Exploring the effects of developing collaboration in a primary science teacher community

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study to explore factors that may facilitate sustainable changes of collaboration in a primary science teacher community in one school. The context for this study is a development project aimed at improving science teaching by changing teacher’s collective work in schools and developing network between schools. The objective is to improve the collaboration within primary science teacher communities on sharing best practice and developing new ways of teaching. This study represents an in-depth approach to explore possibilities and constraints for how a development project can facilitate sustainable change in primary science teachers’ collaboration.
The purpose of the research project introduced here is to examine closer, why many development projects fail to produce sustainable results. The framework of McLaughlin and Talbert (2006) on building teacher learning communities is introduced to investigate factors that may facilitate sustainable changes of the collective work in science teacher communities. Examples on how McLaughlin and Talbert’s analytical framework is used as a diagnostic tool are presented. Such an analysis provides a vantage point for researchers to outline potentials and constraints in a schools effort to transform the culture of the primary science teacher community