SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION

Julie Bianchini and Mark Windschitl, Section Coeditors

Dimensions That ShapeTeacher--Scientist Collaborationsfor Teacher Enhancement

BRIAN DRAYTON, JONI FALKTERC, 2067 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02140, USA

Received 23 March 2004; revised 28 October 2005, 12 December 2005;accepted 21 December 2005

DOI 10.1002/sce.20138Published online 23 March 2006 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

ABSTRACT: Partnerships of teachers with scientists are thought to be important for many

aspects of science education reform, but it is not always clear how to make such partnerships

productive. Between 1994 and 1997, high school teachers were partnered with scientists,

to design yearlong ecological research projects in which the teachers were learning for

their own sake, rather than to create new curriculum. In these partnerships the relationships

with the scientists took many forms. We found that negotiations around five dimensions

seemed particularly important: (1) Whose question was being investigated? (2) Was the

focus primarily on data collection or data analysis? (3) Was the research based on the

ecologist’s area of expertise, or the teachers’ interest? (4) Was the focus primarily on the

teachers’ learning on their students’ classroom learning? (5) Was the research intended for

an external audience, or primarily for the teachers’ own benefit? Three case studies are

presented, showing how these dimensions shaped the negotiations of more successful and

less successful collaborations. Implications for inquiry-based pedagogy, and cultural issues

arising in scientist-teacher collaborations, are discussed. C© 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Sci Ed 90:734–761, 2006

This paper was edited by former section editor Deborah Trumbull.Correspondence to: Brian Drayton; brian drayton@terc.eduThe project described herein was supported by the National Science Foundation.Contract grant number: NSF/TE 92-53280.

C© 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 735

INTRODUCTION

The role of scientists as partners in science education, and especially in teacher profes-sional development, has grown in importance under current strands of education reform, forexample in the No Child Left Behind act which established the Math and Science Partner-ship program, which mandates the involvement of scientists and mathematicians in K-12education. This emphasis, which waxes and wanes in science education policy (Rudolph,2002), is in line with science standards and curriculum frameworks that require of bothteachers’ and students’ a broader range of science content knowledge, and also a deeperunderstanding of scientific inquiry. Documents such as the National Research Council’sScience Education Standards advocate that students should gain increasing sophisticationin the actual practice of scientific exploration and reasoning, for example:

As a result of activities in grades 9–12, all students should:

• develop abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry:• identify questions and concepts that guide scientific inquiry• design and conduct scientific investigations• use technology and mathematics to improve investigations and communications• formulate and revise scientific explanations and models using logic and evidence• recognize and analyze alternative explanations and models• communicate and defend a scientific argument

(NRC, 1996a, pp. 173ff )

In the classroom envisioned by the frameworks, the reflective, inquisitive teacher withgood understanding of the practice of science inquiry is necessary to the development of thereflective, inquisitive student (Minstrell & van Zee, 2000). It is reasonable to assume thatscientists can make an important contribution to the development of such teachers, and thatthey represent a special source of insight about science content and process, the structureof their field of knowledge, and key approaches to curriculum and pedagogy in their areaof expertise. How shall scientists’ expertise be made available to K-12 science teachers?

In this paper, we briefly review some recent studies of scientists in teacher enhancement,and then turn to a consideration of teachers’ knowledge and teacher learning, as a setting forthe data we present and discuss. We then describe how teachers and scientists worked outdifferent forms of collaboration for learning, over the course of a yearlong partnership forteacher professional development in scientific practice. We identify dimensions that seemedmost important in the way scientist–teacher collaborations developed, and describe threecases showing how these dimensions played out for two successful and one unsuccessfulcollaboration. The findings reported here provide valuable insights for teachers and scientistsengaged in such collaborations, and for those designing teacher professional developmentprograms.

Finally, we suggest that many of the issues that arise in this study also arise in regardto teachers’ guiding of project-based or inquiry-based instruction in the classroom: theparticipating teachers’ experiences as adult science inquirers gave them significant insightinto key aspects of classroom inquiry.

THE TEPE PROJECT

The Teacher Enhancement in Pedagogy and Ecology (TEPE) project1 recruited a totalof 240 high school teachers from Texas, Massachusetts, and New York, in three annual

1 The names of teachers, teams, and ecologists have been altered to protect anonymity.

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cohorts. Teachers applied as teams of four; project staff helped locate an ecologist workingin geographical proximity to the teacher; more details on the recruitment of ecologists aregiven below. The partnership was to last for an academic year, at least. The year began with aninitial intensive summer workshop, which was followed by two weekend callback sessionsduring the academic year. The first week of the workshop consisted of an iterative explorationof ecological thinking and research techniques. On three successive days, teachers visiteda different habitat (forest, field, wetland). After a period of silent, individual explorationof the field site, teachers developed research questions to be investigated in small ad hocteams in a 3-hour study on the site. All questions were discussed by the whole group, andgiven final formulation using teacher feedback, as well as comments from the ecologistleading the excursion. Over the course of the afternoon, each team took data, analyzed it,and made a presentation to their peers. The final two days of the first week were spent on2-day research projects on questions of the teachers’ choosing, developed in consultationwith team members and staff ecologists; results were presented in a poster session (TERC,1997). The second week of the institute focused on the teams’ development of their plansfor ecological research in consultation with the ecologist who would be part of their teamduring the academic year; the team ecologists joined in the institute at the beginning of thesecond week.

During the summer institute, we defined the “rules” for the scientist–teacher collabora-tion:

1. The teachers were to participate in a research project, in order to gain more familiaritywith science content, but even more with the actual process of research.

2. The focus of the project should be mutually agreed upon between teachers andecologist.

3. While the teachers were free to shape their projects to include curriculum devel-opment or other “student centered” activities, project staff made it clear that theywere also free to focus exclusively on their own learning during this year of researchactivity.

4. The role of the ecologist and the patterns of interaction between the ecologist andthe teachers were to be negotiated. Initial plans were to be committed to writing in a“collaborative plan” or “contract,” and then altered as needed by mutual agreement.

Whenever possible, team ecologists were put in contact with their prospective teamsbefore the summer workshop. During the summer institute, when the teams first cametogether and began their negotiations, TERC staff provided support in several ways. First,some teachers who had participated in the previous year were present, and were asked todescribe and discuss their experiences. Second, the workshop staff included ecologists whooversaw some of the first week’s activities, which included exploration of various habitattypes, the learning of specific techniques for data collection, and the design and completionof a 3-day research project. Third, as the teams and their ecologists worked out their plans forthe year’s research projects, they brought their plans and ideas to the project staff (includingthe staff ecologists) for feedback and discussion of content, experimental design, logisticalconsiderations, and indeed all aspects of the plan.

As we have described elsewhere (Falk & Drayton, 1997, 1998a), participating teachersreported that they were able to understand how having a sense of ownership in an inquiryproject, having time to reflect on and discuss their progress and findings with peers, andhaving a clear sense of purpose for their work, scaffolded their learning, contextualized thelearning of content, and gave a stronger sense of authenticity to the learning.

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 737

The experience of being purposeful learners was beneficial to the teachers directly;beyond this, thought, teachers reported that the insights they gained about themselves aslearners motivated them to explore innovations in their pedagogy. This runs somewhatcounter to received wisdom which holds that in order to change teachers’ pedagogy, profes-sional development must focus on “pedagogical content knowledge,” explicitly addressingpedagogy (Loucks-Horseley, Hewson, Love, & Stiles, 1998).

Thus, although this project was not designed around particular curricular innovations,it nourished teacher experimentation and innovation in the classroom. Since teachers tendto teach as they were taught, exploration by teachers of the effects of these dynamics ontheir own learning is crucial to the motivation and successful integration of inquiry-orientedmethods in science, mathematics, and technology classrooms at all levels. The TEPE projectoffers an unusual model on several counts: the sustained and project-oriented nature of theteacher–scientist relationship, the freedom the program allowed with respect to sciencecontent knowledge addressed, the emphasis on the teacher as self-directed, adult learner,and in the flexibility of the scientists’ roles.

Scientists in Teacher Enhancement: Models and Approaches

Most teacher professional development efforts that connect the scientist with the scienceteacher have focused on the transfer of knowledge, structured to make efficient use of thetime of both teacher and scientist. A high proportion of the teacher-enhancement programsthat connect teachers and scientists take the form of short-term encounters such as work-shops, summer or evening courses, consulting relationships, classroom visits, curriculumdevelopment sessions, or short-term internships. Of the 190 teacher enhancement programsabstracted in the NRC’s The Role of Scientists in the Professional Development of Teachers(1996b), perhaps as many as 75% fall into this category. Such programs also often assumethat in the domain of science content, and sometimes even in the pedagogy associated withadvanced science concepts, the scientist is to set the agenda and teach the teachers.

Five general approaches to the “use” of scientists in science education can be noted inthe literature.

1. The scientist is a key member of a curriculum development effort. In many of the majorNSF-funded curriculum projects, scientists have taken a leading role in shaping thecontent and approach (Dow, 1991; Romney & Neuendorffer, 1973; Rudolph, 2002).The goal has very often been to bring aspects of current science research into thecurriculum. In some projects, the goal is to tap a scientist for very specific researchresults (Hawkins & Battle, 1994; Wier, 1991). In others, the scientist’s role is to helpcurriculum developers understand the structure of the field, and find a way to makeit accessible (Drayton, 1993).

2. The scientist is a deliverer of content in teacher enhancement (inservice or preser-vice) as lecturer in a course, or workshop leader. This may take the form of targetedsessions on specific science concepts, often to support teachers’ learning about spe-cific curriculum pieces. It may also take the form of the scientist’s participation ina larger workshop format, in which the science content is embedded in a pedagog-ical context (e.g., to enhance teachers’ understanding of how to guide inquiry in aparticular topic area). The summer institute is the commonest format for this (e.g.,Anderson, 1993; Haakonsen, Tomala, Stone, & Hageman, 1993).

3. The scientist is a visitor to the classroom, or accessible to answer queries and seekresources for students, teachers, or parents. This is perhaps the most common practiceinvolving scientists in K-12 education, and the easiest to plan and carry out. Scientists’

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participation may take the form of classroom visits and demonstrations, science fairjudging, homework help through email, or other means (Caton & Brown, 2000;Sussman, 1993). Alternatively, the students go to the scientist’s workplace for a visit,which may include tours, job shadowing, formal presentations, hands-on activities,and so on (Layne, Hamos, & Hines, 2001; Wilson, 1997). Such relationships can beextended in various ways, for example, in projects in which students participate instudent–scientist partnership.

4. Scientist–student(–teacher) partnerships. In this approach, the scientist’s involve-ment is not aimed primarily at teachers’ learning. Rather, students are incorporatedinto a scientist’s research work, usually in collecting data (TERC & Concord Con-sortium, 1997); the scientist(s) on the project typically shape the research question,evaluate the data, and provide advice on the data collection and the interpretationof results. The GLOBE project (Butler & Coppola, 1997) is predicated on this kindof partnership. Scientists propose research projects with a component designed forstudent involvement. If the project is approved after peer review, classrooms are re-cruited, and teachers and students are trained in the science being studied, and in thedata collection protocol. Data are contributed to a common center, and the project isthe occasion for scientific conversations among participating schools, and with thelead scientist. In another paradigm which focuses less on formal science learning, theteacher may facilitate the scientist’s acting as mentor to students, so that the studentslearn about the scientist’s life and career path, as well as science content (Falk &Drayton, 1998b; Falk, Drayton, Crawford, & Obuchowski, 1999; Pokress, Falk, &Drayton, 2003).

5. The scientist is a teacher mentor, or provides a teacher with the opportunity to workon a research project. Projects that take this approach place a high emphasis onteachers’ understanding of how science is actually practiced, as well as improvingtheir content knowledge. Sometimes this takes the form of the teacher being teamedwith a scientist, to work on the teaching of a lesson (Anderson, 1993; Wier, 1991). Thiscan take place in preservice settings, as an element of student teaching for prospectiveteachers (Doster, Jackson, & Smith, 1997; Mason, 1989). Most often, this takes theform of short laboratory internships or summer employment (Haakonsen et al., 1993;NRC, 1996b; Sussman, 1993), sometimes with follow-on contact during the ensuingyear; the ISIS program described by Haakonsen et al. (1993) involves the teachers in2-year cohorts, with many scientists circulating through the program over the courseof this period.

A MODEL THAT SUPPORTS CONTEXTUALIZED, USABLE LEARNING

Each of the models reviewed above leaves open the relationship between “content knowl-edge” and the growth of teachers’ knowledge in support of student inquiry. In our work,we have taken a view of teacher practice and teachers’ knowledge that suggests a differentapproach to this problem, in which the teacher plays the central role in identifying andacquiring the integrated understanding of content and related inquiry which he or she needsto improve as a science teacher.

Huberman’s model of the teacher as “tinkerer (bricoleur)” (Huberman, 1993) provides auseful framework in which to think about science teachers’ learning from practice. In thismodel, the teacher is seen to be working in a very intense (“dense”) environment, makingevaluative and strategic judgments relating the students’ needs, the intended learning goals,and the emergent features of the classroom event. The teacher is able to integrate manykinds of cues in forming these diagnostic and directive judgments, using a fund of tacit

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 739

knowledge that is nevertheless accessible through reflection when necessary, and enables akind of improvisation within structure. This tacit knowledge incorporates past experiencein the classroom, generalizations about student learning as the teacher has seen it, specificjudgments about the students in the class and their states of understanding, and the teacher’sown understanding about the content.

Furthermore, the teacher’s knowledge, both tacit and explicit, is the foundation uponwhich her further learning is built, and the need for it recognized. In the course of thisway of working, teachers may identify areas in which they need to add to their scienceknowledge. The needed knowledge is situated in the particular learning tasks the studentsare engaged with, and in fact the need for this knowledge is elicited by the situation itself.Thus, the ability to direct their own learning is part of the “toolkit” that teachers need,as they incrementally refine and strengthen their practice. This is particularly true if thestudents are engaged in science inquiry.

Student inquiry requires the teacher to incorporate an understanding of scientific practiceinto his or her repertoire of tacit knowledge accessible to reflection, the reservoir of knowl-edge and experience which makes the classroom bricolage possible. As teachers encounternew concepts or approaches that seem valuable, they incorporate them into their repertoire,and over the course of time can do the reflection necessary to integrate the new ideas intotheir pedagogy and their understanding of the subject matter. This process of reflection andintegration is central to teacher change, and it requires both opportunity and adequate timefor new learning.

As Huberman points out, however, this view of teacher’s work and learning presents aserious problem, since it can tend to reinforce teacher isolation, and inhibit effective teachercollegiality. In fact, this view of how a teacher actually works and learns is a fundamentalchallenge to models of the teacher’s work as intrinsically collaborative. If the teacher infact is an “independent artisan,” developing a personal understanding of her subject andits pedagogy, and a personal repertoire to enact it, then “craft” conversation among suchartisans can be difficult and unrewarding: What do we talk about, if our experience is, to asignificant degree, tacit and understood primarily in reference to personal experience?

The TEPE project provided a learning environment for teachers which helped them learnscience in a way that fits very well with this view of teacher practice and learning, butalso addressed the challenge of teacher collegial engagement. Three aspects of the projectwere relevant to these two emphases: (a) confrontation with different models of expertise;(b) a completely embedded model of emergent curriculum and formative evaluation in thecontext of a scientific project; and (c) a simple and very flexible structure for collegialexchange, in which each might find comfortable and appropriate ways to occupy both therole of expert and of novice. In particular

(a) The close association with professional scientists was intended to challenge theteachers’ understanding of scientific expertise and science content knowledge. Thescientists freely admitted when they did not know answers. When confronted with aphenomenon which they did not understand, the scientists discussed and brainstormedwith their colleagues (including the teachers), generating preliminary models ofthe system, hypotheses about mechanisms and relationships—and especially theygenerated questions. This experience of expertise in practice was then available toteachers as they considered their students’ learning, and their own role as both expertsand inquirers.

(b) The project orientation of the teachers’ activities was designed to relate the inquiryprocess to the motivated acquisition of new content, and to the integration of new in-formation, data, and conclusions with previous knowledge. From the point of view of

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this study, the structure provided to scaffold teams’ design, implementation, revision,and evaluation of their work generated key artifacts for an understanding of the highlyindividualized course of each team’s experience, and to search for common patternsemerging from the overall process. The researchers’ practice of regular reflectionwith the teams modeled an approach to formative evaluation which was consonantwith the model of teacher and student learning embodied in the experience.

(c) By participating in a team collaboration with the scientist, teachers were intended tolearn science practice in a setting that also included the negotiation and renegotiationof learning goals, as questions, skills, and team relationships developed overtime.This model promised to offer the kind of contextualized learning that could serve ateacher well as he or she learns new content, and re-engages in a collegially enrichedlearning process, in a conscious attempt to explore how learning and teaching caninteract to serve real inquiry.

At the heart of the teams’ dynamics was the role of the scientist member. The project madethis resource available to the teacher teams, and provided a schedule and project structure tofacilitate planning and monitoring of the collaboration overtime. Yet this still required eachteam to discover what in fact the scientist could (or would) offer, and to negotiate how bestto incorporate this human resource into their own (negotiated) idea of what they neededto learn. Thus, the outworking of this partnership was the center around which most otheraspects of the project were oriented. For this reason, we examine some of the dimensionsof this negotiation, as the core enactment of this model of teacher learning.

DATA COLLECTION

Information about the planning, content, implementation, and outcomes of projects weregathered from all participants, and from each team, over the course of the project year, toprovide documentation of each team’s whole project, and to enable project staff to monitorteams’ dynamics as well as the content and quality of the projects undertaken. Teachers andecologists were assured that all data were to be held in confidence, and used in ways thatpreserved their anonymity; participants gave their consent for their data to be used whenagreeing to participate in the project.

For this paper, we examined individual and team data sources for all teams participatingin the year 1995–1996. Data sources include

• Initial questionnaires noting teacher attitudes about science and science teaching,descriptions of lessons they had recently taught that went well and poorly, and theirreasons for participating in the program;

• Teacher portfolios from the summer institute in which the teacher teams worked withecologists on short field activities and on planning the year’s research. During thesummer workshop, teachers kept journals in which they tracked their learning, theirexperiences with their teams, ideas for research projects, and science or pedagogyquestions. These subjects were given as prompts, though teachers were free to writeabout anything, and the journals were entirely under the teachers’ control. Two op-tional half-hour periods were set aside each day for journal writing (for those whochose to do it in the main meeting room); some teachers worked in their journals atother times. At the end of the designated writing periods, teachers were invited toshare reflections from their writing, on a volunteer basis. As part of the project evalu-ation, teachers were asked to select three entries from their private journals to createa portfolio. In these portfolios, teachers annotated their choices (which they were

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 741

free to redact before using for this purpose), and reflected both on the science theywere learning and on the development of their team’s planning for the ensuing year.The portfolio entries, which were hand-written during the summer workshops, werephotocopied (with teachers’ permission) and entered into a FilemakerPro databasefor archiving and analysis.

• Teacher questionnaires. Questionnaires to individuals went out twice during the year,asking teachers to describe their experience, the project their team was engaged in,their goals for it and roles in it, the science content they were hoping to learn, andthe state of the team’s collaboration, including both positive and negative features(if any).

• Ecologist questionnaires. At the time that individual teacher questionnaires were sentout, similar questionnaires were sent to the team ecologists, asking the same questionsto provide the ecologists’ viewpoint on the goals, content, and progress of the team’sresearch project, as well as their understanding of the team’s condition.

In addition to these instruments, which gathered individual data, we draw for this studyon three other sources of information:

• Team collaborative plans, drawn up at the end of the summer workshop. In theseplans, the teams described their intended research project for the year. The elementsof the plan included: What the project would be; what the ecologist’s role would be;what each teacher’s role would be (if known), key decisions still to be made (suchas research site), and how these would be made; what support from TERC, school,and district would be needed, obstacles foreseen, and strategies for overcoming them.Finally, each teacher was asked to identify some personal learning objectives for theyear.

• Quarterly reports from teams. Each team was asked to make a brief report roughlyquarterly throughout the school year. These reports were semistructured, with ques-tions to probe the progress of the team’s research project, and space for the teachersto report anything else they felt would be of interest to project staff. Key questionsincluded what progress had been made on plan, how the team was functioning, therole of the ecologist, and progress on personal learning objectives. This was oneway for the teams to request suggestions, guidance, or help from project staff. Thesequarterly reports were also entered into a FilemakerPro database.

• Questionnaires for team ecologists at end of summer workshop, and half way throughthe year, asking the ecologist’s judgment of the team’s plans, progress, and issues orchallenges arising.

• A “team/ecologist interaction” questionnaire given toward the end of the projectyear, which explored the teachers’ and ecologists’ opinions about what the ecologisthad brought to the team, in terms of science content, science practice and skills,enthusiasm/motivation to learn science, and pedagogical ideas (if any).

• Ecologist and teacher focus groups at the end of the year, which were audiotaped andtranscribed.

DATA ANALYSIS

While each team (and team member) had their own understanding of how the re-lationship with their ecologist developed, in analyzing the results of our professionaldevelopment approach, we sought to use a comparative perspective to seek commonal-ities which might arise. Our data analysis consequently fell into two phases: during the

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project year, and then at the end of the project year, when complete data sets had beencollected.

We relied upon standard qualitative research methodology as it has been explored as a toolfor case study research (Stake, 1995). Our data analysis took a grounded approach (Strauss& Corbin, 1998), in which initial assumptions about key issues in teacher–ecologist re-lationships were tested against the data collected over the course of the project year, andrevised or fresh hypotheses were derived. The several instruments used as data sourcesprovided us with a chronological picture of the development of the teacher teams, as wellas multiple views of the same phenomena. Individual teacher questionnaires and portfo-lios provided perspective on team reports, and reports from the ecologists provided yeta different perspective. During the course of the project year, as each new set of reportscame in, the whole project team reviewed them, and analyzed key qualities of each team’sdevelopment, centered on issues or questions reported by the participants. While individ-ual researchers provided initial data analyses in memo and graphical form, analyses weretested and strengthened by dialogue about each team’s report within the whole project staff,including both researchers and professional developers.

Our initial categories were those used in the team’s plan for their year of collaboration,developed during the summer workshop (“team collaborative plan”): the nature of theirteam’s research project, their individual learning goals, and conjectures about the specificroles of each team member. Issues which seemed potentially problematic to either teachers orecologists were identified from data sources reporting on individual attitudes and reflections:teacher portfolios and individual questionnaires. Initial assumptions about the structure anddynamics of the teams were memoed by TERC staff. Key issues identified at the end ofthe summer workshop included logistical barriers to collaboration, the ability of teachers tomanage the timelines they had designed for their projects, and their fidelity to their projectdesign, with its emphasis on the teachers’ learning goals. Data analysis was facilitated byreduction and presentation of data in analytical matrices (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

As the year progressed, analysis suggested that the formation and development of thedynamics between the teachers and their team ecologists was a complex task in its own right,and that recurrent patterns relating to the team-members’ understanding and intentions withrespect to the yearlong project were emerging. When the full data sets were completed atthe end of the project year, therefore, they were analyzed again as narrative cases, using achronological arrangement of comments and reports about negotiations between teachersand ecologists as the basis for description, analysis, and cross-case comparison. Two re-searchers conducted primary coding and analysis, but all interim analyses were discussedwith the whole TERC project team, using the varied perspectives of the members to enrichthe analysis. The result was the framework of five dimensions discussed in detail in thesection on “Results.”

To test the plausibility of our emerging framework as a descriptive tool, and its value as anexplanatory framework for understanding these teacher–scientist collaborations, we invitedteachers to test and critique it. Twenty-one teachers from 15 teams which continued theirparticipation in the program for a second year agreed to reflect upon the five dimensions.Specifically, we asked these teachers to try to characterize their teams with respect tothese dimensions, and then to tell us of inadequacies in the analytic framework. After theteachers made their assessments in written form, we convened them in a focus group toshare comments and critiques. All were able to use the dimensions to characterize theirteams’ negotiations, and none suggested additional dimensions which were needed in theframework. It was clear, however, that the scales in and of themselves were not sufficientwithout a narrative justification for the choices these teachers made, and that in essence caseanalysis of each dimension was necessary and meaningful. Thus, the scales were both an

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 743

effective framework for analysis, and an effective tool for eliciting reflection and narrativewarrants for the analysis.

RESULTS

Key Dimensions

Twenty teacher teams, comprising about 75 teachers, continued with their ecologistthrough the whole year. These teams continued to have formal and informal meetings andnegotiated and carried out a collaborative research project (Falk & Drayton, 1997; TERC,1997).

While these teams followed through on their collaborative relationship, all of them had todesign and redesign their patterns of interaction in order to accomplish their goals. Realistictime constraints and commitments, as well as a mutual sense of trust on the parts of boththe ecologists and the teachers needed to be developed before fruitful relationships couldproceed. Given these good “working conditions,” however, teams arrived at very differentkinds of arrangements. The balances that were reached show very different patterns ofcollaboration with the scientists.

During an analysis of the teams’ reports and interviews, researchers noted five dimen-sions that seemed salient in teachers’ descriptions of the course of their collaborations:(1) Whose question was being investigated? (2) Was the focus primarily on data collectionor data analysis? (3) Was the research based on the ecologist’s area of expertise, or the teach-ers’ interests? (4) Was the focus primarily on the teachers’ learning or on their students’classroom learning? (5) Who is the research for? Who is the audience? These dimensionsare described as follows, with examples of “extremes” of variation that appear to define theboundaries for each dimension drawn from the experience of one or more team.

1. Whose question was being investigated? This question reflects the important ques-tion of ownership of the learning. At one end of the spectrum, the team’s ecologistproposed a project for the team to undertake, which the teachers accepted (“ecolo-gist’s question”). For example, one team was invited to help in the re-establishmentof marsh grasses in an estuary. This project was an extension of one being carriedalready by this ecologist in other places, with professional help. This situation offersthe benefit that the project is likely to be a productive one, based on the scientist’sexpertise. The possible drawback is that the meaning of the project, or the methodsof data collection or analysis, might be obscure to the teachers.

At the other extreme, the teachers presented a project idea that the ecologist af-firmed and helped them to implement (“teachers’ question”). For example, a teamin Massachusetts wanted to create a nature walk for the students at the local middleschool. The ecologist was willing to help with this project.

As an example of an intermediate experience, we cite the team from Florida, Mas-sachusetts. The teachers on the team included two biology teachers and a chemistryteacher; the ecologist was a population biologist. After discussing many possibletopics that might relate to a preserved area adjacent to the school, the team settled onthe project of certifying one location as a vernal pool according to state guidelinesfor this certification. In these negotiations, the ecologist repeatedly listened to theteachers’ interests, and proposed project ideas that incorporated them; the choice oftopic was thus a collaborative product.

2. Was the focus primarily on data collection or on data analysis? This dimensionis related to the importance of sense making, of investment in the content andinterpretation of the research project. At one extreme, a team participated in a study

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monitoring an endangered plant species in their area, but did not learn about thebiology of the plant, nor see the results of the study, nor design the protocols. Theircontribution to this, therefore, was to count the number of plants of the target speciespresent at field sites; they did not evaluate their data, but simply forwarded it toa state study. At the other extreme, a project spent weeks analyzing the data theycollected, and answering questions they had posed, to develop in collaboration withtheir ecologist a strong public presentation of results.

3. Was the research based on the ecologist’s area of expertise, or the teachers’ interests?This dimension relates to the open or closed nature of the inquiry, the contextual-ization of the learning. At one extreme, one ecologist refused to work with his teamunless they undertook a project that he felt was within his primary area of exper-tise, although within that area he was quite open to teachers’ project suggestions.At the other extreme, an ecologist enrolled in a training program with the teach-ers on his team, to be qualified to undertake a monitoring project of a type he hadnot engaged in before. In cases such as the latter, the ecologist’s value arose fromhis or her general competence as an ecologist, that is, experience with ecologicalquestions, approaches, and techniques, which he/she employed when encounteringa novel topic, as one of the team members. Further, his willingness to learn was bothencouraging to the teachers, and provided a model of teacher as learner.

4. Was the focus primarily on the teachers’ learning or on their students’ classroomlearning? This dimension shaped teachers’ choice of project, as well as the depthto which they sought to learn the material and follow their own questions; it alsoshaped the nature of the products of the project. As described above, the teacherswere encouraged to design their projects with their own learning as adults as thefirst goal. Some teams did in fact maintain that position. This did not mean that suchteams never mentioned their research in their classes, or never used some of theirexperiences in the class during that year. Indeed, several teachers reported valuablebenefits in the classroom, including heightened credibility with their students. Bycontrast, however, some teams undertook projects whose primary goal included wasthe creation of a product for classroom use (e.g., the design of an interpreted naturewalk near the school grounds for their students’ use, or the learning of water samplingtechniques learned in the project to design labs for a chemistry class). While teacherswho learned “for their students” often reported much satisfaction with their projects,they were not required by the nature of their intended products to confront the kindsof data analysis and interpretation that a formal research paper would.

5. Who is the research for? Who is the audience? The intended audience for the researchcan shape the motivation and design of a project from the beginning, and in a sense“frames” the activity. In this project, which was at the boundary of two cultures(teacher and scientist), some of the impact on the teachers came from the chanceto participate in the “other culture,” and acquire more facility with the discourse,values, and conventions of science. This enculturation experience was intensified ifthe intended audience was the scientific community.

This dimension was bounded as follows: Some teams gathered data for their ownuse, or that of others in the school: “Our data were to give us a baseline for fu-ture work.” By contrast, one team gathered population data on an endangered plantspecies, and sent the census information to the state Department of Parks and Wildlife.In between, one team had done extensive water quality studies in and around an aqua-culture facility; they presented their findings to their students and colleagues, but also(with some student volunteers who had joined the teachers) presented their resultsto a large, annual meeting of the state Academy of Arts and Sciences.

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 745

Critique of Themes by Participants

After identifying these themes, researchers convened a focus group of 21 teachers from15 different teams to reflect on their experience, and critique the usefulness of these themesin characterizing the negotiations of their teams during their research project. The teachersaffirmed that these dimensions represented key areas of decision making in their negotiationswith their ecologists, and rated their projects using a 5-point Likert scale. The results areshown in Figure 1. (Numbers sum to more than 21 because teachers sometimes gave twoanswers in a category, reflecting their sense of change overtime.)

While there are clear trends in the teachers’ answers, the data also suggest that there ismore than one way to negotiate a partnership, and that there is no one “right value” alongany of these dimensions.

The majority of the teachers in these enduring teams felt that their projects built on theirown research questions. Yet this is not necessarily the determinant of “ownership of thequestion”; during the discussion in the focus group, as well as in the teams’ documentation,teachers from some teams asserted that they were glad to work with a topic suggested bythe ecologist, as it provided a useful framework for their learning and collaboration.

The projects tended more toward data collection than toward data analysis, which is notuncommon in amateur science projects. A reality of this kind of work is that it takes timeto learn to identify and apply appropriate techniques for collecting reliable data, and in thisarea the experience of the practicing scientist will come to bear very strongly.

The third dimension, whether the project was intended to serve primarily as a learningexperience for the teacher, as opposed to a curriculum enhancement experience, was veryimportant in affecting teachers’ attitudes about their professional self-image (see Falk &Drayton, 1998a). In these teams, the majority of teachers felt that their project was aimedprimarily at the teachers’ learning, or that this was of equal weight with possible directclassroom benefits.

Finally, with respect to the fourth dimension, the teachers in these projects felt that theresults of their research were used primarily for themselves or their schools, rather than foran external audience, though about half saw that the project produced results of value toresearchers, or to the local community.

Figure 1. Teacher ratings of choices made along five dimensions for teacher–scientist collaborations.

746 DRAYTON AND FALK

Looking Closer: Three Case Studies

The teacher–scientist collaborations were the outcome of considerable learning anddiscussion within each team. The Likert scale used above represents teachers’ summaryevaluation of their projects, but such a summary cannot do justice to the development of therelationships overtime. In order to portray these dimensions in action, and convey some ofthe richness of the evolution of the teams, we draw on the data sources mentioned above topresent three cases, two teams that had a positive experience, and one that had a negativeexperience. In order to reflect the way the balance developed overtime, as discussed in thetext, we depict the team’s location on each dimension as a range, rather than a single Likertvalue, unless there was no change owing to negotiation or development (in case 2).

Homewood: ‘‘Ecologist Eagerly Involves Teachers in a Demanding Project ThatDoesn’t Always Make Sense To Them”

The Homewood team included teachers with strong science backgrounds, including onewith a master’s degree in biology and significant research experience. They decided tofocus primarily on their own learning, rather than devising a project that would be partof their curriculum. The team’s ecologist worked for the state department of Parks andWildlife, and proposed an interesting problem for them to work on, which was rooted in hisown work, because it drew on the ecologist’s expertise, and was a “real-world” problem towhich they could contribute:

Our team had many ideas and interests for a project but we decided to do something within

the expertise of our ecologist. We are planning a study on the “Arroyo C.” to see if the

discharge from two large shrimp farms is having an effect on the water quality and/or

marine organisms of the estuary.

The project was very demanding, both in terms of data collection, and in the analysis of thelarge data set. The teachers and a few of their students, along with the teachers’ familiesand the ecologist, spent many evening and weekend hours in labor: “we wore out a printer!”The ecologist was available and involved:

Throughout the school year, Bill Davison [the ecologist] was available to offer advice and

support. He lent us several books from his personal library to help us understand the many

facets of our project. Bill spent many an hour with us—after school, in the evenings, late at

night, and on weekends.

The project led to a presentation by the teachers and students before the state Academy ofSciences, and all the teachers acknowledged that they had learned a lot of science, and wereproud of their work:

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 747

Overall, the project was a positive experience and one in which both my students and I

benefited in a variety of ways.

Yet over the course of the year, the teachers found the project a struggle. Although someof them intended to work with ecologists in the future, they did not wish to continue theircollaboration with this ecologist after the end of their project year.

In the beginning, it made sense to the teachers to work within the ecologist’s area ofexpertise, because it facilitated the search for a feasible project. For his agency, Davisonwas conducting a large-scale study of water quality issues in relation to some aquaculturetechniques that were growing in importance. Projects that fit within this overall effort wereeasy to think of. This is the sort of choice that teachers often make for their students inguiding investigations: the teacher provides the question as part of the scaffolding for thestudents’ learning of inquiry.

As the project unfolded, however, the teachers lost a sense of ownership over the questionat the heart of the study.

The most difficult aspect of working with our ecologist was not having clear direction of our

purpose. I think if we had defined our OWN goals we would have been able to accomplish

our task much easier and with less frustration. Instead we kept trying to define our project

in terms of what we thought Parks and Wildlife would want.

Because they were not clear on the real point of the study, the task of analyzing the largeamount of data was frustrating—they did not feel invested in the answers they were pro-ducing:

We had an overwhelming amount of data to manage. I had trouble determining what to

focus on because I didn’t know what pieces of information were most important. I felt like

Bill wanted us to “discover” the significance of the data on our own. Bill rarely answered

questions directly so I was frequently left feeling clueless which was very frustrating.

* * *

Having spent a lot of time with students on science fair, I was under the impression that

in the “real world” a scientist would take a question and collect data (plan the experiment)

that would lead to prove or disprove the hypotheses. In this case, we collected a tremendous

amount of data and then had to sort through it to determine if we could draw conclusions.

I was left feeling very frustrated because I did not know where to begin.

For these teachers, some of the value of the project originally had come from the hopethat the data would be of wider value. Their sense of disenfranchisement, therefore, wasreinforced by concerns about the ultimate value of the experience. There were times inthe middle of the study when the work made it hard for the teachers to recognize whatthey were learning—they were under too much pressure to take measurements, enter data,run analyses. The teachers could not see that the masses of data, sometimes collected withsophisticated equipment, would be usable in their classrooms in the future. It was alsodiscouraging that their work apparently would not after all have value to the agency forwhich they collected the data:

. . . we kept trying to define our project in terms of what we thought. . . Parks and Wildlife

would want and in the end they used NONE of our work.

* * *

I was disappointed that Bill did not seem interested in copies of our computer files. I thought

our analysis of the data would have been a benefit to . . . Parks and Wildlife.

748 DRAYTON AND FALK

As the project went on, the teachers came to realize that Davison, the ecologist, had notseen their need for help in contextualizing their work. He certainly did not “talk down” tothem, and in fact felt that he was helping them have an authentic experience of the work thatgoes into any scientific investigation. He respected the knowledge and skills the teacherswere bringing to the project.

My experience reinforced my perception that good teachers work extremely hard, long

hours, under less than optimal conditions. They are more dedicated to their work than other

workers in almost any other field I’ve seen. They make many personal sacrifices of their

own time and comfort to serve their students.

The teachers also became quite clear that Davison, once he understood their concerns,wanted to do what he could to address them. When the team, including the ecologist, decidedto present to the state Academy of Sciences, and began finally to make headway with theirdata analyses, it was then possible for the teachers to articulate for themselves what thepoint of the work was, and what its value was for them. The “sense-making” phase broughtback a sense of common enterprise, and resolved some of the tension and anger that hadarisen.

The presentation to the Academy of Sciences thus provided a positive outcome, and boththe teachers and the ecologist took great pride in it. This triumphant outcome, however, didnot erase the sense of frustration that they felt from a project that on so many levels wasquite successful. Thus, this team saw that its original intent, to learn from a project built onDavison’s agency work, was not a bad plan, but the intensity of the task, the businesslikefocus of the ecologist, and the need for some negotiation of goals and methods, had exacteda heavy cost. The teachers felt in the end that they would be glad to consult with theirecologist again, but they had a much clearer sense of pitfalls they would need to avoid, andprotocols to establish, in designing future projects in partnership with another scientist.

Del Rio: ‘‘Ecologist sees teachers as research assistants, is not interested in theirgoals.”

This team exemplifies several ways in which the scientist–teacher partnership can encounterserious difficulties. The teacher team remained together, and felt they had learned a lot duringthe year, but the partnership with their ecologist was more a problem than an opportunity.This came as a surprise, given the expectations which the team had at the beginning of theassociation.

When the TEPE project staff found the ecologist for this team, Robert Morrelli, wehad high hopes that the team would have the opportunity to do research that would haveconsiderable community value, as his work focused on the ecology of air-borne pathogensin poor communities. The teacher team was intrigued by the thought that their work wouldhave this public health dimension. They were excited by the ecologist’s presentation about

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 749

his work, and by his expressed openness about sharing equipment and helping them getstarted on an interesting investigation.

Problems arose early on, however, as the team and the ecologist negotiated what theywould do, and how they would work together. The ecologist, for all his helpful demeanor,seemed to provide little room for negotiation about the nature of the work they coulddo together. He insisted that he would not feel comfortable advising the teachers on aproject outside his area of focus. He argued that the teachers would learn a lot of generalresearch skills, such as experimental design, sampling and statistical analyses, and similar“transferable” skills, while learning the particularities of the study.

We have talked about working on environmental issues of local concern. We may work

w/ Dr. Morrelli on an infant botulism study. This would involve our students in sampling

methods, research, analysis of data, etc. . . w/ the help of Dr. Morrelli.

The difficult dynamics around whose question would be investigated, and who it was for,

continued into the fall.

The teachers in reflecting on it felt that at the root of the problem was a mismatch ofexpectations about the collaboration; the ecologist was well meaning and friendly towardthem, but his goals were not theirs. The teachers had a correct perception of Morrelli’s viewof the nature of their collaboration. Not long after the team formed, Morrelli wrote:

There is excellent collaborative opportunity and real potential for my work and development

of their own work. . . . We have already setup a few specific projects which contribute to

my research and establish their own “niches.”

There were problems with personal style as well.

. . . . we met w/ Dr. Morrelli in the afternoon. I was hesitant at first because of his behavior

in New York, but once we got in there, he wasn’t too bad. He actually was pleasant and

helpful. My impression, he acts like a kid whose parents are out of town and goes crazy. He

tries to be the center of attention, but he is just too loud and obnoxious. . . . Once we were

there he was very generous w/ materials like a box of surgical gloves per person (us), media,

and other equipment. We were all surprised he was so generous. We even commented about

the situation and Morrelli said, “Now do you see what I mean, he really is a nice person.” I

wish he could be like this all of the time, but we still let K. communicate with him.

The teachers were faced with a difficult decision with regard to their own hoped-for benefitsfrom this association. They had hoped that the project would be something in which theirstudents could get involved. The first idea was that the teachers would get to know theecologist, decide on the specific topic of the investigation, and learn the basic science andtechniques required, and then gradually include their students into the fieldwork. However,Dr. Morrelli’s strong insistence on his view of both the topic and the actual project designroused the teachers’ concerns on their students’ behalf. They did not want them to beexploited:

I have concerns about this being “grunt” work for my kids—so I am very cautious about

this and will protect my students’ interest. I want them to experience it and feel like they

get something out of it. They will be able to detect slave labor intentions—this would be

disastrous.

For this reason, the teachers attenuated the students’ involvement, though their growingunderstanding about air-quality studies shaped some activities in their classroom. There

750 DRAYTON AND FALK

could be no direct transfer of activities into the classroom setting, however, as the ecologist’swork required equipment of a quality (and therefore a price) that put them out of reach ofa high school lab.

Because the women teachers felt that the ecologist was patronizing to them, Enrique, thesole male team member, became the liaison between teachers and ecologist. A few monthsinto the collaboration, he entered a note in his journal that makes clear both the mismatchof outlook and of style:

We have a sort of “love–hate” relationship with our ecologist—R. means well and is a good

resource person. We just have an ego problem—his is too big for the rest of us. If we focus

on our work and what we want to accomplish, everything goes well, but, when our priorities

are mismatched, we clash. R. tends to think in terms of publications and conferences, we

tend to think in terms of what is best for our students.

It is telling that the ecologist’s report of his view of progress at about this same time hasa tone that does seem to reflect a relationship in which he is setting the tone, goals, andstandards:

Work Plan - has gone slowly since team must complete some elements of education before

we begin in earnest training in methods/techniques is now progressing well. We plan to

begin to research in January—this does conform to my original schedule.

As time went on, the differences in intention became more prominent and problematic.The teachers all continued to credit the ecologist with good intentions, but more and moreclearly identified the characteristics that were missing from the collaboration. This includedboth the working relationship, and the nature of the research itself. This project, as in a fewother cases, was actually hampered by the ecologist’s generous (and perhaps overwhelm-ing) provision of complex monitoring equipment that required much effort to master. Theteachers seem to have felt that this effort distracted them from the kinds of learning thatthey would find most congenial and also most valuable for their work. At the end of theproject year, when asked “If you were to carry on with this project for another year, howwould you change the way you worked with your ecologist?” teachers wrote comments likethe following:

In retrospect, I would change my research work by selecting a project that I felt more

personally connected to. I think the project we worked on was someone else’s agenda and

therefore it was very hard to buy into . . . I do wish that we had worked with someone who

was more interested in our needs and expectations rather than a personal goal. Likewise, I

feel like our ecologist was disappointed with us.

* * *

I probably would have tried to get someone more willing to work with us instead of someone

who wanted to work through us. . . . I would probably try to sway my team to find a project

that wasn’t so equipment and materials intensive—first we had the equipment and no media,

now we have lots of media but no sampling equipment.

In sum, as reflected in the dimensional chart for this team, there was little successfulnegotiation of goals and content. All the members of the team, including the ecologist, feltthat teacher–scientist collaborations were important, and they did not want to relinquisha commitment made with good intent on all sides. The project, including the teachers’learning, suffered, as the growth of “ownership” and meaning was hindered by choices

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 751

along our five dimensions that were not mutually adopted, and impervious to renegotiationand reflection.

Auburn: ‘‘Ecologist acts as accessible mentor to teacher team that sets the direc-tion.”

Many of the teacher teams in the TEPE project were interdisciplinary, including chemistryor physical science teachers as well as biology teachers. Several (about a quarter) includedteachers who were not science teachers at all. The Auburn team included a chemistry teacher,a biology teacher, a life science teacher, and an English teacher. They were matched with anecologist in his late 60s who taught at a local college. His area of specialty was the ecologyof certain insect pests, but he had worked with teachers for many years through the college.

The team’s experience took a distinctive course based on the teachers’ and scientist’s atti-tudes, and the excellent working relationship that they developed. The ecologist,Dr. Lyman, was not at all shy about offering his ideas and expertise, yet from the beginning,the teachers felt that he took their ideas and interests seriously. A major contributor to thistone may be the ecologist’s experience, teaching in an institution many of whose studentsare preservice teachers. In fact, Lyman took a strong and informed interest in the processof professional development he was engaged in

Much of my attention through the years has been in the area of teacher training. Working

with this team has accented the need to always rethink teacher-training requirements. None

of those in “my” team were trained at my home institution, and seeing them reflect training

at other schools has been stimulating and instructive.

The result was a team that made room for both focused work on a project of the teachers’choice, and general learning and investigation of many other topics as they arose: the feelingwas one of a continuing, informal seminar among friends.

The team ecologist was not able to attend the summer workshop during which teamsdeveloped their plans for the year, so the teachers went ahead and decided to join in with astatewide water-quality testing program. For this program, they would conduct both chem-ical and biological tests on a local river system, which fit with the interdisciplinary natureof the team. The data collection protocols were defined by the statewide program, and theteachers felt that this would be a good place to start their collaboration. Thus, the teach-ers did not choose the question to investigate, but they adopted a program which they feltsuited their purposes and skill level at the time. They were managing their own professionaldevelopment.

The teachers hoped that their ecologist would be able to help them with the invertebratepart of their study, but otherwise had no clear expectations of how he would fit in with theirplan, though telephone contacts were encouraging, and they looked forward to face-to-facediscussions. Before they were able to meet with him, however, they had to attend a trainingfor the state program, and when they arrived at the training session, he was there too! Atone of mutual respect was set by this first encounter:

752 DRAYTON AND FALK

It was good to meet Dr. Lyman finally. He surprised us by being at the training. To me it

shows he’s serious about his duties with the group. He also seems to be fun loving and very

knowledgeable about water organisms. I hope I can pick his brain during this program.

* * *

Dr. Lyman met us in A— for our final phase of certification at the site. He seemed pleased

with the site choice, even though there wasn’t any swamp around for mosquito breeding. I

wish we had a site with more organisms, but the others in the group are not as excited about

mud and mosquito beds as I am. Dr. L seems like someone I could work with easily. I’ve

found that invertebrate interest is rare—I want to learn more from him.

The project staff had initially discouraged the teachers from making the state water-testingprogram the focus of their project, because it seemed to define the questions, methods, anduse of their data with little room for their own interests or ideas. Other teacher teamshad reported a sense of disenfranchisement from participation in the same monitoringprogram. Yet the team had a strong commitment to the idea of managing their own learningexperience, and set strategic goals for themselves in their collaborative plan at the beginningof the project:

–Greater knowledge in ecological habitats

–Better collaboration of team members

–Peak [sic] science involvement in our students

–Better field/lab skills

–Contribute to the body of knowledge and local community

–Meet people and see other’s data

–To publish the team’s data

We hope to become certified in the [river] Watch by the end of the year with a site that

we are monitoring water quality—and this is phase 1. Phase 2 will be macroinvertebrates.

Phase 3, maybe next year or next summer, will be when we involve students. This is after

we as a team are comfortable with the techniques and methods.

At first, the data that they collected for the water quality study was not particularlymeaningful. Their readings were sent off to be part of a large composite database, of whichthey were not given a copy. This felt as though it was a contribution to some project ofvalue, but (as project staff had predicted) there was too little feedback from the monitoringproject.

Yet the data collection for water quality provided the starting place for an extensive,informal, but deep process of learning about water, ecology, and science practice. In thefield, Dr. Lyman would note characteristics of the data collection sites that helped theteachers see the implications of the water quality. His alertness to animal and plant lifesharpened their observations, and he conveyed more and more of the “ecological mind set,”which looks for interactions and dependencies among the biotic and abiotic elements of asystem. Thus, while the state monitoring project provided little in the way of data analysis,the informal seminars with Dr. Lyman came to provide a rich vocabulary with which tounderstand and analyze many aspects of the locations where water quality data were taken.In addition, as with any good study, the field of questions to explore broadened, driving morelearning and discussion. Thus, while the overt task (water quality monitoring) provided littleintrinsic feedback or analysis, Lyman and the teachers surrounded the data collection withmany parallel explorations, observations, questions, and theorizing. In this way, the project

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 753

which started out with little teacher input was owned and elaborated collaboratively by thewhole team.

As the time passed, and as Dr. Lyman took the opportunity to comment on side issuesand general ecological principles in the course of their field work, the teachers learned quitea lot more than information about water quality. This contextualization compensated forsome potential drawbacks of participation in the statewide study. The sense of ownership,and of being in charge of their learning with an experienced and congenial mentor, madethe scaffolded water quality project a very effective experience:

It is obvious through working just a small amount of time with Dr. Lyman that he is

enthusiastic about research and ecology. We had fears at first that we would be delving into

mosquito anatomy, (yuck!) but he has gone along with our requests and desires to study

water and “jumped right in” with us. . . .

* * *

We are doing our own research project. This has made me feel more involved with my

surroundings. I’m no longer just teaching in a classroom, but I’m applying what I know for

a useful purpose. Then I can take my experiences back into the classroom to show how it

relates to what we’re doing.

* * *

Dr. Lyman was a source of information for all of us: some of us knew already how to sample,

some did not, and he added information that none of us knew. He has a lot more years of

experience doing this than all of us put together have. We can always learn from him.

The sense of collegiality, and of informal but rich mentoring by a respected senior sci-entist, held firm into the later phases of their team’s project, which expanded in a secondyear to include the designing and conducting of a workshop for other teachers in their area.Some of the team’s journal notes show that, as a result of their experiences with Dr. Lyman,they were thinking about redesigning courses they were teaching, as well as adding newmaterial or even wholly new courses to the high school curriculum. The sense of owner-ship, openness, and collaboration was inspiring to the team, and in fact to the ecologistas well:

We were very much concerned that we did not want to collect data for an ecologist’s

research; however, I must now confess: we’ve become so enamored with our ecologist that

we plan to collect data for him in the spring if he wants us to. It’s been great working with

such a wonderful teacher and colleague as Dr. Lyman.

* * *

The decision “to be selfish” and first learn for myself has worked as I hoped it would—I am

competent and certified in water quality testing, and that makes me more comfortable with

bringing these techniques into the classroom. It also makes me mindful that I need to have

students involved and be engaged in “hands-on.” This has led me to the chemistry dept. to

see if we can’t make up the chemicals so we don’t have to buy so many.

* * *

Dr. Lyman has given us ideas on how to expand our work on what we’re doing and has

suggested we continue our work with him after school is out.

754 DRAYTON AND FALK

DISCUSSION

Enhancing teachers’ subject-matter knowledge, which has long been seen as pivotal togood science education (Shulman, 1987), must include the experience of inquiry if teachersare to deepen their understanding of the nature of science as a creative, knowledge-makingprocess. Our experience with these teams suggests that collaboration with a scientist onscience projects can be a powerful way to affect teachers’ understanding of science, andscience learning and teaching. Yet as we have shown, the building of a productive workingrelationship between scientist and teacher involves complexities not inherent in classroomor workshop situations. The teacher–scientist partnerships here described required somescaffolding from the project that brought them together, but the “apprenticeship” relation-ship, as well as the reality of the teachers’ lives, necessitated that the modus operandibe negotiated. While logistical arrangements, (e.g., when shall we meet, who will get thematerials, where shall we work) were in prominence initially as the teams took shape,deeper issues were responsible for the kinds of success that were possible over the courseof the year.

Returning to Huberman’s notion of the teacher as independent artisan, we can see thatan arrangement such as the TEPE teams provides some important elements which canovercome barriers to collegial dialogue, at the same time that it enhances individual teachers’repertoire of ideas and techniques. In the first place, Huberman argues that teachers willseek out those who are “just ahead” of themselves, as sources of innovative concepts andtechniques, while valuing strongly their own experience as the basis from which to learn.This view comports well with sociocultural models of learning, in which heterogeneousgroups of learners, with differences in expertise, provide both the motive and the resourcesfor learning (Wertsch, 1985). The partnership with a scientist in the TEPE project provideda clear “gradient of expertise,” access to a person more advanced in at least one dimensioncrucial to the teachers’ work (namely the science itself). In an arrangement like TEPE, the“contract” with the ecologist allows the teacher to learn science from the scientist, whilereserving to him(her)self a sense of professional competence as a teacher of science: theteacher is a learner, and is also the agent who will transform some of this learning intoclassroom content and pedagogy, according to the needs of the students and the demandsof the curriculum.

In the second place, the team arrangement can provide an important solution to thechallenge of content in collegial discussions among “independent artisans”: What shallwe talk about, when our practices are in large part tacit, and we have each assembled ourteaching expertise in our own “workshop,” the classroom? In teams focusing on scienceresearch, the project itself provides an artifact or nucleus around which craft conversationscan grow. Our teachers found, for example, that they were learning about learning and thestudent’s dilemmas, and this was causing some reconceptualization of their own roles. Thisformed some of the content of the collegial discussions among the teachers in the teams.Participating in the role of apprentices in science provided a content-rich context in whichto have craft discussions about the implications of the shared experiences for the classroom.Since most of the teachers felt that they had greater expertise in the craft of the classroom,even pedagogical suggestions from the ecologists could provide grist for the collectivereflective mill.

Such benefits, however, were only accessible as the teams discovered ways of work-ing together in which the relationships of the members were developed to the point thatproductive attention could be paid to the explicit agenda of the group.

All these teams negotiated around the five dimensions described above. In what follows,we discuss some of the trade-offs represented by choices along each dimension, and also

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 755

draw parallels between the teachers’ experience and that of students undertaking somekind of investigation in the classroom, either under the guidance of their teacher, or in astudent–scientist partnership.

1. Whose question is being investigated? Whose question is investigated often reflectshidden expectations and desires on the part of the ecologist or teacher. While it wasimportant for some teacher teams to feel ownership over the question and to developthe research design (e.g., the Del Rio team), other teams valued the help and guidanceprovided by the ecologist on questions that would most likely yield interesting results(the Auburn team and the Homewood team). For many other teams, there was a giveand take and the question fell along the continuum of the scale.

A similar negotiation must take place in the inquiry-oriented classroom betweenthe teacher and the student. The apparently conflicting values of ownership of thequestion, vs. productivity of the inquiry, are often cited by teachers in their concernsabout student inquiry. The teachers in our project recognized the parallels betweentheir experience and their students’, and they reported that this recognition had aneffect on their pedagogy:

My class discussions are much less structured by me, more structured by the kids’

questions, because I relate to how exciting it is to answer your own questions, since

that’s what we got to do.

* * *

These decisions have helped me as a teacher to better understand scientific research

and cooperative team work. I can empathize with my students when team projects

are involved. . . I’m learning and can better understand what I require of my students.

2. Is the focus primarily on data collection or on data analysis? The relative emphasison data collection versus data analysis defines how teachers and ecologists spendtheir time together, and determines the character of the experience. Some teams whospent the majority of their effort on data collection felt somewhat frustrated, as theyfelt they did not “learn science” from the experience; the Del Rio team exemplifiesthis, for example. This team, and the Homewood team, both felt that they were oftendealing with data or techniques whose meaning they did not understand.

For others the collection of data provided opportunity to learn new samplingtechniques and to become facile with a variety of scientific instruments which theywould not have had the opportunity to experiment with. Auburn is an example of ateam that, like its team ecologist, was pleased to extend its intellectual range, andsaw this in a strategic light.

In a classroom, depth of learning about science as a way of knowing requires thatsense making, meaning making, be integral to the activities required of the students.Context illuminates content.

Recording data, making inferences, etc. brings me back to the role of a student also.

This helps me to both remember the fun of research and the pressures associated

with it and deadlines.

* * *

. . . opened my eyes to the importance of student directed projects—you hear this, but

until you see them take ownership of their own research and you don’t understand

how important student generated questions are—sharing through the symposium

756 DRAYTON AND FALK

format rather than the traditional oral paper is also an important change in my

classroom (and some of the other science teachers I know).

* * *

. . . People asked a lot about how I incorporated the TERC concepts into my classes.

The ecologist pointed out that I was not fully utilizing the scientific method. I agreed

and explained that, with more prep time, I’d do better next year even though I did

get a good start this year. Students did come with a hypothesis and plan a way to test

it. We fell a bit short in analysis perhaps. Everyone encouraged me to keep going.

* * *

. . . Next year I plan to go farther with the statistical analysis of data end of things.

That will complete the process of the scientific method. I already do this, in part

because of TERC, with my physics classes.

3. Is the research based on the ecologist’s area of expertise, or the teachers’ interests?This dimension extends past the posing of the question phase to the feasibility andactual implementation of the project. It often was rooted in a decision about thelocale where the research was to occur. Was it to be centered around the groundsof the school for instance, or at the scientist’s research site? Another factor in thisdimension was the general topic in which the research question fell. Some ecologistshesitated to provide support for investigations outside their area of expertise, and thisrestricted the range of possible topics. The tensions experienced by the Del Rio andHomewood teams exemplify these issues. The ecologists wished to stay within theirareas of research, and exerted important influence over the choice of study site. Thisadded to the teachers’ sense of disenfranchisement.

On the other hand, as with the Auburn team, the ecologist might make clear his orher limitations with respect to an area of interest, but be willing to learn and extendhis skills, relying on his/her general scientific skill set to provide some structure and“quality control” on the enterprise. Such ecologists modeled something the teachersoften needed to see—how to be an expert at learning, and how to apply methodologicaland analytical expertise to new areas of investigation. Further, it was seen as a markof respect that the “expert” was willing to learn, in order to meet the teachers’ needs.

This kind of decision is enacted in classroom project work, and the teacher isforced often to decide how he or she can stretch to incorporate students’ interests.The trade-off is that a person stretching beyond their area of confidence may not gainthe competence needed; yet the effort involved can demonstrate in important waysthat teaching is rooted in learning, which itself has pedagogical power:

Isn’t there an element in there somewhere when we’re doing it (ecological research)

that the kids look at us and they say “you don’t have to do this. . . . ” and we answer

quite honestly, yeah, but I can do this also. . . We are practicing what we’re teaching.

4. Was the focus primarily on the teachers’ learning or on their students’ classroomlearning? In science, and science teaching, as in other endeavors, intrinsic joy inthe subject matter is a critical factor in the success of a project. The drudgery ofdata collection, and the difficulties of data analysis, can be daunting if they are notseen as serving a purpose worthy of the effort, and the pleasure in learning is deeplyconnected with the pleasure of teaching as well as of research (Hargreaves, 1995;Janovy, 1996). Teachers often express great gratitude when given the space andpermission to be learners again, as part of a project such as the TEPE project. This

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 757

has ramifications for their professional self-image, and their interactions with theirstudents (Falk & Drayton, 1998a).

While the TEPE program encouraged teams of teachers to take the opportunity toengage in research at their own level and not to feel pressured to involve their students,teachers varied across this dimension in terms of how the research played out. Whilesome teams of teachers did not involve students at all, their choice of question orlocale (school grounds) clearly took into account future use of such research withstudents. Their choices had ramifications in terms of the science learned, the pace ofthe project, and the goals that the teacher had in mind in approaching the research, asexemplified in some of the quotations above from the Auburn team above, and theseexcerpts from other teams:

Having a team and a purpose beyond attendance rosters and grade change forms

has helped during the rough spots this year. We have had complete control over

the project; this rarely happens in the school environment. Just having a sense of

purpose has made a difference in the classroom—it reminds me of why I chose this

profession (to teach) and that teaching is supposed to be fun. . . as in learning.

5. Who is the research for? Who is the audience? In some cases, the research wasdone exclusively for the benefit of the teacher team. In other cases, it was set inthe context of the ecologist’s professional work. In other cases, a wider audience,such as a scientific association or agency, or teachers’ association, was not part ofthe original design of the project, but an opportunity was seen and seized during theyear. This had ramifications for the rigor of the data collection and analysis, but itwas not a decisive factor in team success. This may be in part because the teamspresented their research to each other at the end of the project year, as well as to otherteachers in their own schools, so that the teams were aware of a larger context fortheir work. In addition, they saw that either directly or indirectly their work providedcurriculum material for their classes, and also a model of inquiry-based learning fortheir students. This element of responsibility, or consciousness of “audience” was amotivating factor. This factor is often missing for students when they are asked tocreate a presentation of their research or design project, and it seems only to relate tocourse requirements, or the teacher is the only audience. The teachers in our projectsaw how the value of their work to others affected the care with which they wentabout their research.

We are doing our own research project. This has made me feel more involved with

my surroundings. I’m no longer just teaching in a classroom, but I’m applying what

I know for a useful purpose. Then I can take my experiences back into the classroom

to show how it relates to what we’re doing.

Cultural Issues in Scientist--Teacher Collaboration

The cultures of science and of the science classroom are kindred, but they speak verydifferent languages and have very different concerns (e.g., Berkowitz, 1997; Pennypacker,1997). Several issues which have very practical consequences include:

Science Content and Pedagogy. Good science education should partake of the di-alogue, spirit of inquiry, use of evidence, and emphasis on meaning making thatcharacterizes science as practice (Drayton & Falk, 2001; Driver, Asoko, Leach,

758 DRAYTON AND FALK

Mortimer, & Scott, 1994; Driver, Newton, & Osborne, 2000; Munby, Cunningham,& Lock, 2000), yet it has important differences from research science. One potentialproblem with the assumption that professional science is the norm to be adopted inthe classroom is that it tends to accompany a view of science as a body of findings tobe learned, and thus adds to the total burden of material to be covered. Just as impor-tant, the scientist’s concern with the content may be accompanied by a pedagogicalstance quite at odds with that being nurtured by the teachers or the project. TEPEteachers sometimes reported that their scientist partners, however well meaning, hadless pedagogical expertise than they themselves did. A few TEPE ecologists, on theother hand, reported changes they were making in their own pedagogy, as a result ofcollaboration with the TEPE teachers.Relation of Current Research to the Task of Learning the “Big Ideas.” One frequentlyarticulated goal of scientist involvement in science education is to “bring the results ofcurrent science into the classroom.” This is one area in which “cultural” differences(between the laboratory and the classroom) can become evident, without carefulscaffolding. The development of the conceptual background of even a modest originalpiece of work takes months or years, and while embedded in the “state of knowledge”in some general sense, is aimed at a very particular area of interest. The frontiers ofknowledge can seem very distant from students’ understanding, or that of teachers(Norris, 1995).Scientists’ Knowledge of Classroom Realities. It is not always the case, however,that a working scientist has had practice in stepping back from his or her chosenwork bench, to consider what (say) biology has in common with physics, and tounderstand that in school students need some breadth of experience with a range ofscience topics at various levels of rigor. The differences between a scientist’s viewof “enough” and a science teachers’ view have been at the heart of many problemsthat arise in scientists’ involvement with science education. When this challenge isrecognized and addressed, the resulting mutual respect enables a richer collaboration(Fedock, Zambo, & Cobern, 1996).Different Professional Cultures. Finally, science and science education take placein very different settings, and under very different constraints. Differences betweenthese cultures include differences in the level of autonomy that a teacher has, ascompared with a scientist; differences in the level of resources available; differencesin the day-to-day agenda; differences in the nature of peer relations as experiencedby a scientist and a teacher; scientists’ unfamiliarity with issues of classroom man-agement and logistics (Ballone et al., 2002; Drayton & Falk, 1997a; Dow, 1991).In addition, the teachers involved may also have a very different level of prepara-tion and understanding than the scientists expect on the basis of their daily workwith colleagues and graduate students (Dow, 1991; Herwitz & Guerra, 1996). Thiscan be a source of strain which can only be addressed by negotiation and “mutualappropriation of goals.”Issues Around Perceived Differences in Status or Power. An important question thathas been reported from studies of collaboration between scientists and educators(especially teachers) is the perception of scientists as having higher status or powerin the relationship (Sussman, 1993). Such differences in perception can have a signif-icant effect on the way that teachers feel free to articulate their needs and professionalvalues in negotiating with scientist partners, as in the Del Rio team.

Thus, there are key conceptual issues that must be identified and negotiated, both in thedesign of the project, and in implementation, as the partners actually develop their working

DIMENSIONS THAT SHAPE TEACHER--SCIENTIST COLLABORATIONS 759

relationships. Issues of role definition, values about what science to teach when, difficultiesof communication between groups of different expertise, and differences in pedagogicalapproach all are likely to require both a planning response, and actual dialogue during theproject itself.

The teacher–scientist partnership, when structured appropriately, can deepen teach-ers’ sense of professional competence, and enrich their ability to support inquiry en-acted in the science classroom. Furthermore, it can provide a new context for collegialconversations about science and science teaching, removed from the pressure of cur-riculum preparation. The program we report on here placed an emphasis on teachers’learning as adults, with no specific classroom application, and was founded on a men-torship or collaborative relationship with working ecologists. In this program, teacherswere responsible for their own professional development. That is, the program providedscaffolding within which the teachers could identify learning goals for themselves, andshape their collaboration with their team ecologists to serve their own learningobjectives.

Many questions remain about the contributing ingredients in these successful part-nerships. For example, the nature of the field of science used may have played somerole. Ecology broadly speaking lends itself to the design of projects on many differentscales of space and time, and the multitude of unanswered questions about the biol-ogy of specific organisms, or the dynamics of particular systems, means that there aremany possible research projects, suitable to the constraints that might be imposed byteachers’ or ecologists’ other responsibilities, or by limitations in teachers’ science back-ground. Further, possible projects can range from “pure” research on some ecological sys-tem or theoretical question to very “applied” questions of conservation biology or publichealth.

Many of the scientists for successful teams worked for state or conservation agencies, andpublic outreach was a part of their mandate. This, too, may have predisposed the scientiststo engage in the collaborations with teachers, and enabled them to persist both in the sharedwork, and in the negotiations that sometimes were necessary to enable the team to continueits existence.

It is likely, too, that personal factors play a crucial role, as in any collaboration. Someof the ecologists were very good, inquiry-oriented teachers, or experienced as mentors toadult learners; for example, Dr. Lyman had many years of teaching science to preserviceteachers. Scientists with such characteristics had ipso facto important human and intellectualresources to draw upon, as they participated in the development of these collaborative efforts.Some of the teacher teams, too, had important resources to draw upon, as for example, if ateam included someone who had advanced training in science, or experience as a scientistin industry.

Finally, an important area for further exploration is how the teachers’ image of their workis affected by their collaboration with scientists.

The five dimensions described above, however, are important considerations both atthe outset of the collaboration and for periodic review during the continuation of theteam, and seem to be the loci of defining aspects of such enterprises. They allow bothteacher and ecologist to discuss their assumptions, their expectations of each other, andtheir hopes for what they will gain from the experience. Each choice has implications forthe way that the experience will play out. The variations along each axis were shapedby several considerations, including logistics, the teachers’ goals for themselves, andecologists’ constraints. Therefore, the “right” value for each was heavily contextdependent, and often subject to renegotiation and adjustment during the course of thecollaboration.

760 DRAYTON AND FALK

The authors wish to thank the teachers and ecologists who participated in this project. We are also

grateful to the comments from the reviewers, which contributed considerably to the quality of this

paper.

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