perspective on the theory and research of others” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 273).

However, sustained critical inquiry into practice is not a common characteristic of school culture nor professional development (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Sarason, 1996). As Wilson and Berne (1999) reflect: “Teachers have very little experience engaging in a professional discourse that is public and critical of their work and the work of their colleagues” (p. 161). Fullan (2000) argues that if schools are to move toward the formation of learning communities, a “reculturing” must occur that involves examination and potential change in the collective norms, values, and beliefs that comprise the school’s persona. Reculturing involves teachers in the use of student data to examine links and gaps between teaching and learning. Teachers generate knowledge that can inform larger school and district initiatives. Based upon years of research with teachers attempting to form learning communities, McLaughlin and Talbert (2006) support this call for reculturing. They contrast weak and strong traditional teacher communities with learning communities, especially with respect to teachers’ views on students and learning, pedagogy, disciplinary content, and assessment, as well as the professional norms and organizational policies within a school. In schools where learning communities develop an inquiry stance, practice is deprivatized as teachers and administrators work collectively to understand how to improve learning for all students.

Given the optimism held by many for the transformative potential of professional learning communities, and in acknowledgement of the complex challenges to teachers’ engagement in critical dialogic inquiry, there is a need for understanding how teachers’ professional collaborations impact their learning and influence what they do in and beyond their classrooms. We are in the midst of a five-year study of a specific PD model that engages teachers in supported collaborative inquiry through the structure of professional learning communities. In this paper, which draws upon data from the second year of the project, we examine the intersection, in two PLCs, of teachers’ dialogic stance, their collective activities, what they came to collectively understand about science teaching, learning, and goals, and the impact of this on their classroom practices and beyond.

The Professional Development Project

PRiSSM (Partnership for Reform in Secondary Science and Mathematics) is a three-year professional development project involving middle and high school teachers. The first year began with 45 teachers leaders from 22 schools in six school districts. The lead teachers attended a week-long summer academy in both 2004 and 2005.The first summer academy supported teachers coming together in cross-disciplinary (mathematics and science) and cross-grade (6th- 12th) to form professional learning communities to collaboratively work on improving instruction and student achievement. Teachers engaged in activities designed to help them explore their beliefs about high quality learning and teaching, with the intention of developing a common vision. Their collaborative work was framed by an inquiry cycle (see Figure 1) that included the definition of an inquiry focus grounded in an identified gap between student learning data and teachers’ (or school, district, or state) learning goals. Ideally, teachers would target a specific pedagogical strategy they could implement to address this gap. A key element of the PRiSSM PD model was that this inquiry focus was determined by teachers and grounded in their classrooms, students, and collective vision for high quality learning and teaching.

Figure 1: The Inquiry Cycle

Other academy activities introduced the teachers to the use of protocols for reading and discussing research literature, looking at student work, and conducting peer observations. During the 2004-2005 school year, these 45 teachers worked in ten PLCs, with middle and high school teachers grouped by student attendance boundaries. They were supported throughout the year by a project facilitator. This facilitator was knowledgeable in the content area and in supporting group processes.

Based on findings from the first year of the project (see Nelson & Slavit, 2007; Slavit & Nelson, 2006), the second summer academy presented the teacher leaders with more explicit help on moving through the inquiry cycle. A particular need that surfaced during the first year associated with teachers’ limited experience with classroom-based data collection and analysis. Additionally, in the second year lead teachers were expected to become leaders of new PLCs based in their schools. Hence, academy activities in the second summer also supported their growth as PLC leaders.

In the fall of 2005, approximately 100 new “expanded team” teachers joined the project to form 35 PLCs led by the first year’s lead teachers. Most of these PLCs were grade-level and discipline specific—for example, all 7th grade life science teachers, or only 10th grade integrated math teachers. The composition of and meeting structures for each PLC varied by school; teachers arranged time dependent upon their school and personal schedules. Project support was provided for substitute days so teachers could meet for extended periods of time. None of the expanded team teachers attended the second summer academy; however, most districts did a “kick-off” event to introduce the project goals and structures to the teachers. These events ranged from two hours to a full day. The project continued to provide facilitators for the PLCs, although facilitators had three to five PLCs to work with in this second year as opposed to only one or two in the first year.

Research Design & Methods

This is a five-year research study; this paper focuses on findings from the second year of the PD model implementation. The critical dimension of analysis in this study was the PLC dialogue and activity, focusing specifically on the nature of teachers’ dialogic interactions as they moved through the inquiry cycle and teachers’ professional growth related to their PLC participation. While we employed a mixed methods approach in this research project, for this paper we rely predominantly on qualitative data in the composition of case studies (Merriam, 1998). Research during the second year of PRiSSM followed nine PLCs, with three providing significant data in the form of audio or video records of PLC meetings. These three PLCs were developed as rich cases bounded by the 2005-2006 school year. Extensive data (described further, below) were collected on the six other PLCs, with the exclusion of PLC meeting audio/video records. Thus, case reports on the other six participating PLCs were not as thoroughly developed due to the lack of dialogic data. All 35 PLCs from the second year of the project provided a broader context for looking across cases.

Two of the authors of this paper (Tamara and David) participated as co-developers of the 2004 and 2005 summer academies and as members of a steering committee that met monthly to discuss the ongoing project activities and development. (The steering committee was composed of nine facilitators, the authors, and two other grant coordinators.) During the academic year our interactions with teachers were predominantly as researchers; however, we encouraged teachers to see us as resources for assistance with existing research relevant to their inquiries.

Participants

The six districts participating in the professional development project represented one large school district (greater than 25,000 students; 35% free and reduced lunch; 79% White), one middle sized district (13,000 students; 33% free and reduced lunch, 65% White), and four small/rural districts (approximately 1000 or fewer students). The case study research participants were teachers from nine PLCs in three districts; the lead teachers from each PLC served as partners or collaborators (Glesne, 1999) in the research to a limited extent. These lead teachers helped us understand in more depth by inviting us into their classrooms, participating in interviews, attending conferences with us, and engaging in extended conversations about their PLC activities.

Nine PLCs were purposefully selected to represent mathematics (3 PLCs) and science (4 PLCs), plus 2 PLCs that included both mathematics and science teachers. Middle school PLCs (3), high school PLCs (5), and mixed middle/high school (1) PLCs were also represented. Finally, 4 PLCs were set in the large school district, 4 in the medium school district, and one in a small and rural school district with approximately 1000 students, 53% free and reduced lunch, and 82% White. Nearly all the teachers in these nine PLCs self-identified as White.

In this paper, we focus predominantly on two PLCs from the middle-sized district. These were two of the three PLCs who recorded most of their PLC meetings, thus providing us with a rich picture of their dialogic interactions. Thus, these cases provide explanatory power in the contrasts between their collective activities and their dialogic stances toward their work.

The Grays Bay PLC was composed of six teachers from the middle-sized district. These 7th and 8th grade science teachers came from two middle schools. Both schools enrolled approximately 37% of their students in the free-and-reduced lunch program and 10-14 % in special education. One school had a 59% White student population, and no transitional bilingual program. The other had a 66% White student population, with 4 % of the students qualifying for a transitional bilingual program. The six teachers in the PLC were White, and five were female.

The Douglas high school science PLC was composed of three men and one woman, all teaching 9th grade integrated science in one high school. Two were experienced teachers who had been at Douglas for years, one was a second year teacher, and one was new to the district with more than five years experience. Thus, all four had not worked together before. All the teachers were White. The high school served approximately 1300 students, with 66% White students and 25% reporting eligibility for free and reduced lunch services. There was no transitional bilingual program, and a 91% on-time graduation rate.