Crossing Boundaries in Science Teacher Professional Development

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Crossing Boundaries in Science Teacher
Professional Development

• 2007 August 23rd, ESERA, Malmö
• Manfred Lang, Martin Lindner,
• IPN at the Kiel University Germany

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Overview

• What are Boundaries?
• The Crossnet-Project
• Settings
• Findings
• On EU-Project-Level
• On local Project-Level
• Conclusions

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Background

• Boundary objects are "robust enough to maintain
  common identity across sites They have
  different meanings in different social worlds but
  their structure is common enough to more than one
  world to make them recognizable"
• (Star Griesemer, 1989, p. 393)

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• Haderslev, DK
• Kiel, DE
• Lublin, PL
• Limerick, IE
• Speyer, DE
• Vienna, AU
• Porto, PO
• Barcelona, ES

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CrossnetDesign of an EU-Project

• to establish and sustain initiatives to cross
  boundaries in science teacher education
• to document and analyze examples of good practice
  through case studies
• to create opportunities of public discourse about
  innovation in science teacher education in
  educational settings such as
• Boundary Crossing Laboratories Engeström, 2000
• Curriculum Workshops (Lang et al. 2007) or
• Quality Fora (Lindner, 2007)

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The Meaning of Boundary Crossing

• Boundary crossing is signifying new paths for
  teaching and learning beyond traditional
  subjects, school levels and institutions.
• Teachers exchange their experiences among
  themselves and other educational stakeholders in
  a discourse and develop a shared vision of
  working and learning together.
• Players Teachers, teacher educators,
  administrators, researches and policy makers in
  ten national sets with three schools and three
  teachers in each school in Austria, Denmark,
  Germany, Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

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Collaborative settings for boundary crossing in
activity theory (Engeström 2001)

• A teacher is the subject of her/his design work.
• The work of a teacher calls attention to the
  designer as a member of a community.
• The object is step-by-step invested with personal
  sense and cultural meaning as boundary object.
• The object goes through multiple transformations
  until it stabilizes as a finished object as
  outcome, e.g. a prototype or a curriculum
  product.
• This process is only possible by means of
  mediating artifacts, both material tools and
  signs

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The Curriculum Workshop a prototype of a
setting for Boundary Crossing..

• The Curriculum Workshop (CW)
• is a setting with
• selected participants,
• a work schedule and invitation,
• discourse rules,
• an information booklet,
• a key question and
• a curriculum document as output.
• Allows teachers from different communities to
  play an active role in a school-based discourse
  with other stakeholders from different fields.
• Part of this setting a co-ordinator who invites
  professional teachers and other participants of a
  school-based collaborative environment and
  organises the conduct of a discourse as
  deliberative inquiry and justification of
  curricular innovation.

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Quality Fora as settings for boundary crossing in
standards development
Quality-Forum
Workshop leaders
Quality-Forum
Quality-Forum
Quality-Forum
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Case study design for Quality Fora

• Since fall 2005 the national standards in
  biology, chemistry and physics are released. The
  way of implemention in Schleswig-Holstein, the
  northern state of Germany, is design according to
  basic elements of the SINUS-Programme. They
  include regular meetings over a period of 2-3
  years working in small teams focussing on
  classroom teaching
• The process of implementation is organized by a
  series of five regional quality forums.
• The case study will be conducted as
  group-interviews with five teams of science
  teachers from five different schools, which have
  visited the quality forums. These interviews
  should be made in summer 2007 and in another turn
  one year later.

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Assessment of the case study background

• In an interview project partners were asked about
  their innovative background projects and boundary
  crossing activities. The responses were
  categorized in terms of
• engaged communities,
• boundaries,
• boundary objects as tools
• boundary crossing and
• key questions.

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Findings

• On EU-Level Boundaries crossings

Meetings in schools writing reflective papers
and/or diaries
Collaboration in teams as well as between teams
institutions responsible for teacher education
Collaboration in team meetings dissemination by
different methods
Using computational resources integrated an
electronic platform
When developing and/or using the teaching material
Collaborative meetings
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Findings on Regional Level

• One of the German case study about Quality Fora
  identified the following key question How far
  does the work on the standards improve
  collaboration in schools? How is change managed?
• Boundaries are assumed between communities of
  science subject teachers with different subjects,
  teachers and teacher educators. Representatives
  of these communities are involved in the
  collaborative settings of Quality Fora.

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Quality fora Number of Attending schools
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Results Motivation
I was sent by my headmaster I joined on own
interest
- --
My opinion about the standards changed in a
positive way

• - --

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Results Impact
The standards did not lead to cooperation in
our subject group
- --

• I expect positiv influence on my classroom
  work

- --
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Interviews

• Collaboration in the subject group at the own
  school
• Hindering factors
• from outside
• seen on personal level
• Motivation

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First results
How often does the subject team meet per year?
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First results
Primar motivation to deal with the standards
Ongoing
How often does the subject team meet per year?
Success
Pedagog. Dissatis- order
by others Responsibility
faction headmaster Need of
Professional good for innovation development
career
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First results
Main hindering factors
New regulations Lack of time Lack of
information others
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Conclusions

• Crossing boundaries means to overcome the main
  hindering factors
• Time saving method
• Enabel positive experiences
• First Results show that we move in a correct
  direction
• The setting itself is an effective tool

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• muchas gracias! / Gràcies!
• Obrigado!
• Tak
• Thanks for listening
• Vielen Dank für Ihre Aufmeksamkeit
• Dziekuje za uwage!