Coteaching in International Contexts: Research and Practice

Cultural Studies of Science Education Volume 1 Series Editors Kenneth Tobin, City University of New York Catherine Milne, New York University

The series is unique in focusing on the publication of scholarly works that employ social and cultural perspectives as foundations for research and other scholarly activities in the three fields implied in its title: science education, education, and social studies of science. The aim of the series is to establish bridges to related fields, such as those concerned with the social studies of science, public understanding of science, science/technology and human values, or science and literacy. Cultural Studies of Science Education, the book series explicitly aims at establishing such bridges and at building new communities at the interface of currently distinct discourses. In this way, the current almost exclusive focus on science education on school learning would be expanded becoming instead a focus on science education as a cultural, cross-age, cross-class, and cross-disciplinary phenomenon. The book series is conceived as a parallel to the journal Cultural Studies of Science Education, opening up avenues for publishing works that do not fit into the limited amount of space and topics that can be covered within the same text.

For other titles published in this series, go to www.springer.com/series/8286

Colette Murphy    Kathryn Scantlebury ●

Coteaching in International Contexts Research and Practice

Editors Colette Murphy Queen’s University Belfast UK [email protected]

Kathryn Scantlebury Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry University of Delaware Newark DE 19716 USA [email protected]

ISBN 978-90-481-3706-0 e-ISBN 978-90-481-3707-7 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3707-7 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2010924651 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Contents

1 Introduction to Coteaching....................................................................... Colette Murphy and Kathryn Scantlebury

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Part I  Large - Scale Studies of Coteaching 2 A Five-Year Systematic Study of Coteaching Science in 120 Primary Schools.............................................................................. Colette Murphy and Jim Beggs

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3 Researching the Use of Coteaching in the Student Teaching Experience.................................................................................. Nancy Bacharach, Teresa Washut Heck, and Kathryn Dahlberg

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Part II  Theory into Practice 4 Coteaching in Science Education Courses: Transforming Teacher Preparation Through Shared Responsibility............................ Christina Siry, Sonya N. Martin, Shelley Baker, Nicole Lowell, Jenna Marvin, and Yushaneen Wilson 5 Producing and Maintaining Culturally Adaptive Teaching and Learning of Science in Urban Schools.............................................. Kenneth Tobin and Rey Llena

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Part III  Coteaching Contexts 6 Risk-Taking as Practice in a Coteaching Professional Learning Community................................................................................ 105 Jennifer Gallo-Fox 7 Enactment of Coteaching in Primary Schools: Moving Towards a Shared Responsibility............................................... 125 Karen Carlisle v

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  8 ‘It Certainly Taught Us How to Change Our Minds on Teaching Science’: Coteaching in Continuing Professional Development....................................................................... 147 Karen Kerr   9 A Learning Space: Student Teachers’ Experience of Coteaching Science.............................................................................. 169 Neil Ó Conaill 10 Coteaching in the Penn STI: Evolution of Fluent Praxis..................... 195 Cristobal Carambo and Constance Blasie 11 From Theoretical Explanation to Practical Application: Coteaching in a Pre-service Primary Physics Course........................... 219 Pernilla Nilsson 12 Now It’s Time to Go Solo......................................................................... 241 Matthew Juck, Kathryn Scantlebury, and Jennifer Gallo-Fox 13 Changing Lives: Coteaching Immigrant Students in a Middle School Science Classroom................................................... 263 Bhaskar Upadhyay and Adrienne Gifford 14 Parents as Coteachers of Science and Technology in a Middle-School Classroom................................................................ 281 Linda-Dianne Willis and Stephen M. Ritchie Part IV  Cogenerative Dialogues 15 Exploring Multiple Outcomes: Using Cogenerative Dialogues and Coteaching in a Middle School Science Classroom.................................................................................... 305 Nicole K. Grimes 16 Cogenerative Dialogues: Improving Mathematics Instruction in an Adult Basic Education Program............................... 327 Felicia Wharton and Wesley Pitts 17 Constructing Mathematical Knowledge in Urban Schools: Using Cogenerative Dialogue and Coteaching to Transform the Teaching and Learning Experiences of Minority Students........... 349 Samuel E. Jackson and Karen E.S. Phillips

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18 Students as Coteachers in an Urban High School Mathematics Class................................................................................... 369 Carol A. Woodburn Epilogue............................................................................................................ 383 Kathryn Scantlebury and Colette Murphy Subject Index.................................................................................................... 391 Author Index.................................................................................................... 395

Chapter 1

Introduction to Coteaching Colette Murphy and Kathryn Scantlebury

Coteaching is two or more teachers teaching together, sharing responsibility for meeting the learning needs of students and, at the same time, learning from each other. Coteachers plan, teach and evaluate lessons together, working as collaborators on every aspect of instruction. Over the past decade, coteaching has become an increasingly important element of science teacher education and it is expanding into other content areas and educational settings as a result of research, which has shown that it can be highly beneficial to both students and teachers. Indeed, two chapter authors of this volume (Karen Kerr and Matthew Juck) acted as student teacher coteachers during their preservice teacher education programmes. Kerr, from Northern Ireland, taught for 2 years and then completed her Ph.D. in primary science education. She is now working as a postdoctoral research fellow on coteaching. Juck, from Delaware, is now a cooperating coteacher, where he supports the next generation of science teachers. Martin (2009) discusses coteaching in the United States that is focused on learning to teach science. She provides a historical background for the evolvement of coteaching in the United States, noting that initial practices included team teaching, in which teachers provided instruction, typically through lectures, for large groups of students and then divided in smaller groups for further work. Coteaching then became a framework for special education instruction and included various teaching arrangements and roles including (1) one teacher instructing, the other observing; (2) having stations around the class; (3) parallel teaching, in which the teachers would divide the class and teach two groups of students; (4) team teaching in which one teacher assumed responsibility for a section of the curriculum and did the classroom instruction and assessment; (5) alternate teaching, in which teachers assumed single responsibility for instruction on a particular topic within a lesson; (6) one teacher assuming teaching responsibility and the other monitoring students, helping where needed; and (7) complementary teaching (Martin 2009). These approaches had a common characteristic in that teachers did not share all the responsibilities for all students’ learning throughout an instructional time frame (e.g. a class) or curricular unit. In some cases, special education teachers taught only those students designated as special needs. Often, special education teachers

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did not engage in curriculum planning and assessment for the course, but rather they reviewed and revised the instruction planned for the general students and adapted it to take account of their students’ needs. However, a more inclusive model of coteaching between content teachers and special education teachers is possible (Gleason et al. 2006). Coteaching in science education began as a model for learning how to teach. But, it has also evolved to be a model for teaching (Martin 2009). With regard to learning how to teach, preservice elementary teachers have cotaught with one another in university methods the courses that focused on inquiry (Eick and Dias 2005) or pedagogy (Eick and Ware 2005). In other settings, coteaching provides additional human resources in the form of science-specialist preservice teachers who coteach with the cooperating teachers; the aims are to enhance science learning for children, science teaching for cooperating teachers and the development of teaching skills of preservice teachers as they worked hand in hand with the cooperating teachers (Murphy and Beggs 2005). Although student teaching is a common characteristic of most teacher education programmes, there have been few changes in the format and structure of the experience nor is there much variation in its implementation across education levels, universities and/or countries. Typically, a preservice teacher who is towards the end of his/her formal teacher education programme is placed with an experienced teacher who acts as a mentor during the student teaching experience. Student teaching is akin to an apprenticeship, the novice teacher learning from the experienced teacher and through the ‘on-the-job’ training approach. In this model, vin a subservient position to a cooperating teacher, although the student teacher may have more recent knowledge of the field both in content and pedagogy, that is, the student teacher’s science content knowledge and his/her perspectives on learning theories, assessment practices and curriculum may be more current than the cooperating teacher. This edited book illustrates how coteaching between student teachers and cooperating teachers has enhanced the school placement experience for all participants in preservice teacher education programmes in many parts of the world. The book explores coteaching in a wide variety of contexts. The studies span three continents: Europe, America and Australia, primary, secondary and tertiary science education. They evaluate coteaching between preservice and cooperating teachers, between teacher educators and teachers, parents and teachers, students, teachers and special instructors such as translators or inclusion teachers, teacher educators and preservice teachers and between teacher educators. The studies differ in scale from the large-scale implementation of coteaching to in-depth ethnographic approaches within single schools or classes. The coteaching studies in this book have utilized the concept as a model for initial teacher education, for teachers’ professional development, to enhance the learning experience for students and to expand the role of parents as coteachers in schools. Coteaching has been implemented as a way to address a variety of issues in science education. For example:

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• Preservice and cooperating teacher anxiety with regard to science teaching (most commonly felt by elementary teachers and those secondary teachers who are teaching outside their main science discipline) • Preservice teacher anxiety during field and student teaching experiences • The gap between theory and practice experienced by preservice and cooperating teachers • Ineffective student learning as a consequence of inadequate preservice teacher practice • Student disaffection • Declining student attitudes towards school science • Parental involvement in classrooms • Mainstreaming students with special needs Coteaching provides a structure for teacher reflection on theory, praxis and practice. The chapter authors have used several different theoretical lenses to explore coteaching and its impact on science classrooms and learners. In this book, the theoretical frameworks span sociocultural, social development and neo-Vygotskian learning theories. In recent years the influence of cultural psychology on research in science education (e.g., the work of Vygotsky and Luria) has foregrounded the importance of external and cultural influences on learning. This perspective differs from those that focused on internal influences and student-centred approaches to learning (e.g., Piaget and Gardner) and assumes that learning is situated in social contexts. The chapters illustrate that there is no ‘one theory’ or ‘one model’ of coteaching, any more than there is a single theory of teaching. However, there are commonalities that can be drawn from across the diverse coteaching contexts. All studies show that coteaching expands teacher agency, and also student agency when cogenerative dialogues are incorporated into coteaching, thus improving confidence and performance for teachers and students. In addition, studies show that teachers focus more on student learning when they are coteaching, partly due to cogenerative dialogues as a format for teachers, students and/or other classroom participants’ joint reflections on cotaught lessons.

1.1 Structure of the Book This book brings together 10 years’ work on the research and practice of coteaching and its impact on teaching and learning, predominantly in the sciences. It includes contributions from Europe, United States and Australia and presents an overview of theory and practice common to most studies. As such, a feature of this book is that each chapter has different styles, corresponding to the context in which the work is set. The book has four sections: (1) large-scale studies of coteaching; (2) theory into practice; (3) coteaching contexts; and (4) use of cogenerative dialogues. Coteaching recognizes that preservice teachers, and K-12 students, have

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knowledge and perspectives on practices that may engage students’ learning. In this book, the model of coteaching has expanded from preservice teachers with experienced teachers, to include students involved in the classes from middle through college and other stake holders such as parents. The first section describes two large-scale studies of coteaching in primary and elementary schools, which have taken place on opposite sides of the Atlantic. These studies look at the impact of coteaching on the children, as well on the preservice and cooperating teachers. They provide evidence of a positive impact of coteaching on children’s attitudes and learning and address the interests of stakeholders in the question of whether coteaching ‘works’. Murphy and Beggs review their ongoing research on science coteaching in more than 120 schools in Northern Ireland. Most of the work was carried out in primary schools (age 4–11) whilst more recent studies have incorporated coteaching in science classes for 11–14-year-old children in secondary schools. They describe their model of coteaching and provide evidence of significant enhancement of children’s attitudes to science learning when comparing children from cotaught with those from non-cotaught classes. In addition, cooperating teachers gained in confidence and enjoyment when teaching science and preservice teachers reported increased confidence teaching all subject areas. Murphy and Beggs’ chapter discusses how coteaching expands the agency of all participants and promotes more democratic classrooms. Bacharah, Washut, Heck and Dahlberg’s chapter focuses on the academic achievement of K-6 students who were members of classes, which were cotaught by cooperating and student teachers in Minnesota. Children in cotaught classes attained significantly improved achievement scores in reading and mathematics compared to their peers in non-cotaught classes. These results have important implications for policy because those two subjects are the basis for the US government’s No Child Left Behind legislature that mandates district and school accountability for student achievement in reading and mathematics. The second section focuses on how sociocultural theories explain various issues in different coteaching contexts. Siry and Martin’s chapter, written with their students, Shelley Baker, Nicole Lowell, Jenna Marvin and Yushaneen Wilson, expands the characteristics of coteaching from cooperating teacher and student teachers, to professors coteaching with their students (who are K-12 teachers). What evolves in this chapter is how university professors can re-think course structures to share the teaching responsibility among all stakeholders. By using coteaching and cogenerative dialogues in teacher education courses, Siry et al. have expanded the possibilities of how these two pedagogical tools can be used and implemented in education. Tobin and Llena’s chapter examines how cogenerative dialogues are used to enact cultural production and provide students the opportunity to learn science through their agency and passivity. The third section provides a range of different coteaching contexts that emphasise the versatility of the approach. Several of the studies examine coteaching between preservice and cooperating teachers. Gallo-Fox’s chapter reports on how coteaching enabled teachers to engage in risk-taking pedagogical practices. Yet the risks teachers took were different for cooperating teachers and interns. Carlisle’s

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chapter focuses on the progression of coteaching practices between preservice and cooperating teachers as the placements continued. Initially, preservice teachers observed in the classroom but their practice evolved to a co-sharing of the teaching responsibility and a diverse range of roles as they gained more experience and confidence. Kerr’s chapter reports on how student and cooperating teachers undertook shared learning via a continuing professional development programme focused on creative science teaching prior to embarking on coteaching in school. Their coteaching centred on implementation of the creative science teaching approaches in the classroom. This model, in which coteachers both learned and taught together, has provided some of the best evidence of sustainable professional development for teachers. O’Conaill’s chapter describes the implementation of coteaching to create partnerships between final year preservice teachers and cooperating teachers, which acknowledged the cooperating teachers’ expertise and their willingess to work with preservice teachers. Neither of these features are common to most Irish teacher education programmes – there is no formal mentoring role for the cooperating teacher. Assessment of preservice teachers is carried out by the university teacher educators. Coteaching, in this case as a subject-specific collaboration, provides teachers with the opportunity to counter the increasing dominance of performativity discourse in primary education as the purpose and outcome of each lesson is publicly negotiated. This contributes to ownership of the teaching process and as opposed to an agenda of delivery and deliverance, enables risk-taking, responsive teaching beneficial to all as teachers and learners. Two chapters in this section explore the teaching of science through the use of coteaching between a university science professor and a teacher. Carambo’s chapter shows a different context for coteaching between teachers and content professors: how K-12 teachers with many years of pedagogical experience can expand the learning opportunities in a class that is focused on improving teachers’ content knowledge. Nilsson’s focus is on how a physics professor collaborates with a primary school teacher to coteach a physics course for preservice primary school teachers in Sweden. A further two chapters consider coteaching between schoolteachers. Juck, Scantlebury and Gallo-Fox’s study follows three science teachers who experienced coteaching as the structure for student teaching into their first year as ‘solo’ teachers. While they faced similar challenges to many first year teachers, all three examined their changed teaching structures to prioritize collaborative relationships with peers, mentors or colleagues at other schools. The strength of coteaching as a structure for teaching students is illustrated in Upadhyay and Gifford’s study of teaching science to Hmong students in Minneapolis. For these students whose culture is very different from their teacher’s, the result of having a coteaching arrangement where one teacher better understands science and the other the students’ culture was a more positive learning experience in which the students began to appreciate the importance of science in their lives. Moving into yet another context, Willis and Ritchie explore how parents became involved in coteaching and cogenerative dialogues in a primary school classroom in Australia. The teacher and parent used email as a structure to co-plan lessons

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when direct contact was not possible. Willis and Ritchie conclude that there may be considerable merit in parents positioning themselves, where appropriate, in new spaces for meaningful school engagement. The fourth and final section foregrounds the use of cogenerative dialogues. Cogenerative dialogues (cogens) are a critical facet of many coteaching arrangements. The purpose of cogens is for a group of stakeholders to discuss the teaching and learning that is occurring in an education setting. The structure of cogens is such that no one person’s voice is privileged and participants generate local theory and knowledge focused on the teaching and learning of science or math. Cogens enable coteachers to examine their teaching practices, and when cogens include other stakeholders such as students, strategies to improve teaching and learning are often co-generated. This section discusses the various ways cogens and coteaching are implemented in schools, specifically urban schools. In the United States, one third of the K-12 population attends urban schools. Research has documented the challenging issues that impact teachers and students in these settings from poorly resourced classrooms to disenfranchised students (Bayne 2009). Grimes’ study is located in a private New York City school and she engaged three tenth grade girls in coteaching a sixth grade science class. Grimes used cogens with her tenth grade students to develop and reflect upon the coteaching that she and the girls completed in the sixth grade science class. Jackson, Wharton, Pitts and Woodburn have expanded the use of coteaching and cogens from science into mathematics classes. Jackson also used students as coteachers in his seventh grade mathematics class. Two girls, Cece and Bebe, used their cultural knowledge to improve their mathematical knowledge through coteaching math. Wharton and Pitts’ study focused on a different group of math students, that is, adults seeking a high school diploma. In their study of cogens in a GED (Grade Equivalent Degree) with maths, illustrate how cogens can also produce coteaching situations between students, and the teachers and students. By re-structuring her class using cogens and coteaching, Woodburn engaged students in learning mathematics who had previously failed in the subject and had low self-esteem, lack of respect (for self and others) and negative attitude towards mathematics and schooling. Their study group comprised the teacher (Woodburn) and 13 students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Through the use of cogens, the group established teams of coteachers, four people in each group to teach one lesson per week. The opportunity to engage in learning math through a different structure led to improved student achievement and attitudes. In the epilogue, Scantlebury and Murphy draw together the cogent features of the 10 years’ work on coteaching. They consider critiques of coteaching and point the way forward for the development and wider implementation of coteaching as an approach to improving learning and teaching in classrooms in many contexts. The coteaching approach can be applied globally and, at the same time, has its roots in the most local contexts as a way of engaging coteachers and their students in a more democratic, open and effective learning environment. Finally, they consider how the use of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue is key in implementing major policy developments, particularly those in the UK and the United States.

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References Bayne, G. (2009). Cogenerative dialogues: The creation of interstitial culture in the New York metroplis. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), World of science education: North America (pp. 513–527). The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Eick, C. J. & Dias, M. (2005). Building the authority of experience in communities of practice: The development of preservice teachers’ practical knowledge through coteaching in inquiry classrooms. Science Education, 89, 470–491. Eick, C. J. & Ware, F. (2005). Coteaching in a science methods course: An apprenticeship model for early induction to the secondary classroom. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 187–286). New York: Peter Lang. Gleason, S., Fennemore, M., & Scantlebury, K. (2006). Choreographing teaching: Coteaching with special education/inclusion teachers in science classrooms. In K. Tobin (Ed.), Teaching and learning science: A handbook (pp. 235–238). New York: Praeger. Martin, S. (2009). Learning to teach science. In K. Tobin & W.-M. Roth (Eds.), World of science education: North America (pp. 567–586). The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2005). Coteaching as an approach to enhance science learning and teaching in primary schools. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 207–231). New York: Peter Lang.

Part I

Large-Scale Studies of Coteaching

The two large-scale studies in this section describe the process and impact of coteaching in several 100 schools in Europe and North America. The first discusses how the coteaching of science between classroom teachers and student teachers (who were science specialists) facilitated the expansion of agency in all participants by promoting greater sharing of ownership of learning in the classroom. Classrooms became more democratic and power shifted from one to many. This chapter outlines the benefits of coteaching accrued by classroom teachers, student teachers, and children. It also considers how participants prepare for successful coteaching. It identifies patterns in terms of ways that coteaching is enacted and evaluates the impact of coteaching among participants. Some of the major benefits of coteaching primary science include increased confidence and enjoyment of primary school teachers in learning with and teaching science to children, increased confidence and higher performance on assessed, non-cotaught (“solo”) teaching placements in student teachers who had cotaught science with classroom teachers, and improved enjoyment and interest in learning school science by children. Children’s attitudes to school science learning were measured 6 months after coteaching ended to determine whether there was lasting impact of science teaching by classroom teachers who had cotaught with science specialist student teachers; attitudes to school science were significantly more positive in children from cotaught classes than those from non-cotaught classes. The second chapter in this section describes a coteaching program at St. Cloud State University, which began as a partnership with one local school district, serving approximately 10,000 students in grades PreK-12 and quickly expanded to include formal partnerships with 17 local school districts and provides training and support in coteaching to any interested teacher outside the partner districts. In this work, the impact of coteaching on K-6 learner outcomes was examined. Two assessment instruments that focused on the reading and math skills of cotaught students versus non-cotaught students were used. Students in cotaught classrooms had better academic outcomes in reading and math than their peers in non-cotaught settings. Students demonstrated academic gains in both areas at a statistically significant level during all 4 years. When the reading and math achievement scores were compared between students in classrooms where teacher candidates cotaught with their

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cooperating teacher and those in classrooms where the teacher candidates utilized a traditional student-teaching model, the students in cotaught classrooms demonstrated significantly higher gains than those from non-cotaught classrooms. In addition to analyzing academic achievement data, students in grades K-12 were interviewed in focus groups and overwhelmingly identified getting help when they needed it as the number one benefit of coteaching. They also highlighted a greater variety of activities, more than one teaching style, decreased behavioral problems, and increased feelings of connectedness to school as advantages of coteaching. As with the previous chapter, both teacher candidates and cooperating teachers reported significant benefits of coteaching in terms of teaching enjoyment and performance.

Chapter 2

A Five-Year Systematic Study of Coteaching Science in 120 Primary Schools Colette Murphy and Jim Beggs

2.1 Introduction This chapter explores ways in which coteaching can be used to address theoretical and practical problems in contemporary pre-service teacher education. Many aspects of school education have changed over the last 50 years, particularly in relation to learner characteristics, increasing levels of government regulation and bureaucracy, globalisation and political uncertainty. Pre-service teacher education has not, in the main, embraced these changes, and consequently, new teachers lack the agency and confidence required for effective engagement with students. Coteaching provides a new way of ‘mentoring’ that assumes that the student teacher is not a blank slate, but someone who has different, yet valuable expertise, which can be shared with the classroom teacher to enhance the learning of the children. Coteaching science in primary schools, for example, enables the student teacher to bring scientific expertise to the classroom, which can be shared with the pedagogical expertise of the classroom teacher to improve children’s interest, enjoyment and learning of science. Coteaching, therefore, can expand the agency of student teachers in the classroom and improve the confidence of primary school teachers to teach science. We describe our work in preparing for and implementing coteaching. In Northern Ireland, approximately 120 primary schools have been involved in coteaching since we started this work in 2002. We present and discuss data relating to the student teachers’, classroom teachers’, children’s and university teacher educators’ experiences of coteaching and the effect on primary science learning and teaching. We also show how we have used coteaching to enhance teachers’ and student teachers’ information and communication technology (ICT) skills, specifically their use of virtual learning environments (VLEs) and computer-mediated technologies. Finally, we have expanded our use of coteaching to improve the sustainability of teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) work by their sharing both the learning programmes and their implementation in the classroom via coteaching with pre-service student teachers. This is described in Karen Kerr’s chapter later in the book.

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2.2 Model of Coteaching Coteaching explicitly brings two or more teachers together to improve what they can offer to the children they teach, while providing them opportunities to learn more about their own teaching. It involves the shared planning, teaching and evaluation of lessons. Each coteacher can learn from the other without even attempting to do so. In our model of coteaching, the student teachers and the classroom teachers act as equals, each bringing specific expertise to the lesson (Fig. 2.1). We used coteaching as a way to expand the agency of student teachers in the classroom. Our concept of agency can be described as the power of the student teacher to access appropriate resources in the classroom. We felt that via coteaching, they could access the greatest resource available to them: an experienced classroom teacher. Lavoie and Roth (2001) observed that student teachers rarely (if ever) get to work alongside an experienced teacher – they normally observe someone teaching or teach alone. The student teachers are science specialists; science makes up one third of their bachelor of education degree. By the time they start coteaching (year 3 of a 4-year degree), they have a good knowledge of science and science pedagogy, but their experience of elementary teaching (all subjects) will have totalled only 16 weeks. The classroom teachers, on the other hand, are well experienced in elementary teaching, but many lack both the background science knowledge and the confidence to teach science. By coteaching with a student teacher who has a very good knowledge of science and science pedagogy, the classroom teachers might develop their own confidence in science teaching. There is much research evidence highlighting the lack of confidence among elementary teachers to teach science. In the USA, there has been a lot of concern about the standard of preparation of science and mathematics teachers (Barufaldi and Reinhartz 2001). During the 1980s and 1990s, more than 500 national reports

Fig. 2.1  Model of coteaching for primary science

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addressed various inadequacies in science curricula and in the preparation of new teachers. Many of the resultant reforms centred on collaborative efforts to effect change. In the UK, Harlen, Holroyd, and Byrne (1995) found that many primary teachers lacked confidence in their ability to teach science and technology. A third of these teachers identified their own lack of background knowledge as a source of their problems. More recently, Murphy and Beggs (2005a, b) carried out a largescale study to explore teachers’ views and experiences of primary science education across the UK and to identify ways in which it could be improved. They reported that a high proportion of primary teachers felt they lacked the confidence, expertise and training to teach current science curricula effectively. Our coteaching projects were set up to improve children’s experience and learning of science by addressing the issues of primary teachers’ lack of confidence in science teaching and student teachers’ lack of agency in the classroom.

2.3 Implementation of a Coteaching Model Implementation of coteaching is discussed in three sections: preparation, enactment and evaluation. Preparation for Coteaching We developed the idea of student teachers working in the classroom with experienced teachers in a way that would ensure the sharing of expertise. The idea originated in discussions between university teacher educators and school principals. The guiding principle in setting up coteaching was to avoid participants ‘stepping on each other’s toes’. From the outset the university teacher educators planned to actively include all participants in the coteaching research design and to ensure that each was willing to accept the responsibilities associated with working in new ways in the classroom. It was stressed that coteachers would concentrate on enhancing the children’s learning experience of school science. We also promoted communication channels that enabled individuals to voice concerns about issues they felt uncomfortable discussing with their coteachers. In addition, and in response to advice from the school principals who were involved in the original research design, we organised workshops for classroom teachers to develop further their knowledge and skills in science teaching, so they would feel better equipped when working with the student teachers. These sessions ran before, during and after the coteaching placements and provided the university teacher educators with valuable feedback from the class teachers in relation to their experiences of coteaching. The student teachers provided similar feedback during science classes at the University College. Initially, we (university teacher educators) set up a meeting with the principals of the first ten participating schools. The meeting was intentionally held on neutral ground, at a conference hotel, and explored issues relating to coteaching with the intention of refining the research and implementation design. The principals questioned us about the respective roles of student and classroom teachers in the classroom.

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A collective decision was reached that project participants would develop codes of practice for classroom teachers, student teachers and university teacher educators. Principals were also concerned that some teachers might be anxious about how to coteach. We were unable to provide a how-to guide; instead, a second collective decision was made that coteaching teams would discuss a range of possible coteaching scenarios. The value of this preparatory work with school principals was immense. School principals were much more aware than we were of possible constraints. They appreciated the need for great care in our approach during all steps of implementation. They accepted responsibility for their role in the project which, we felt, was crucial. In retrospect, their advice and intimate knowledge of the work was key to the reported successes (Murphy et al. 2004b). The next stage was a 1-day launch seminar, attended by school principals and all coteachers: classroom teachers, student teachers and university teacher educators. The seminar aimed at enabling coteachers to get to know each other and to work together in ways which would lead to developing successful working relationships. Coteaching teams developed codes of practice by adapting codes previously created for teachers and student teachers during ‘non-coteaching’ school placements. They also discussed the strategies they may adopt in hypothetical coteaching situations, such as the following: For each scenario, consider your strategies for (a) that day and (b) future planning: 1. The class teacher and student teacher have planned a science investigation to take place during week 2 of the placement. The class teacher is absent on that day – the student teacher arrives and a substitute teacher is in class. 2. The class teacher and student teacher have planned a science investigation to take place during week 2 of the placement. The student teacher phones in sick on that day. 3. After a week or 2 you feel that all is not well in your relationship with the class teacher/student teacher. Other group activities included adapting a reflective diary for use by coteachers, discussions relating to anxieties surrounding coteaching and suggestions for improving the research design. This day was intensive and intentionally provocative so that participants appreciated their responsibilities in the project. Participants were asked to consider seriously their involvement in the project and those who were still willing signed a code of practice. There was to be no penalty for those who felt unable to sign; alternative arrangements for non-coteaching placements would be made. All participants signed up. Their evaluations of the day recognised the importance of their role in the design and implementation of coteaching. Most were really looking forward to the project and a few were also still anxious about their role. This anxiety partly arose as a result of our inability to inform coteachers about how to coteach. We had never tried this before. The project was innovative and we were hoping that the participants would apprise us as to how coteaching could be successfully enacted in the classroom. Typical comments from the student teachers, recorded in the reflective diaries indicated a mixture of their enthusiasm for science teaching, the value of learning

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from working together with experienced teachers, and some anxiety about their role as coteachers, for instance: I like the format that the project offers. I feel that it will give a certain degree of freedom to try new ideas and experiment with ways of teaching that will allow me to inject a more practical element back into science. I am to use my knowledge to provide investigative and practical ideas to create a fun, discovery-learning, science environment in which children are stimulated to learning. To gain an understanding of children’s thoughts, opinions, ideas of what science is and their understanding of scientific concepts. I expect this experience to be very beneficial for me as it will enable me to spend more time in the classroom working with children from varying backgrounds teaching a subject I enjoy and hopefully passing my enthusiasm onto the children I will gain an insight into the teaching of science in the primary classroom. I hope to learn different skills from the teacher and become more confident in the teaching of science. I will learn about children’s and teacher’s views of science. Learn how a teacher goes about teaching science in the primary school, experience the management of a science lesson and experience the many safety aspects considered in a science lesson. I’m a bit confused about my role in the classroom during this project. I understand the concept of team teaching but I’m not exactly sure how I will fit into this role. I feel I might be stepping on the teacher’s toes if I interrupt her lesson questioning. On the other hand I don’t want to feel like a spare part in this role of team teaching. I want to participate fully. I hope it develops well and I’m very interested in how the team teaching will progress. I am also keen to teach science from an alternative perspective that I have been used to.

In the first year of our work, we referred to the innovation as team teaching, until we read about coteaching which more accurately reflected what we were trying to do. The classroom teachers’ comments about what they expected from coteaching were different in that they reflected the teachers’ intention to support the student teachers in the classroom and the hope that they would learn more about their own science teaching, for example: To give the student teacher the opportunity to grow in experience and help me to plan and deliver a science topic. To give students valuable opportunities to develop teaching skills in the class situation. To see science being taught by a specialist who can bring a different light into experiment and practical work for the children. To gain further understanding of the subject area and confidence in tackling activities previously not taught by using student’s expertise.

We were keen to address issues of social capital and agency in this work. According to Putnam (1993) social capital refers to features of social organisation such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. We tried to ensure that our implementation of coteaching facilitated social capital and focused many of our efforts on building trust and openness. We also discussed changing power relationships with the coteachers: they were going to work in a non-traditional way in the classroom.

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The student teachers would have more agency in the classroom and would expand the opportunities now open to them. Classroom teachers would develop more agency in regard to science teaching: they would have improved access to scientific resources and their use with children by working alongside the science specialist student teachers. However, the classroom teacher would have less power in that they would be sharing access to children and the classroom. Children in the classroom would have much more agency in that they would have improved access to their teachers and would be given more time and resources to develop scientific thought and processes. University teacher educators would get more opportunity to work with children, student teachers and classroom teachers, thus giving them more agency, both in the classroom and in practicing what they preach. However, they would also lose power over the student teachers and, to some extent, the classroom teachers. In the coteaching situation they would be expected to work alongside their new peers and, potentially, expose some of their inadequacy in the classroom situation. We promoted discussion of these issues during the launch seminar. The following quote from a school principal reiterated the importance of sharing ownership of the research design with the classroom teachers: I thought the launch day was very good in the [hotel name] and I thought the working in small groups was very good, people discussing their priorities and groups of teachers putting in what they saw – because sometimes it can be very management directed. But the input of the teachers was very good because when they have input then they will want to follow it through…

Enactment of Coteaching It is difficult to enact equal responsibility in coteaching. Having equal responsibility does not mean that coteachers are doing the same thing at the same time; it does not even require that coteachers are teaching together. Our working definition was that coteachers shared responsibility for the children’s enjoyment and learning of science. After the first year, we identified the most common enactments of coteaching. In some classes, all were evident. These were: equal teaching roles for student and classroom teachers; one leading under the guidance of another; one leading and the other acting as ‘assistant’ and one leading as the other observes, all coteachers working with small groups of children and children themselves acting as coteachers. These models are all illustrated by video clips and can be viewed online in a continuing professional development unit on coteaching (Murphy and Beggs 2006).

2.3.1 Equal Teaching Roles Figure 2.2 illustrates equal teaching roles in the lesson. The student teacher (on the left) and the classroom teacher are teaching together to maximise the learning opportunities for the children. In this lesson, the coteachers were discussing the senses and then asking the children to sort toys into groups using their senses of sight and touch.

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Fig. 2.2  Equal coteaching roles

2.3.2 Student Teacher Leads; Classroom Teacher Guides One of the main benefits of coteaching for student teachers is to develop more confidence in their teaching whilst working side by side with a more experienced classroom teacher. This was evident from video footage of some of the cotaught lessons; the student teacher frequently turned around and checked whether what she/he was saying was appropriate whilst leading a lesson. In one specific instance the student teacher was leading the introductory discussion to a ‘dissolving’ activity. She was asking children for their ideas of different common substances which dissolve. One of the children answered ‘Disprol’ – the brand name of a pain reliever. The student teacher said ‘yes’ and then quietly asked the teacher about whether this type of answer was acceptable. The classroom teacher assented and the children then came up with lots of good examples of substances which dissolved, often using brand names.

2.3.3 Classroom Teacher Leads: Student Teacher Guides In respect of running science investigations, the student teachers, being science specialists, offered advice during the lesson when the classroom teacher was leading. This can be illustrated in the following lesson transcript. The lesson is the same one described in the previous paragraph. The classroom teacher is leading an investigation into dissolving; the student teacher helps the teacher to promote the development of children’s scientific skills. Classroom teacher: Pour it [sand] in very carefully and don’t put the water in until you are told.

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C. Murphy and J. Beggs Student teacher: Should we get them to predict what is going to happen? Classroom teacher: Girls, will you think about what might happen, what do you think is going to happen?

2.3.4 Student Teacher Leads: Teacher Assists In some lessons or parts of lessons, the coteaching model comprised the student teacher leading the lesson whilst the classroom teacher acted as an ‘assistant’, supporting the work of the student. For instance, I observed a student teacher using a pupil-assisted demonstration to help illustrate the concepts of transparency and opacity. During the demonstration the classroom teacher assisted by passing particular materials to children or to the student teacher.

2.3.5 Classroom Teacher Leads; Student Assists In this model the classroom teacher might be leading a science investigation in which the student teacher’s role is ‘another pair of hands’. The classroom teacher would direct the work of the student teacher. We observed this situation in a lesson in which the children were designing air-propelled ‘cars’. The classroom teacher was taking the children through the different elements of design; the student teacher’s role in this case was to ensure each child had access to the different materials they required.

2.3.6 Student Teacher and Classroom Teacher Each Work with Small Groups This coteaching model was evident at certain stages in almost all observed classes. Each coteacher assisted small groups of children during the practical activity. It was during this stage of the lesson that visiting university teacher educators and/or researchers would most commonly act as coteachers unless asked to play a different role by the other coteachers in the room. The opportunity to interact with children during the science lessons was highly valued by the university teacher educators; many had not ‘taught’ young children for years.

2.3.7 Student Teacher Leads: Classroom Teacher Observes and Vice Versa On occasions during coteaching, one coteacher might be interested in receiving feedback on their teaching. In this case, one coteacher might be observing a lesson. Our experience of this model showed that the opportunity to observe as an equal

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Fig. 2.3  Child as coteacher

promoted much self-reflection. In the following extract from an interview, a classroom teacher is reflecting on her own practice as she observes the student teacher. One of the main things that I gained was that you could sit back and watch your children responding to somebody teaching them. … You could see that there was sometimes children in the classroom continually getting the attention from the student teacher because they were the loudest who were always coming up with answers, always being funny. They were getting the attention and there were other children who were being completely ignored … because they were quiet and sitting not making a sound but not showing any interest. It made me aware that I’m probably doing that in my teaching. (Classroom teacher)

2.3.8 Child Acts as a Coteacher When children experience more than one person teaching, it is possible that they might feel more comfortable acting as a coteacher themselves. We strongly encouraged teachers to include this role for children as much as possible. Figure 2.3 illustrates a child leading part of the lesson on the water cycle. The child is guided by the student teacher to explain the water cycle in her own words to the rest of the class.

2.4 Implementation Issues 2.4.1 Should Student Teachers Be Assessed During Coteaching? Coteaching is a new way of working and can lead to feelings of anxiety in regard to enacting the role as coteacher. We intentionally promoted the idea that coteaching in the classroom would not be assessed. When university teacher educators

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visited classrooms, their role was to support the children’s learning by adding their expertise and not to supervise the student teachers. There was no debriefing about the teaching performance. Instead, the university tutors were included in the lesson evaluation discussion and invited to share their experiences. These discussions were similar to cogenerative dialogues (Roth and Tobin 2002). They could not be presented as true cogenerative dialogues, however, since they did not include representatives of all groups participating in the lesson; there were no children present. We were also concerned that obvious mentoring by the classroom teachers might serve to diminish the agency of the student teachers and make the latter feel as though they were being judged, as opposed to acting as an equal participant in the promotion of better science learning and teaching in the classroom. Coteachers were encouraged to share expertise.

2.4.2 Should Coteachers Be ‘Matched’? It was clear from the start that in coteaching we are asking classroom teachers to share that which they were used to doing alone. There are many ethical issues that arise. The preparatory work described above was carried out to raise awareness and anticipate the particular types of issues pertaining to each classroom. After the first year of coteaching it was evident that, in some cases, random pairing of student and classroom teachers was not always ideal. We discussed the possibility of introducing an element of matching for future projects. The participants felt this may be a useful step. The University College co-director of the coteaching projects visited each school principal and they discussed potential coteaching teams which would work best to promote children’s enjoyment and learning of science. This careful and sensitive process did lead to more harmonious coteaching and was adopted in all future work.

2.4.3 Promoting Harmonious Coteaching We investigated ways of promoting harmony between coteachers by analysing their reflections in the coteaching diaries they kept and from interview transcripts. The data from the student teachers revealed that there was most harmony in the relationship between student teachers and teachers when the respective roles were perceived as equal, less harmony when the role of the student teacher was perceived to be dominant, and least harmonious of all when the role of the teacher was perceived to be dominant. This trend is illustrated in Fig. 2.4, which summarises comments from student teacher diaries and interviews.

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Fig. 2.4  Harmony in coteaching

2.4.4 Anxiety About Coteaching Role Anxiety about how to coteach is the most challenging aspect for all concerned. The research team acknowledge this and initially invited participants to share their different ways of enacting coteaching for subsequent cohorts. We videoed several cotaught sessions and provided concrete information about ways to coteach. The following extract from a discussion between Jim, project co-director, and Loretta, a school principal, provides some insight to some of the issues surrounding role anxiety: Jim: Had you any concerns that affected your decision to take part? Loretta: I was very interested from the very start. The concerns I had would have been to do with any project. First of all I was concerned about the quality of the student teachers,

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C. Murphy and J. Beggs how well they would be able to support our teachers and to work alongside them. I was also concerned about the consistency of the program: would people turn up regularly or would there be reasons why the program couldn’t run on certain days? That could create a problem in schools in that teachers and children are waiting for someone to come in and if they don’t arrive they get very disappointed. That, in turn, affects the whole program. The other concerns I had really were that it was a different relationship to teaching practice and I was wondering how both the teachers and the students would cope with that. Jim: How were these issues addressed for you before the project started? Loretta: We had talked about the quality of students and obviously not every student is at exactly the same level and we knew there was going to be a slight variation. Having said that, we were very happy with the quality of support that was provided and in some cases there were students who weren’t brilliant at the beginning but with confidence did become much better and contributed a lot to the program. The student teachers were very consistent. They had been here for the whole 10 weeks and I felt that contributed a lot to what the teachers got out of it. They expected it to happen each week and it did happen and they were happy with that. The relationship issue just really wasn’t one in the end. They both got on and worked well together and no concerns were brought to me by teachers about that. Jim: Why did you become involved? Loretta: First of all, I’m really interested in primary science I think it’s a brilliant subject for primary school. It’s a cross curricular subject in which children can learn skills in all sorts of areas but also it teaches them a particular way of thinking about things which they don’t get in other subjects. That’s the main reason why I would be interested in any project of this type. Secondly, I was very interested in a professional development point of view for my teachers and interested in anything that can enhance their skills in the classroom. Thirdly, I’m also interested in research and getting teachers involved in research. Jim: Did you feel you got enough information about how the project was being organised? Loretta: Yes I felt I was kept fully informed. You contacted me regularly to let me know what was happening. Karen [research assistant] was very good about keeping in touch with us about when she was coming and yes I’d no problem with communication. Jim: How would you describe the purpose of the project? Loretta: The purpose I felt was that it was further development of the partnership of the College and the students and the school for the good of all working in the area of science. That it was something that would give extra support to teachers in the area that they had identified where some were lacking in confidence or expertise. It would also give students more experience in working in classrooms. Jim: What do you feel the outcomes were for your school from involvement in the workshop held in the college? Loretta: For the teachers there was enhanced professionalism. They were very aware of what was going on in school and they responded very well to that. It also raised their selfesteem. They were happy to be involved in the project and telling other staff about it. It helped their classroom skills in working in the area of practical, investigative science and it stimulated interest among other staff about what was going on. In the hard area of science it was useful to us, especially the outcomes of the workshops where we got specific feedback on our own schemes. The content of the workshops really came from teacher’s identification of the issues and I see that in the long term being very useful to us as we further develop our schemes.

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Jim: Would you continue to be involved in a similar project of this type? What changes might you suggest? Loretta: Yes I felt it was very beneficial for the staff and the school and I would be interested in being involved. Basically I thought it went very well but no matter what you do time is always the biggest issue. Time for planning and review is as important as actual teaching. The change I would suggest is that there should be the same amount of time spent planning and reviewing of all the outcomes for the students and teachers as the time spent in the classroom.

2.4.5 School-Level Decisions Issues are bound to arise during coteaching in schools which are beyond intervention from outside the school. For instance, in one school a student teacher was re-assigned to a different classroom teacher due to school-related demands on the former. The new classroom teacher had not been involved in any of the coteaching preparatory work and her attitude to coteaching was quite negative. Clearly, such a new way of working requires much preparation and all coteachers must be fully aware of the principles involved. We would not advocate the introduction of coteaching to participants who are not fully aware of its nature, goals and challenges. Further, we would strongly recommend that all participants sign a code of practice. Evaluation of Coteaching Coteaching science took place during school placements with the aim that the science expertise of the student teachers’ and the classroom teachers’ expertise in all aspects of teaching children were shared. The emphasis of the work done with the children was on science and technology investigations involving as much experimentation as was practicable. Several methods were used to evaluate the impact of coteaching. All coteachers (i.e. student teachers and classroom teachers) carried out confidence audits relating to many aspects of their teaching development at the start and end of coteaching placements. Student and classroom teachers also kept reflective journals in which they recorded different aspects of their experience. They participated in the design of the respective journals at an early stage in the projects. The journal was semi-structured and asked participants to respond to specific questions relating to their experiences and reflections throughout the placement. There was a ‘diary’ section at the back of the journal in which participants were encouraged to record additional comments. All coteachers were interviewed at different stages during the coteaching projects. The interviews carried out during the school placements served mainly to monitor their experiences. More formal interviews were carried out with the student teachers 6 months after the school placement to coincide with the survey of children’s attitudes. The student teachers had, by the time these interviews took place, completed

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their ‘main’, assessed 7-week full-time teaching practice in which they taught all areas of the primary curriculum. One classroom teacher from each of the participating schools was also interviewed at this time. The teachers were asked to comment on their experiences of the coteaching placement. Student teachers’ practical teaching grades (which had been assessed by non-coteaching colleagues in solo taught classes, as was the case for all other student teachers who had not been involved in coteaching) were compared between student teachers who had and had not participated in coteaching. To determine the impact of coteaching on children’s attitudes to school science, approximately 250 children (8–11 years old) who had taken part in cotaught classes completed a short attitude questionnaire 6 months after the student placements had ended. The findings were compared with those from a large group of children who completed the same questionnaire approximately 9 months prior to the start of the coteaching. Both survey samples comprised similar proportions of girls and boys. For more details of this questionnaire, see Murphy et al. (2004b). To supplement the data from the questionnaires, interviews were carried out with children after both surveys. In addition, data from teachers and students involved in coteaching were compiled from reflective journals kept during the placements and from interviews that were carried out during and after the placements. We also carried out focus group interviews with small groups of children and an entire cohort of the student teachers to explore feelings and experiences of coteaching. When the coteaching involved online learning communities (OLCs) (Murphy et al. 2004a), student and classroom teachers were trained together in the use of the virtual learning environment, ‘Blackboard’. The joint training sessions took place in the University College, and provided face-to-face contact between those student teachers and teachers who would be coteaching during the students’ block school placement. Participants were introduced to a panel of subject matter experts (SMEs) who provided online support in curricular matters and with the use of multimedia in the classroom. Student teachers completed two block placements in schools in which they cotaught science and shared data and documents between schools.

2.5 Impact of Coteaching Science in Primary Schools: Student Teachers, Classroom Teachers, Children and Teacher Educators This section presents and discusses the findings relating to the student teachers’, classroom teachers’, children’s and university teacher educators’ experiences of coteaching and their effect on primary science learning and teaching. As mentioned in the chapter introduction, we implemented coteaching primarily to address two of the main current problem areas in primary science: lack of teacher confidence in primary science and technology teaching and the decline in children’s interest in school science in the more senior primary years. The coteaching projects concentrated on developing both student teachers’ and classroom teachers’ skills in planning,

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teaching and evaluating practical, investigative science and technology lessons, including the successful integration of multimedia, to enhance children’s interest, enjoyment and learning of science. As a further development of coteaching, we set up an online learning community of coteachers in schools across Northern Ireland. We summarise some recent research into lack of teacher confidence in primary science and technology teaching and primary children’s attitudes to school science. We consider how coteaching may be enhanced via the creation of an online community enabling collaboration between coteaching teams in geographically distant schools. We provide a summary of methods by which coteaching was evaluated and present the findings. The impact of coteaching on student teachers, classroom teachers and children is discussed. Findings relating to the added value that can be gained from the online collaboration of coteachers are also illustrated. Finally, the overall impact of coteaching is discussed. In 1995, Wynne Harlen published a seminal report on primary teacher confidence in science teaching in Scotland. She reported that when teachers were asked to rate their confidence in teaching 11 subjects, science was eighth (music, information technology and technology were below science). They were less confident teaching the technological and physical aspects of the primary science curriculum than the biological topics. Teachers also reported having more difficulty with assessment of processes and of concepts than with other teaching skills (Harlen et al. 1995). These findings have been reproduced worldwide, and many initiatives have been put in place to improve the primary teachers’ confidence in science. More recently, a major research study of primary teachers across the UK (Murphy et al. 2007) showed that there has been some progress in developing teacher confidence in primary science over the last 10 years. However, the situation is still critical. One half of teachers surveyed in the UK for the study identified lack of teacher confidence and ability to teach science as the major issue of concern in primary science. The report also showed that professional development in science works, in that teachers who have experienced science CPD are much more confident to teach science than those who have not. Many reasons are suggested for teachers’ lack of confidence in science and technology teaching, including insufficient subject knowledge, lack of experience in science practical investigation, lack of resources, and problems of classroom management such as overcrowding, lack of space and safety considerations. Abell and Smith (1994) studied US student elementary teachers and reported that these students were not scientifically literate and yet would be teaching science in US elementary schools. Murphy et al. (2001) showed that third-level students, including those who experienced compulsory school science from the ages of 11–16 and some with post-16 science qualifications, could not correctly answer questions in some primary science topics in tests which had been written for 11-year olds. These problems, when taken together with the emphasis of national tests on content knowledge, may have contributed to science frequently being taught as facts or as a ‘body of knowledge’ in the final 2 years of primary school. Teachers felt the need to prepare children for the tests by ensuring that they can recall the required content knowledge.

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In the USA there has also been major concern about the standard of preparation of science and mathematics teachers (Barufaldi and Reinhartz 2001). During the 1980s and 1990s, more than 500 national reports addressed various inadequacies in both science curricula and in the preparation of teachers. Many of the resultant reforms centred on collaborative efforts to effect change. Atkin (1998) in his overview of the OECD study of innovations in science, mathematics and technology education stressed that the critical point determining the success or failure of innovations is the classroom interaction between teachers and children. James, Eijkelhof, Gaskell, Olson, Raizen and Saez (1997), also commenting on the case studies carried out in the OECD study, concluded that the teacher is at the heart of curriculum innovation, and that innovation depends on a ‘more thorough-going and comprehensive view of teacher professionalism’. Indeed many researchers, including Wilson (2000) have called for more direct involvement of teachers in research programmes. Coteaching primary science aims to enhance such interactions by improving teacher confidence in all aspects of science and technology teaching. In relation to the promotion of children’s positive attitudes to science, most researchers agree that the erosion in children’s interest in school science occurs between the ages of 9 and 14 (e.g. Hadden and Johnstone 1983; Schibeci 1984; Murphy and Beggs 2003), even though they retain positive attitudes towards science generally and acknowledge its importance in everyday life. The problem of declining interest in school science is international and many reasons have been put forward to explain it, including the transition between primary and post-primary schooling, the content-driven nature of the science curriculum, the perceived difficulty of school science and ineffective science teaching, as well as home-related and social-related factors. Murphy and Beggs (2003) carried out an extensive survey of primary children’s attitudes to science and found that most of the older children (10–11 years) had significantly less positive attitudes than younger ones (8–9 years) towards science enjoyment, even though the older children were more confident about their ability to do science. The effect of age on children’s attitudes was far more significant than that of gender. Girls were, however, more positive about their enjoyment of science and were a lot more enthusiastic about how their science lessons impacted upon their environmental awareness and their health. There were also a few significant differences in the topics liked by girls and boys – generally girls favoured topics in the life sciences and boys preferred some of the physical science topics. The attitudes of the children involved in cotaught classes towards school science were examined in order to determine whether there was any noticeable difference as a result of the science coteaching. The basis of coteaching is collaboration between teachers to expand the learning opportunities available to the children. In order to increase the level of collaboration between coteachers, we set up an online learning community (OLC), by way of computer-conferencing using a virtual learning environment (VLE) between student teachers, classroom teachers, university teacher educators and subject matter experts (Brown 2001; Wegerif 1998). The OLC encouraged critical reflection and knowledge construction through social interaction with others (McConnell 2000; Palloff and Pratt 1999). This facilitated collaboration between coteachers in

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geographically distant schools (some of which were more than 160 km apart). Research shows that a strong sense of community not only increases the persistence of participants in online programmes, but also enhances information flow, learning support, group commitment, collaboration, and learning satisfaction (Dede 1996; Wellman 1999). One of the important factors related to sense of community is social presence (Rovai 2002). According to Garrison and Anderson (2003), the formation of community requires a sense of social presence among participants. In coteaching, this community proved extremely valuable in the development of shared planning, resource production and evaluation by teams of classroom and student teachers.

2.5.1 Student Teachers Coteaching had a significant impact on the teaching confidence of student teachers. We found that their confidence increased in all subject areas, despite the fact that they were only coteaching science, suggesting that coteaching may have improved student teachers overall confidence in classroom teaching. The chart in Fig.  2.5 shows that a higher percentage of student teachers reported that after coteaching science (for half a day per week over 10 weeks) they felt fully confident to teach all subjects of the primary curriculum. Interviews with student teachers carried out after the coteaching placements also indicated that most felt that that their confidence had considerably improved as a result of coteaching. In one post-coteaching interview, a female student teacher talked about coteaching and her overall teaching confidence:

Percentage feeling fully confident

I had a real opportunity to build confidence in teaching science and this helped me prepare for my teaching practice (internship). I feel this was a totally worthwhile experience. I built good relationships with all children and enjoyed teaching the lessons. I definitely feel much more confident in teaching practical science and have a clearer understanding of how children

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before coteaching after coteaching

50 40 30 20 10 English Mathematics Science & History Technology

Geography

Art

Subject

Fig. 2.5  Improved confidence of student teachers after coteaching

Music

P.E.

Religion

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C. Murphy and J. Beggs learn science. I think the children enjoyed it. They loved getting involved and I could tell they were excited every Tuesday morning. The teacher enjoyed it as well. She let me know this when I was leaving.

Student teacher confidence in teaching younger children is frequently quite low. We were therefore interested in the experience of this teacher who was coteaching a class of 6–7-year olds (P3): It gave me a bit of confidence. We seemed to focus on technology itself and physical activities, not just the theory of the thing. It was important for P3’s that when you introduce a concept to them you have to have it backed up with something concrete that they could get involved in so it would reinforce the learning. It kept me on the ball for my approach to the lesson the following week and the week after, not just adopting my approach to the lesson but adapting to the other teacher’s method of introducing and progressing. We did work in partnership and it worked out well, it gave me the confidence to contribute and to listen and it also was useful, because I was listening to a teacher that was in the situation and I was picking up on her cues all the time. I was learning from her approaches.

In a few instances the student teacher experience was not as positive. Two groups of factors seemed to obstruct the potential of coteaching for both student teachers and classroom teachers. First, factors external to coteaching, such as school politics and prolonged teacher absence, and second, when there were relationship problems between student teachers and classroom teachers. In subsequent planning for coteaching we tried to match student teachers and teachers, which worked very well. We teamed student teachers who were confident with classroom teachers who expressed fears about teaching investigative science. We placed less confident student teachers with experienced teachers who volunteered to support them. We were very interested to see whether this increased confidence translated into improved performance in the assessed placement (coteaching was never assessed). The chart in Fig.  2.6 shows the improvement in practical teaching grades of the 2005 final year cohort of individual student teachers who had participated in two coteaching projects. All student teachers maintained a high (A/B grade) or improved their grade.

2.5.2 Classroom Teachers The main teacher learning about science seemed to come from their observation of and participation in simple, classroom-based science investigations. They commented on how easy this was in practice – as opposed to reading about doing it – and how well student teachers used the resources that had been provided for science. The following extract from an interview with a classroom teacher a few months after the student teacher had been in the school illustrates the teacher’s appreciation of her coteacher’s confidence with investigative science and how she was able to take forward the work they had carried out together. She was asked whether she had picked up any new ideas:

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3rd year 4th year

A B C

individual student grades Fig. 2.6  Practical teaching grades of student teachers in coteaching projects

Yes I got a lot of new ideas– practical ideas of the use of the resources. I just felt she had great ideas and things that I’d never used before. I think you’re inclined whenever you are doing the same class or classes every year to get into the same mould of teaching things and I just felt she introduced ideas that I hadn’t thought of. I probably gave her a few ideas as well, so when we put the whole lot together she learnt from me and I learnt from her. It would have been the practical ideas that I enjoyed the most because it was a fresh new approach that just gave me a totally different idea. One of the things coming up to Christmas we did was which material would be best for Santa’s coat to keep him warm. So we did an experiment using all sorts of materials to see which one would keep him the warmest and that was great for fair testing. Afterwards I was able to follow it up with lots of artwork and the children were able to bring it into their writing, how they did [the investigation], which [coat] would be best, and why. It had that fun aspect to it as well.

Many of the classroom teachers also commented on the development of their science knowledge as a result of coteaching with the student teachers, particularly the physical science areas, as the following interview extract reveals. The classroom teacher was asked what she thought she might gain from her work with her coteacher: I thought I was going to have an experienced student teacher in my room who had more knowledge in practical science than I had in regards to P6 [9–10 year old children] which, as it turned out, she did. Katie was very good. It was so new to me, the whole [pause] and the reason why I chose electricity was because I wasn’t confident in that area at all. … I really didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t know how to set up a circuit or how to teach it methodically and start at the beginning, which she was great at. She knew exactly where to start and had it all progressed from that. I have it all and all the worksheets and will use it again next year.

Another very important area for teacher learning was expressed by the following teacher as she reflected on how she observed critically some aspects of the student teacher’s teaching whilst pondering that she probably did the same things and how she had now been made more aware and would be able to avoid such slips in the

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future. She was responding to the question of what she thought she might have gained from coteaching: One of the main things that I gained was that you could sit back and watch your children responding to somebody teaching them. Obviously you’re normally the one who’s in there doing the teaching and I thought the benefit was that, okay, you are involved in the lessons, but a lot of the times you were secondary. You weren’t up there totally organising and in charge of everything. So it gave you an opportunity to watch how children responded. You could see there was sometimes children in the classroom continually getting the attention from the student teachers because they were the loudest, who were always coming up with answers, always being funny. They were getting the attention and there were children who were being completely ignored throughout some of the lessons because they were quiet and sitting not making a sound but not showing any interest. It made me aware that I’m probably doing that in my teaching but I would be aware even with the younger children that there are the ones that do get all the attention, sometimes it’s for the right reasons, sometimes they deserve it but at other times you’re so busy disciplining children that the other ones get left out. It’s good to be able to see someone else teaching because you don’t normally get the chance you are doing all the teaching. Also just with ideas and things some of the practical things they came up with I’d never done before, like making the lungs and things so that was good to see and getting new ideas.

We also asked teachers to comment on whether coteaching contributed towards their own professional development. One male teacher, who was working in a class with two student teachers reflected: … just having to encourage, support and talk them [student coteachers] through that aspect of the counselling side ... Discussing lesson plans, discussing at the end … what had been good and what had not been good and trying to support them through times when they felt that it didn’t go just quite as they expected. They needed a lot of that and I’m not good at that so it was nice to make me do that positive reinforcement. … The nicest thing about the whole thing was that the children were totally engaged in what they were doing, every Thursday afternoon.

The impact of coteaching on classroom teachers was highly positive in many ways. First, they had an opportunity to carry out science investigation together with student teachers who were science specialists. In all of their reflections, teachers talked and wrote about what they could ‘take away’ from the experience. In other words, each teacher had expanded her/his repertoire of science activities and investigations which s/he could carry out unaided in the future. The opportunity for this level of in-class support was highly valued; research has shown that in-class professional development for teachers is most effective. Teachers also improved their reflection and professional development skills by observing and supporting the work of student teachers.

2.5.3 Children Children who were involved in the coteaching were significantly more positive about their science lessons. The chart in Fig. 2.7 represents the percentage of children in each group who agreed with the statements indicated. The significance of

2  A Five-Year Systematic Study of Coteaching Science in 120 Primary Schools Science lessons are fun**

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I look forward to science lessons *

% agree

65

Solving science problems is enjoyable** Cotaught children (N=179) Non-cotaught children (N=419)

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73

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62 54

Key: significant difference at p < 0.05* or p <0.01**

Fig. 2.7  Relative enjoyment of science lessons

the difference between the mean responses of all children in each group was calculated using t-tests (assuming unequal variance) and is indicated by the asterisks. The improvement in attitudes could be explained by the classroom teacher’s increased level of confidence in investigative science and technology teaching as a result of the student teacher coteaching placement, since the survey was carried out almost 6 months after this placement. There were also fewer differences between girls’ and boys’ preferences for different science topics in the classes which had been involved in coteaching (Murphy et al. 2004b). There was a positive shift in girls’ enjoyment of physical science topics. The results indicate that the differences between girls and boys in their preference for particular science topics can be influenced by the way they are taught. The effect of more than one coteacher (mostly female) teaching science as investigations could have significantly increased girls’ liking for the physical science topics. In addition, the enjoyment of science was shown to be greater in older children who had been cotaught (Murphy et al. 2004b). Coteaching, therefore, seems to have a very positive effect on children’s interest and enjoyment of science, and could be used to combat the reported decline in children’s interest in science as they reach the more senior primary classes (9–11 years). In summary, we found that coteaching impacted positively on student teacher confidence [to teach] and on their overall performance in teaching practice placements. Classroom teachers reported a lot of benefits of coteaching in terms of their confidence to teach science and in aspects of their professional development. Evaluation of children’s attitudes to school science took place many months after the coteaching placement because we were looking for evidence of lasting impact on the teaching of science following coteaching with science specialists. We found evidence of significant improvement. The findings imply that since both the student and class teacher gained in confidence as a result of their coteaching experience; this could have led to a higher level of enjoyment of science by primary children.

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2.6 Promoting Coteaching in Schools Teachers in schools sometimes view research and development in teacher education with scepticism. Wilson and Easton (2003) described the results of a research project aimed at identifying the ways in which local education authorities can facilitate the use of research for school improvement (Wilson et  al. 2003). Wilson summarised aspects of the debate surrounding the contribution of research for school improvement for policy makers and practitioners, citing the work of Hargreaves (1996), who reported that research has limited use and usefulness for practitioners as the findings are often viewed as complex, contradictory and of little direct relevance to classroom practice. She also cited the seminal work of Shkedi (1998) that explored the attitudes of teachers towards research literature, and found that very few teachers turned to research literature to expand their professional knowledge, solve problems or meet the requirements of their job. However, Wilson and Easton’s (2003) research found that despite its negative image, teachers are using research to inform their knowledge and practice. Our experience was that four elements are crucial for schools to engage seriously with coteaching research and development. Firstly, university teacher educators intending to work in schools must engage with school personnel from the start of their research design. It is at this stage that they get the most valuable insights into the workability of coteaching in the particular schools. Secondly, university and school personnel need to share ownership and responsibility for coteaching: there must be equal weight given to all participant voices (using, for example, cogenerative dialogue – a conversation with stakeholders about a shared experience) (Roth and Tobin 2005). Thirdly, university teacher educators must plan for sustainability of work that has benefits for school participants. There is a serious ethical issue regarding short-term, beneficial projects in schools which are discontinued when the funding runs out, leaving the situation to revert back and a loss of any benefits to students and teachers. Fourthly, the results should be disseminated in a form that is accessible to all participants and to those interested in accessing the work. Advocating new approaches to teaching and teacher education such as coteaching can be a deeply sensitive process, fraught with potential ethical issues. Care in this regard will lead to more successful integration of new approaches and speed up the necessary changes in teacher education required for twenty-first-century teaching.

2.7 Conclusion The overall impact of coteaching was highly positive for all participants. There were instances (especially during the first year) which militated against successful coteaching caused by school-level decisions, lack of communication and unproductive coteaching relationships. Such instances provided the background for case

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studies that were discussed as problem-based learning activities as part of the preparation for future coteaching teams. It was also mentioned earlier that ‘matching’ of coteachers (carried out by school and university personnel) was a highly successful innovation. Thus, student teachers who may have been less confident were placed with teachers who wished to support them. Similarly, teachers who were most anxious about their science cotaught with student teachers who were best able to communicate their science pedagogy and practice. One of the most striking features of coteaching that is the most difficult to support with evidence, is the increasing democratisation of teaching observed in the classroom. Coteaching student teachers have much more agency – one described herself as a ‘much more legitimate participant’ in the classroom than when she was ‘taking the teacher’s classes’. Classroom teachers became learners as well as teachers. The children were also encouraged to participate more in the lessons and many opportunities were given for them to act as coteachers. Finally, from the perspective of a university teacher educator, developing more equal relationships with student teachers is one of the most rewarding experiences. When we went into classrooms, we were invited to assist with the teaching (usually working with groups or individuals), as opposed to sitting, observing and writing about the student teacher’s performance. We were also given the opportunity to teach, which is another bonus of coteaching. Coteaching promotes a more democratic approach to teacher education and classroom teaching which, we feel, is the way forward for the successful preparation of teachers in the twenty-first century.

References Abell, S. K. & Smith, D. C. (1994). What is science? Pre-service elementary teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science. International Journal of Science Education, 16(4), 475–487. Atkin, J. M. (1998). The OECD study of innovations in science, mathematics and technology education. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 30(6), 647–660. Barufaldi, J. P. & Reinhartz, J. (2001). The dynamics of collaboration in a state-wide professional development program for science teachers. In D. R. Lavoie & W.-M. Roth (Eds.), Models of science teacher preparation: Theory into practice. London: Kluwer. Brown, R. E. (2001). The process of community-building in distance learning classes. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2), 18–35. Dede, C. (1996). The evolution of distance education: Emerging technologies and distributed learning. American Journal of Distance Education, 10(2), 4–36. Garrison, D. R. & Anderson, T. (2003). E-learning in the 21st century. London: Routledge Falmer. Hadden, R. & Johnstone, A. (1983). Secondary school pupils’ attitudes to science: The years of erosion. European Journal of Science Education, 5(3), 309–318. Hargreaves, D. H. (1996). Teaching as a research-based profession: Possibilities and prospects. London: Teacher Training Agency. Harlen, W., Holroyd, C., & Byrne, M. (1995). Confidence and understanding in teaching science and technology in primary schools. Edinburgh: Scottish Council for Research in Education. James, E., Eijkelhof, H., Gaskell, J., Olson, J., Raizen, S., & Saez, M. (1997). Innovations in science, mathematics and technology education. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 29(4), 471–483.

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Lavoie, D. & Roth, W.-M. (eds). (2001). Models of science teacher preparation. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. McConnell, D. (2000). Implementing computer supported cooperative learning (2nd ed.). London: Kogan Page. Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2003). Children’s perceptions of school science. School Science Review, 84(308), 109–116. Murphy, C., & Beggs, J. (2005a). Primary science: A scoping study. London: Wellcome Trust, from http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/assets/wtx026636.pdf 2005 Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2005b). Primary horizons: Starting out in science. London: The Wellcome Trust. Murphy, C., & Beggs, J. (2006). Coteaching investigative primary science with student teachers. Accessed online July 2009 at: http://www.azteachscience.co.uk/resources/cpd/coteaching/ view-online.aspx Murphy, C., Beggs, J., & Carlisle, K. (2004a). Supporting the implementation of science within the revised Northern Ireland primary curriculum through professional development (Final Report). London: AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust. Murphy, C., Beggs, J., Carlisle, K., & Greenwood, J. (2004b). Students as ‘catalysts’ in the classroom: the impact of co-teaching between science student teachers and primary classroom teachers on children’s enjoyment and learning of science. International Journal of Science Education, 26(8), 1023–1035. Murphy, C., Beggs, J., Hickey, I., O’Meara, J., & Sweeney, J. (2001). National curriculum: Compulsory school science – Is it improving scientific literacy? Educational Research, 43(2), 189–199. Murphy, C., Neil, P., & Beggs, J. (2007). Primary science teacher confidence revisited: 10 years on. Educational Research, 49(4), 415–430. Palloff, R. M. & Pratt, K. (1999). Building learning communities in cyberspace: Effective strategies for the online classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Putnam, R. D. (1993). The prosperous community: Social capital and public life. The American Prospect, 4(13). Retrieved May 21, 2006 from http://www.prospect.org/print/V4/13/putnam-r. html) Roth, W.-M. & Tobin, K. (2002). At the elbow of another: Learning to teach by coteaching. New York: Peter Lang. Roth, W. M. & Tobin, K. (eds). (2005). Teaching together, learning together. New York: Peter Lang. Rovai, A. (2002). Building sense of community at a distance. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 3(1). Retrieved July 2009, from http://www.irrodl.org/index. php/irrodl/article/view/79/153 Schibeci, R. A. (1984). Attitudes to science: An update. Studies in Science Education, 11, 26–59. Shkedi, A. (1998). Teachers’ attitudes towards research: A challenge for qualitative researchers. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11, 559–577. Wegerif, R. (1998). The social dimension of asynchronous learning networks. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 2(1), 34–49. Wellman, B. (ed). (1999). Networks in the global village. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Wilson, E. (2000). Learning concepts. In P. Warwick, & R. S. Linfield (Eds.), Science 3-13: The past, the present and possible futures (pp. 37–48). London: Falmer. Wilson, R., & Easton, C. (2003). Using research for school improvement: The LEA’s role. Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. Wilson, R., Hemsley-Brown, J., Easton, C., & Sharp, C. (2003). Using research for school improvement: The LEA’s role (LGA Research Report 42). Slough: NFER.

Chapter 3

Researching the Use of Coteaching in the Student Teaching Experience Nancy Bacharach, Teresa Washut Heck, and Kathryn Dahlberg

3.1 Introduction Student teaching is one of the most powerful and influential experiences for candidates preparing to become teachers. It provides sustained opportunities for teacher candidates to apply the educational theories they have been studying with the actual practice of teaching. This culminating experience allows candidates to learn and practice multiple techniques of teaching while working in real classrooms with real students, under the supervision of a licensed teacher. While student teaching expectations vary across institutions, almost all traditional teacher preparation programs finish with a student teaching or internship experience. Unfortunately at most institutions, student teaching has remained relatively unchanged for the last 100 years (Guyton and McIntyre 1990). In a traditional student teaching experience, teacher candidates typically spend their initial weeks as silent observers, gradually assuming the multiple roles of a teacher leading up to full responsibility in the classroom. Often, teacher candidates in traditional settings are left alone or at a minimum, unassisted in a classroom as they take on this full responsibility. This traditional model of learning to teach in isolation should no longer be an unquestioned practice. Teacher preparation programs must view the cooperating teacher and teacher candidate as partners in meeting the needs of students in the classroom. Colleges and universities preparing tomorrow’s teachers are asked to continually evaluate their programs to ensure they are providing, among other things, the best student teaching/internship opportunities for those enrolled. Many teacher preparation programs struggle to find an adequate pool of competent cooperating teachers who are willing to host teacher candidates. This is due to several contributing factors including increased classroom size, diversity of student needs, and an unwillingness of cooperating teachers to host candidates if it requires them to exit the classroom for long periods of time. It is imperative to recruit and prepare the best teachers to mentor teacher candidates. Based on these factors, institutions of higher education must reexamine and enhance the student teaching experience. An additional challenge in teacher education is that very little data exist connecting success in a student teaching experience with student learning outcomes.

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Cochran-Smith and Zeichner (2005), in leading the AERA panel on the study of teacher education, maintain that more data are needed on the impact of student teaching on P-12 learners. This chapter defines and describes a coteaching model of student teaching. This alternative approach to student teaching allows both adults in the classroom to work collaboratively throughout the student teaching experience to best meet the needs of all learners. Quantitative and qualitative data describing the impact of this model on P-12 learners, teacher candidates, and cooperating teachers will be presented.

3.2 Coteaching Background Various definitions of coteaching exist. As early as in 1973, Miller and Trump define coteaching “as an arrangement in which two or more teachers … plan, instruct, and evaluate in one or more subject areas” (p. 354). Cook and Friend (1995) assert that coteaching is “two or more professionals delivering substantive instruction to a diverse or blended group of students in a single physical space” (p. 14). Building on this, other writers describe coteaching as two or more individuals working together “for the outcome of achieving what none could have done alone” (e.g., Wenzlaff et al. 2002, p. 14). Coteaching was originally proposed as an administrative arrangement facilitating the full inclusion of special education students into general education classrooms (Cook and Friend 1995). Coteaching has frequently been applied, with mixed results, combining the efforts of special- and general educators (Bawens and Hourcade 1995; Platt et al. 2001; Vaughn et al. 1997). The use of coteaching among university faculty members has also been documented and discussed (Bacharach et al. 2007b). There is a plethora of research that describes what coteaching is and how it has been utilized in P-12 classrooms and institutions of higher education. However, Zigmond and Magiera (2001) note: “The research base on the effectiveness of coteaching is woefully inadequate. While there are many resources available to tell practitioners how to do it, there are virtually no convincing data that tell the practitioner that it is worth doing” (p. 4). Murawski and Swanson (2001), in completing a meta-analysis of the literature on coteaching, concluded that very little empirical research on the impact of coteaching is available. As colleges and universities seek ways to enhance their teacher preparation programs, integrating coteaching strategies into the student teaching experience has gained national and international attention (Bacharach et al. 2007a, 2008; Murphy and Beggs 2005; Roth and Tobin 2005). In our previous work (Bacharach et al.), we have described and studied the development and implementation of a coteaching model of student teaching in all content and grade levels. Our research highlights the positive impact on P-12 learners, teacher candidates, and cooperating teachers alike. Roth and Tobin have undertaken extensive research on the use of coteaching in high school science classes. Their research has shown that “coteaching

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is a powerful context that provides new opportunities for enhancing student learning and for learning to teach” (p. 5). Murphy and Beggs (2005) utilized coteaching as an approach to enhance the teaching and learning of science in primary schools in Northern Ireland. They describe benefits for all participants involved in coteaching including students, teacher candidates, and cooperating teachers. In a cotaught student teaching experience, the cooperating teacher and teacher candidate collaboratively plan and deliver instruction from the very beginning of the experience. Cooperating teachers are taught to make their instructional decisions more explicit in order to make the invisible workings of the classroom more visible to the teacher candidate. The cooperating teacher partners with the teacher candidate rather than giving away responsibility for the classroom. This enhances the learning opportunities for students, combines the knowledge and strengths of both teachers, and models a positive adult working relationship. To better understand the differences between a traditional and a coteaching model of student teaching, we have identified several key components. These include: • Involvement. The level of involvement of the participants is one clear distinction between a traditional and a cotaught student teaching experience. In a traditional model, often one teacher is passive while the other is leading instruction. In coteaching, both teachers are actively involved and engaged. • Preparation. In a traditional model of student teaching, while there might be some initial training provided to cooperating teachers, there is rarely preparation of the cooperating teacher/teacher candidate dyad. In coteaching, we not only prepare cooperating teachers to host a teacher candidate, we recommend that the pair come to a workshop where they begin to practice the communication and collaboration skills that are necessary for the coteaching partnership to be effective. • Leading and Full-Time Instruction. Almost all teacher education programs have identified minimum requirements for both the length of the student teaching experience and the number of days or weeks the candidate should take over the entire classroom. In a coteaching experience, however, the cooperating teacher and teacher candidate share the role of lead teacher. All candidates are allowed opportunities to solo teach, but through the combination of solo and coteaching, candidates prepared using this model often teach far more than candidates prepared using the traditional model of student teaching. • Introductions and Welcoming. A critical element in the success of any student teaching experience is how the teacher candidate is viewed by the students. In coteaching cooperating teachers are instructed to introduce their candidate as a teacher candidate or coteacher, so the first word the students hear is teacher. Cooperating teachers are encouraged and expected to incorporate the teacher candidate into the classroom routines and instruction from the very first day. • Planning. In a traditional student teaching experience, teacher candidates generally plan lessons in isolation, presenting them to their cooperating teacher in advance of delivering the lesson. In coteaching, however, the pair is expected to identify a specific planning time where the primary focus includes the details of how, when, and which coteaching strategies to use for upcoming lessons.

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Teacher candidates will spend additional time planning for their part in each lesson. In the early stages of the experience the cooperating teacher leads the planning. As the term progresses the teacher candidate assumes more responsibility, ultimately taking the lead in planning. Pairs of cooperating teachers and teacher candidates are not expected to use coteaching for every lesson, but determine when and which strategies would be most useful in assisting student learning. • Modeling and Coaching. Often in traditional student teaching, cooperating teachers expect teacher candidates to be skilled in various instructional strategies, lesson planning, and classroom management techniques; possessing the ability to take over all aspects of the teaching day after weeks of observation. In the coteaching experience, cooperating teachers are taught to provide modeling and coaching, making invisible skills visible to the teacher candidate. Coteaching allows teacher candidates the time to practice instructional and management strategies with the help and support of their cooperating teacher. Rather than being left to sink or swim, teacher candidates in a coteaching experience are provided with the mentoring they need to become confident in their ability to manage all aspect of the classroom. • Power Differential. In any student teaching model a power differential between the cooperating teacher and teacher candidate exists. This power differential is rarely addressed in a traditional student teaching experience. In a coteaching model, however, cooperating teachers and teacher candidates are taught to address issues of parity and gain experience in how to work as a team. Teacher candidates are empowered to find their voice and contribute to the partnership while cooperating teachers are encouraged to be open to the ideas and contributions of the candidate. The attitude that “we are both teaching” is pivotal to the success of the pair.

3.3 Context Like many institutions, St Cloud State University (SCSU) was challenged to place hundreds of teacher candidates each semester in settings that provide opportunities for candidates to be mentored and guided by practicing teachers. Student teaching is expected to take place in a diverse classroom environment allowing teacher candidates to link educational theory to practice. However, like many institutions, SCSU was struggling to find enough high-quality placements for their candidates. Knowing that changes needed to occur, Heck, the director of the Office of Clinical Experiences at that time, sought assistance from other field experience coordinators, and learned of a major paradigm shift and similar work being done through the Mid-Valley Consortium (Virginia) and at Kansas State University. Both of these programs were faced with stakeholder groups that were dissatisfied with the student teaching status quo. In these two sites, clinical experience directors were motivated to reexamine their current student teaching programs. Cooperating teachers were no longer willing to exit the classroom for long periods of time as they were held

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accountable for the learning taking place in their classrooms, and many parents did not want their children in a classroom led by an inexperienced teacher candidate. At Kansas State University (Perl et  al. 1999) coteaching was used as a way to bridge the concerns of both parties. Coteaching allowed the classroom teacher and the teacher candidate to remain actively engaged, and as the program gained strength, parents began to request that their children be placed in a cotaught classroom. The Mid-Valley Consortium was providing in-depth training for cooperating teachers on observation and mentoring of teacher candidates. After visiting institutions associated with the Mid-Valley Consortium, SCSU began to develop its own model of coteaching in student teaching, piloting a coteaching training program for cooperating teachers, and collecting qualitative data from the approximately 200 teachers involved. The cooperating teachers participating in the pilot were overwhelmingly supportive of the coteaching in student teaching model. These initial findings provided the impetus to further investigate the implications of a coteaching model of student teaching, eventually leading to a US Department of Education Teacher Quality Enhancement Partnership Grant to study the impact of coteaching on P-12 students, teacher candidates, and cooperating teachers. This chapter will explore findings for each stakeholder group.

3.4 Our Project The coteaching program at St. Cloud State University began as a partnership with one local school district, serving approximately 10,000 students in grades PreK-12. Approximately 38% of those students are considered to be from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, 10% do not speak English as the first language, and 19% receive other special education services. The program quickly expanded however, and today includes formal partnerships with 17 local school districts, and provides training and support in coteaching to any interested teacher outside the partner districts. The project at SCSU defines coteaching as “a cooperating teacher and teacher candidate working together with groups of students sharing the planning, organization, delivery, and assessment of instruction, as well as the physical space” (Heck et al. 2006). In our program only one teacher candidate is placed in a classroom with a cooperating teacher who has had a minimum of 3 years of teaching experience at that specific grade level or content area. Candidates spend an entire semester student teaching. Prior to the coteaching project no formal training was provided to cooperating teachers. Each university supervisor was expected to review expectations of the experience with both the cooperating teacher and the teacher candidate. A coteaching workshop offered to cooperating teachers, teacher candidates and university supervisors provides foundational information on the coteaching program. This workshop delineates models of coteaching, addresses the roles of all stakeholders, and discusses how to welcome and create parity for coteaching partners in the classroom. In addition, participants are provided an opportunity to attend a

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workshop that addresses relationship building, communication and collaboration, coteaching strategies and coplanning guidelines. These “pairs workshops” provide the foundation for coteaching in the student teaching experience.

3.5 Academic Impact on K-6 Learners In order to thoroughly examine the impact of coteaching on K-6 learner outcomes, two academic measures were employed: the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment-II (MCA-II) and the Woodcock Johnson III-Research Edition (WJIII-RE). Each assessment offered a unique view of achievement that together provided the scope of data desired. Both assessments focused on the reading and math skills of cotaught students versus non-cotaught students. The MCA-II is a standardized test administered every year in the state of Minnesota to measure students’ performance toward meeting state standards. The MCA complies with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, and is aligned with what students in grades 3–8 are expected to know and do at each grade level. Like all NCLB tests, this test is used to determine levels of proficiency as defined by the state. The results of the MCA-II are disaggregated by district, building, grade level, and specific demographics. The MCA results included the entire population of cotaught and non-cotaught students in our initial partner district who took the state assessment. In Year One, the state only tested students in grades 3 and 5. Subsequent to that year, Minnesota changed the assessment instrument and students in grades 4 and 6 were included in the testing. The WJIII-RE, on the other hand, is an individually administered assessment given at the beginning and end of each academic year to students in grades K-12. Testing was administered by licensed educators trained by the research team. The WJIII-RE has been validated for all grade levels, and can be used as a pre- and post-intervention measure. Pretesting occurred in September and posttesting occurred in May. This assessment enabled the research team to examine individual gains resulting from the coteaching intervention. For this portion of the data collection, a stratified random sample was used to assure adequate representation of grade level and other demographics. Particular attention was paid to representative sampling of students of disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds (eligible for free or reduced price lunches), those for whom English was not a native language and those receiving special education services. The version of the WJIII-RE used in this study employed two subtests in both reading and mathematics: Letter-Word Identification and Passage Comprehension in reading, and Calculation and Applied Problems in mathematics. Composite scores for both reading and mathematics were calculated to reflect the clusters provided on the clinical edition. Raw scores were converted to standardized W scores utilizing the software provided with the testing protocols. Because tests on the WJIII-RE tap such a wide range of ability in each competence area, scores vary

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greatly and the use of the W score allows researchers to record changes in actual ability within or across years. Coteaching pairs, for the purpose of this study, were defined as those teacher candidates placed with cooperating teachers in which both members had been trained in the pedagogy of coteaching. In addition, each coteaching pair must have attended the pairs workshop focused additional training in coteaching, communication, and relationship building. Noncoteaching settings were defined as any other classroom not meeting the coteaching criteria listed above. Students in the cotaught group received primary instruction from a classroom teacher and teacher candidate using coteaching strategies. The WJIII-RE comparison classrooms were selected by building principals based on similarities in grade level, student demographics, and experience of teachers. The students in the comparison classrooms received no coteaching intervention and were subject to whatever teaching styles and strategies their teacher employed during the academic year. In looking at the MCA-II data, researchers asked classroom teachers to identify which students were in their classrooms during cotaught mathematics and reading lessons. It is not unusual for schools to have students within a particular grade level switch classes for reading or math instruction based on ability grouping. To eliminate any data contamination, each individual child was coded as to whether they had received cotaught instruction in either subject matter.

3.5.1 Reading Scores After analyzing reading gain (see Table 3.1) and reading proficiency (see Table 3.2) scores for the 4 years of this study, it is clear that students in cotaught classrooms have better academic outcomes in reading than their peers in noncotaught settings. Students demonstrated academic gains at a statistically significant level each of the 4 years. Table 3.1  K-6 reading gain scores Woodcock Johnson III Research Edition W Score Gains READING 2004–2005 2005–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008

Cotaught 15.7 (N = 221) 24.4 (N = 225) 14.8 (N = 322) 19.6 (N = 245)

Table 3.2  K-6 reading proficiency MCA reading proficiency Cotaught 2004–2005 82% (N = 318) 2005–2006 79% (N = 484) 2006–2007 76% (N = 371) 2007–2008 81% (N = 261)

Not cotaught 9.9 (N = 99) 18.7 (N = 124) 11.8 (N = 172) 14.8 (N = 182)

Not cotaught 75% (N = 1,035) 73% (N = 1,757) 64% (N = 1,964) 61% (N = 2,246)

p 0.001 0.024 0.010 0.001

p   0.007   0.008 <0.001 <0.001

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Table  3.1 documents the gain scores of students in grades K-6 utilizing the WJIII-RE. Due to the nature of the W score data an analysis of variance was performed comparing the mean gain for students in cotaught settings to the mean gain of students in settings that were not cotaught. For example, in the 2004–2005 academic year, 221 students tested were in cotaught classrooms, compared to 99 students tested in noncotaught settings. The cotaught group demonstrated a mean gain of 15.7 points over the course of the academic year (using the W scores). The group that did not receive coteaching experienced a mean gain of 9.9 points. This study utilized a p value of 0.05 for statistical significance. Table  3.2 documents the reading proficiency scores of students utilizing the MCA-II data. Here we are looking at percentages of students who scored proficient on reading assessments as defined by the State of Minnesota. In 2004–2005, for example, 82.1% of the 318 students in cotaught settings scored proficient in reading. Because researchers were able to access the entire pool of data, all subjects were included in this analysis. There were 1,035 students tested that were not in cotaught settings. Only 74.7% of those students scored proficient in reading. Due to the nominal nature of this data, chi square analyses were employed. Findings are considered to be statistically significant at the 0.05 level. As with the reading gain scores, there is a statistically significant difference between the students in the cotaught group and their peers in reading proficiency.

3.5.2 Mathematics Scores Math scores were handled in the exact same fashion as described above for reading scores. After analyzing mathematics gain (see Table  3.3) and mathematics proficiency (see Table 3.4) scores for the last 4 years, students in cotaught classrooms have better mathematics outcomes than their peers in noncotaught settings. Table  3.3 provides data on the mathematics gains of students utilizing the WJIII-RE. Like Table 3.1, above, this table shows the mean gain of students over the course of the academic year using the standardized W scores. Table 3.4 provides data on the mathematics proficiency of students utilizing the MCA-II. Like Table 3.2, above, this table shows us the percentage of students scoring proficient in Mathematics as defined by the State of Minnesota.

Table 3.3  K-6 mathematics gain scores Woodcock Johnson III Research Edition W Score Gains MATH Cotaught 2004–2005 17.2 (N = 221) 2005–2006 20.3 (N = 206) 2006–2007 14.3 (N = 313) 2007–2008 17.9 (N = 250)

Not cotaught 13.9 (N = 99) 17.4 (N = 143) 12.1 (N = 182) 16.0 (N = 177)

p 0.039 0.075 0.045 0.089

3  Researching the Use of Coteaching in the Student Teaching Experience Table 3.4  K-6 math proficiency MCA math proficiency Cotaught 2004–2005 82% (N = 317) 2005–2006 69% (N = 524) 2006–2007 69% (N = 364) 2007–2008 75% (N = 314)

Not cotaught 75% (N = 1,032) 64% (N = 1,831) 62% (N = 1,984) 60% (N = 2,217)

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p   0.009   0.041   0.007 <0.001

3.6 Achievement by Type of Student Teaching Experience Initially, the research team was interested in understanding the differences in academic performance between students in cotaught and noncotaught settings. There was no initial plan to compare cotaught student teaching with traditional student teaching. After studying the findings, however, it became apparent that the most critical comparison would be between types of student teaching (cotaught or traditional). Since the MCA-II data provided the entire population of students tested, the researchers were able to return to the original data set and identify a third group, those students receiving instruction in a classroom utilizing a traditional student teaching placement. Tables 3.5 and 3.6 demonstrate the reading and mathematics proficiency of those students in classrooms where teacher candidates cotaught with their cooperating teacher, compared to those teacher candidates that utilized a traditional student teaching model.

3.7 Focus Group Findings In addition to analyzing academic achievement data, students in grades K-12 were interviewed in focus groups. Over 540 students were interviewed over the course of the project. Overwhelmingly, students identified getting help when they need it as the number one benefit of coteaching. Students spoke very candidly about how difficult it is to get their questions answered and their needs met with increasing class sizes. One student said, “[With coteaching] we did get help faster … usually a lot of people have questions and to get faster help—that was really nice.” In fact, most groups appreciated that having two teachers meant a faster pace with less downtime. One elementary student quipped, “Things go a lot faster … sometimes the teacher says stuff and sometimes the student teacher does, so there’s no wasted time.” A high school student says, “Yes, you definitely learn more, quicker. You don’t think ‘I’m never going to get my question answered so I won’t ask it’. You’re more willing to ask the questions.” Lastly, another elementary student shared this insight, “If a teacher has assignments to do, the other teacher can teach us, it’s like twice the fun. And in reading we can have two groups, rather than wait and wait.” In addition to getting help when they need it, students in all focus groups identified the following benefits of being in a cotaught classroom:

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N. Bacharach et al. Table  3.5  MCA (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment) reading proficiency by type of student teaching experience MCA reading Traditional proficiency Cotaught student teaching student teaching p 2004–2005 <0.001 82% (N = 318) 65% (N = 101) 2005–2006a 79% (N = 484) 65% (N = 160) <0.001 2006–2007 Insufficient data to analyze – only two traditional classrooms 2007–2008 <0.001 81% (N = 261) 62% (N = 269) MCA change in reading standards

a

Table 3.6  MCA mathematics proficiency by type of student teaching experience MCA reading Traditional proficiency Cotaught student teaching student teaching p 2004–2005 0.009 82% (N = 317) 71% (N = 105) 2005–2006a 69% (N = 695) 58% (N = 160) 0.008 2006–2007 Insufficient data to analyze – only two traditional classrooms 2007–2008 0.002 75% (N = 314) 63% (N = 278) MCA change in mathematics standards

a

• The variety of activities that are possible with coteaching make school more fun. “It’s more fun, like for special activities, you can’t take out whole class, so they separate us, and we have two teachers helping and watching us” (Elementary student). “We’ve done a lot of different projects that we couldn’t have done with just our regular teacher, we needed two grown-ups. It’s fun” (Elementary student). • Students appreciate having two different teaching styles. “Our teachers have different theories, so if one theory is too hard to remember, the other can make it easier to understand” (Middle school student). • Students acknowledge that there are fewer behavioral disruptions with two teachers keeping an eye on things, and therefore, more learning can occur. “If there’s only one teacher it seems a lot more wild, but when there’s two it seems more controlled” (Elementary student). “It’s better with two teachers because if a kid is bad, one teacher can take the kid out and the other one stays in room. If we only have one teacher there’s no one to stay in the room and we’d probably fool around while our teacher was gone” (Middle school student). • Students relate feeling more connected to school. The reasons given most frequently for an increased sense of connection are: learning becomes more fun, teachers seem less stressed, students get work done in a shorter time and are often rewarded with free time or less homework, and students feel more cared about. “With two teachers we get the lessons done a little faster … and then you have more free time. And two teachers get to know you better” (Elementary student). “I think it brings a whole new world of learning when the student teacher comes. I feel connected because we use more technology, and she’s at a level we can understand” (Middle school student).

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When asked who gains most from coteaching, K-12 students mentioned benefits for all three primary stakeholder groups, students, the teacher candidate, and the classroom teacher. The following comments summarize students’ thoughts about who benefits most from coteaching. • “[Coteaching] helps people who have trouble learning, because there’s another teacher to learn from.” • “Having two teachers helps the smarter kids a bit more. Usually they don’t get as much attention because the teacher thinks they know everything. With two teachers they get more attention.” • “It benefits the student teachers because they learn more ways to work with a class.” • “It helps both teachers. Like if one teacher forgets something she can ask the other to take over for a while until she remembers, then they can jump back in when they remember.” • “The teachers just got relaxed for a while, and when the student teacher has to leave they get stressed again. So it helps the teachers not be stressed.”

3.8 Additional Student Survey Data Given the fact that the academic data collected and analyzed in this study focused primarily on students in grades K-6, the research team felt it was critical to develop another method of capturing data from secondary students related to their experiences in cotaught classrooms. Secondary students were represented in the focus group interviews, but the research team wanted to do something more to tap into the knowledge these students had about coteaching in student teaching. A survey was developed that was administered in classrooms in which coteaching occurred. The premise was that secondary students in the St. Cloud area would have had a previous student teaching experience, given the number of teacher candidates that are placed each semester from our institution and neighboring teacher preparation programs. If the secondary students had previously been exposed to student teaching, the research team would ask them to compare what they had experienced in their current cotaught classroom with their previous experience(s). Over the course of the 4 years of study, 1,686 secondary students were surveyed regarding their beliefs about coteaching. Possible benefits were identified, and students were asked whether in their current experience it happened more, the same, or less than in their previous experiences. Likewise, possible drawbacks were identified, with students identifying whether they had found that specific item to be a drawback in their current coteaching experience. Lastly, students were asked whether, based on their experience, coteaching should be used more often. Of the 1,686 students surveyed, 88% reported having had a student teacher in a previous grade. As in the focus groups, students most often stated that in coteaching they received more help with questions than in traditional student teaching (see Table  3.7). They also identified having different styles of teaching and receiving more individual attention as top benefits. Only 4% of the students surveyed found

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N. Bacharach et al. Table 3.7  Benefits of coteaching identified by secondary students Reported benefit Frequency (%) More help with questions 80 Different styles of teaching 69 More individual attention 66 Get two perspectives 66 Teachers build off each other 60 More creative lessons 51 Assignments graded and returned faster 51 More energy between the two teachers 46 Better discussions 45 More in-depth knowledge 43 No benefits  4

that there were no benefits to being in a classroom where coteaching was occurring between the classroom teacher and teacher candidate. Very few drawbacks to coteaching were identified by secondary students. Of the 1,686 students surveyed, 19% said they found coteaching confusing because there were two explanations provided. Another 12% cited grading issues or concerns with two teachers, 11% said they received contradicting information from the two teachers, 10% said the teachers interrupt each other, and 7% felt less material was covered with two teachers talking. Nearly 50% of the respondents said there were no drawbacks to coteaching in student teaching. The following differences were cited by secondary students when comparing their coteaching experience and previous student teaching experiences: Cooperating teacher and teacher candidate worked more as a team 62% Teacher candidate was more involved with the lessons 59% Teacher candidate was more ready to teach 56% Teacher candidate was more prepared for class 51% Teacher candidate brought in more new ideas and methods 51% Cooperating teacher was more involved with the class 42% It is evident from reviewing these data, that these secondary students, most of whom have experienced traditional student teaching in their educational past, have noticed clear differences between traditional student teaching and coteaching. Furthermore, 80% of secondary students indicated that they believed coteaching should be used more often in student teaching than the traditional methods.

3.9 Impact on Teacher Candidates By implementing coteaching in student teaching, teacher candidates are no longer initiated into the complex profession of teaching by being left to figure things out on their own. Coteaching allows teacher candidates opportunities to learn many of the invisible and complex skills required to be an effective teacher, as Roth and

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Tobin describe, “at the elbow of another” (2002). While still being provided opportunities to solo teach, these candidates benefit from interactions with their cooperating teacher and from the modeling and mentoring support that occurs in a cotaught classroom. As teacher candidates transition from being students to becoming teachers it makes sense that we would want them to practice their new skills in an environment that offers guidance, feedback and support rather than in isolation. All teacher candidates at SCSU, regardless of whether they coteach, are observed by both their university supervisor and their cooperating teacher during the course of their student teaching experience. At the end of the student teaching experience, the supervising faculty member completes a summative assessment based on all observations during the student teaching experience. The summative assessment consists of 11 indicators of teacher preparedness, each of which is scored on a fourpoint Likert scale. The first ten elements are based on the standards set by the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) for what beginning teachers should know and be able to do. The INTASC standards have been accepted by both the Minnesota Board of Teaching and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) as the professional standards used for program assessment and accreditation in the USA. The final element of the teacher candidate summative assessment addresses professional dispositions. The 11 categories of evaluation are outlined below. Since the beginning of the 2005 academic year, teacher candidate assessment data at St. Cloud State University have been disaggregated by type of student teaching experience. Cumulative data show that those candidates in coteaching settings have higher average ratings on each of the ten standards as well as professional dispositions. Teacher candidates involved in cotaught classrooms score statistically higher than their peers in the area of professional dispositions. It is not surprising that in Standards nine and ten (reflection and professional development and partnerships) the coteaching candidates outscore their peers at a level that nears statistical significance. These two areas are hallmarks of coteaching and these findings support continued use of the model in student teaching. While findings in the remaining standards are not statistically significant, it could be argued that coteaching during student teaching creates a positive trend on teacher candidate assessment outcomes (see Table 3.8). To further study the impact of participation in the coteaching model of student teaching on teacher candidate learning, coteaching candidates have been asked to complete an end of experience survey. To date, surveys have been completed by 249 teacher candidates. Teacher candidates agree that they have benefited in the following ways from participation in coteaching. • • • • • • •

Improved classroom management skills (92%) Increased collaboration skills (92%) More time involved in instruction (90%) More exposure to experienced teachers (90%) A deeper understanding of the curriculum resulting from coplanning (89%) Added opportunities to ask questions and reflect (89%) Increased confidence through coplanning (88%)

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Table 3.8  Teacher candidate summative assessment scores from 2005 to 2007 Coteaching student Traditional student teaching (N = 408) teaching (N = 728) Standard 1: Subject matter Standard 2: Student learning Standard 3: Diverse learners Standard 4: Instructional strategies Standard 5: Learning environment Standard 6: Communication Standard 7: Planning instruction Standard 8: Assessment Standard 9: Reflection and professional development Standard 10: Partnerships Professional dispositions

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

p

3.37 3.32 3.09 3.31 3.28 3.32 3.35 3.06 3.47

0.630 0.642 0.625 0.684 0.696 0.610 0.654 0.648 0.658

3.36 3.28 3.09 3.29 3.28 3.32 3.34 3.06 3.40

0.636 0.651 0.631 0.660 0.665 0.623 0.656 0.631 0.649

0.55 0.39 0.95 0.68 0.94 0.98 0.98 0.82 0.08

3.40 3.61

0.641 0.598

3.33 3.51

0.634 0.635

0.08 0.01

Teacher candidates are also invited to participate in focus groups to discuss the pros and cons of the coteaching model of student teaching. To date, 195 teacher candidates have participated in focus groups. Compiling the data from these groups, it is clear that the element of central importance to teacher candidates is what they described as feeling like a real teacher as a result of their coteaching experiences. In cotaught settings, the teacher candidate is not introduced as a student teacher, but rather as a teacher candidate or coteacher. This subtle change in language has a tremendous impact on learners by merely changing the first word from student to teacher, thereby shifting the image of this addition to the classroom from an amateur to a professional. Teacher candidates placed in cotaught settings are also expected to become actively involved in some aspect of the classroom on the first day, moving them from silent observer at the back of the room to active participant, giving them additional credibility in the eyes of their students. As one teacher candidate put it, “Being active in the lessons right away (in coteaching) is better than observing. You feel more comfortable.” Another candidate reported, “The strong bond you have with your coteacher is just amazing. You truly do feel that you are the second teacher in the room, not a student teacher.” The cooperating teachers agree, “A highlight for me was that the kids saw her as another teacher. When it came to her last days and she was talking about getting a job, the kids all said ‘you have a job here’. Never did they see her as anything but another teacher in our school!” Through focus groups, teacher candidates routinely cited the following elements of coteaching that led them to feeling like a real teacher. • Sharing and managing resources (including human resources). Most frequently, teacher candidates discuss having an enhanced awareness of resources available to them through the coplanning process. They also discuss the importance of taking on the role of instructional leader, directing the other adults in the classroom,

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including the cooperating teacher, other licensed specialists, and paraprofessionals. One teacher candidate said “Looking back on it, I’m so glad that I did coteaching because now I have more skills when it comes to working with people. When I go out there and I have paraprofessionals in my room or maybe in my own team we’ll have four teachers that need to work together, I know that I can handle that now. I don’t think I could have done that nearly as comfortably before coteaching.” Another candidate put it this way, “I like that my cooperating teacher helped me along with planning. At the beginning we sat down and planned together, but now that it’s coming towards the end, I’m in charge and I’m telling her what I want to do. It’s really great with my teacher because she gives me so much freedom. She’s says this is your time to experience it. Tell me what you want me to do and you be in charge and let me be your assistant. I really like that.” • Mutual support. In coteaching experiences, both the teacher candidate and the cooperating teacher share ideas and strategies with each other. As a result, both partners benefit from the support and collaboration. One cooperating teacher shared this sentiment, “A highlight of this experience for me was watching how my teacher candidate started implementing some of my techniques in her teaching style and then realizing how I was implementing some of her techniques into my strategies. We really grew together!” A second cooperating teacher says, “My highlight was the laughter I could share with my teacher candidate and the students as we worked together. We could feed off each other’s energy or boost each other up when one of us was running low!” • Equal partnership- shared leadership, ownership and responsibility for teaching and classroom management. In traditional student teaching settings, there is a natural power differential between the cooperating teacher and the teacher candidate who is a guest in their classroom. While the cooperating teacher still has an evaluative role in coteaching settings, the pair is provided with specific strategies and suggestions to help even the power differential. The goal in coteaching is for both teachers to be engaged in all aspects of the classroom, with no consistent “leader” or “assistant.” One teacher candidate said, “My teacher includes me in everything. She always finds a way to incorporate my name so kids know it’s both of us.” Cooperating teachers agreed that teacher candidates are benefiting from participation in a coteaching model of student teaching. Of the 326 cooperating teachers completing end-of-experience surveys, 83% indicated that they believed their teacher candidate had a better experience than they would have had in a traditional model of student teaching. Many of the 107 cooperating teachers interviewed in focus groups also felt that their teacher candidates became competent more quickly and that they were exposed to a wider variety of teaching strategies as a result of coteaching. Cooperating teachers have been so positive about the coteaching model that SCSU no longer has difficulty convincing teachers to take on teacher candidates. Quite the opposite, there are more teachers that have participated in coteaching workshops than there are candidates to go around.

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3.10 Impact on Cooperating Teachers Cooperating teachers also benefit from coteaching with teacher candidates. Specifically, cooperating teachers indicated in their end-of-experience survey (N = 326), that participation in coteaching led to: • • • • •

More help for students with high needs (95%) A better relationship with their teacher candidate (92%) Professional growth through coplanning (91%) Enhanced energy for teaching (89%) Being able to host a candidate without giving up their classroom (87%)

When asked to describe a highlight of the coteaching experience, one cooperating teacher stated, “It was fun trying different styles, it’s always good to try new things. I really enjoyed trying all the different coteaching strategies with my teacher candidate.” Another cooperating teacher stated, “[Coteaching] was new to me and caused me to re-think why some things work the way they do and examine if they could go better. It has made me justify my technique and strategy, not just go through the motions.” A third cooperating teacher said, “My teacher candidate and I ‘share a brain’. It has been an awesome experience.”

3.11 Summary There have been many changes in the field of education over the past century. As we develop new learning theories, new practices emerge that align pedagogy and knowledge. There is currently a wide body of research that recognizes the importance and benefits of mentoring new teachers as they enter the field (New Teacher Center 2005; Darling-Hammond 2000). It only makes sense that we also examine the need to mentor teacher candidates as they embark on their journey to becoming a teacher. The student teaching experience has long been accepted as the rite of passage from student to licensed professional. It would follow that we need to support and mentor these teacher candidates as they begin to practice their craft. Tobin and Roth (2005) advocate for “learning to teach by teaching” (p. 59) rather than a more traditional approach to student teaching that involves learning by watching. Our research on the development and implementation of a coteaching model of student teaching supports the work of Roth and Tobin. In addition to the qualitative data, this 5-year research project provides strong quantitative evidence that coteaching in student teaching positively impacts teacher candidates, cooperating teachers, and in particular the academic achievement of K-6 learners. A successful student teaching experience is built upon the development of a strong relationship between the teacher candidate and the cooperating teacher. In the traditional model of student teaching, a great deal of mental energy is used in

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the first few weeks trying to figure out a teaching partner’s philosophy of education, teaching style, body language, and thought processes. The coteaching model of student teaching prepares the cooperating teacher and teacher candidate to “work together with groups of students sharing the planning, organization, delivery, and assessment of instruction, as well as the physical space” (Heck et al. 2006). It is as though they perform a type of dance, where both coteachers sometimes lead and sometimes follow. Teaching has become an incredibly complex and demanding profession (CochranSmith 2003; Danielson 1996). We need to provide teacher candidates with tools and experiences that make the transition from student to teacher much smoother and more meaningful. By shifting from a traditional model of student teaching to a coteaching model, we no longer expect our teacher candidates to learn the complex art of teaching by leaving them alone to sink or swim. Instead, we provide them with the involvement, preparation, leadership opportunities, modeling, and coaching they need to enter their own classroom with confidence and skill.

References Bacharach, N., Heck, T., & Dahlberg, K. (2007a). Collaboratively researching the impact of a coteaching model of student teaching. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago. Bacharach, N., Heck, T., & Dahlberg, K. (2007b). Coteaching in higher education. Journal of College Teaching and Learning, 4, 19–26. Bacharach, N., Heck, T., & Dahlberg, K. (2008). Changing the face of student teaching through coteaching. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York. Bawens, J. & Hourcade, J. (1995). Cooperative teaching: Rebuilding the schoolhouse for all students. Austin, TX: PrEdo. Cochran-Smith, M. (2003). The unforgiving complexity of teaching: Avoiding simplicity in the age of accountability. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 3–5. Cochran-Smith, M. & Zeichner, K. (2005). Studying teacher education. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Cook, L. & Friend, M. (1995). Coteaching: Guidelines for creating effective practices. Focus on Exceptional Children, 28(3), 1–16. Danielson, C. (1996). Enhancing professional practice: A framework for teaching. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). Solving the dilemmas of teacher supply, demand, and standards: How we can ensure a competent, caring and qualified teacher for every child. New York: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Guyton, E. & McIntyre, D. (1990). Student teaching and school experiences. In W. R. Houston, M. Haberman & J. Sikula (Eds.), Handbook of research on teacher education. New York: Macmillan. Heck, T., Bacharach, N., Ofstedal, K., Mann, B., Wellik, J., & Dahlberg, K. (2006). Rethinking student teaching. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Teacher Educators, Atlanta, GA. Miller, D. & Trump, J. (1973). Secondary school curriculum improvement: Challenges, humanism, accountability. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Murawski, W. & Swanson, H. (2001). A meta-analysis of coteaching research: Where is the data? Remedial and Special Education, 22, 258–267.

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Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2005). Coteaching as an approach to enhance science learning and teaching in primary schools. In W. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 207–231). New York: Peter Lang. New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz. (2005, December). Mentoring new teachers to increase retention: A look at the research. (Research Brief No. 05-01). Santa Cruz, CA: Strong, M. Perl, M., Maughmer, B., & McQueen, C. (1999). Coteaching: A different approach for cooperating teachers and students teachers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago. Platt, J., Walker-Knight, D., Lee, T., & Hewitt, R. (2001). Shaping future teacher education practices through collaboration and coteaching. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education. Roth, W. & Tobin, K. (2002). At the elbow of another: Learning to teach by coteaching. New York: Peter Lang. Roth, W. & Tobin, K. (2005). Coteaching: From praxis to theory. In W. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 5–26). New York: Peter Lang. Tobin, K. & Roth, W. (2005). Coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing in an urban science teacher preparation program. In W. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 59–77). New York: Peter Lang. Vaughn, S., Schumm, J., & Arguelles, M. (1997). The ABCDEs of coteaching. Teaching Exceptional Children, 30(2), 4–10. Wenzlaff, T., Berak, L., Wieseman, K., Monroe-Baillargeon, A., Bacharach, N., & BradfieldKreider, P. (2002). Walking our talk as educators: Teaming as a best practice. In E. Guyton & J. Ranier (Eds.), Research on meeting and using standards in the preparation of teachers (pp. 11–24). Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt Publishing. Zigmond, A., & Magiera, K. (2001). A focus on coteaching. Current practice alerts. Council for Exceptional Children.

Part II

Theory into Practice

Introduction Coteaching in science education initially emerged from a need for improved science teaching in urban schools in the United States and elementary schools in Northern Ireland. In the USA, Roth and Tobin (2002) used key concepts from sociocultural theories such as Bourdieu’s forms of capital and Sewell’s ideas about culture to develop the theoretical underpinnings of coteaching between two student-teachers in an urban school, and then later, between student-teachers and cooperating teachers (Tobin and Roth 2006). Concurrently, in Northern Ireland, Murphy, Beggs, Carlisle, and Greenwod (2004) reported on how student-teachers with specialty in science cotaught that subject with primary teachers. In this setting, student-teachers had higher cultural capital (science knowledge) and came into the coteaching setting to work with primary school teachers with limited science knowledge. As coteachers, they implemented science curriculum in primary schools that engaged the students, built the teachers’ confidence for teaching science, and provided student-teachers positive learning classroom experiences. Learning to teach, and teaching, has a unique culture. Culture comprises the dialectical relationship between structure and agency. Structures are made up of schemas and resources. Resources can be physical or human. The culture of coteaching has a schema that assumes that all teachers in the room are responsible for the students’ learning. This is very different from a traditional student-teaching arrangement where cooperating teachers stepped back or left, the teaching space. Further, as coteachers learn from each other, through the conversations focused on planning the curriculum, de-briefings of experiences occur during the daily event of teaching or strategizing as the lesson unfolds to adjust, refocus, and “tweak” one’s teaching. Schema of coteaching enhances student-teachers’ agency, i.e. their power to act, rather than a constant examination and critique of their practices by a cooperating teacher; coteaching encourages all teachers to engage in reflective practice through planning conversations and discussions of curriculum enactment. Coteaching provides an increase in human resources for the teachers and learners. This expands the agency for all stakeholders, as learners may have more than one resource, i.e. the classroom teacher, to facilitate their learning. However,

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coteaching has evolved from its initial roots as a conduit for student-teaching to an avenue for professors to share the teaching space with other stakeholders like their students. In this genre, coteaching again affords learners who in more traditional settings may have had little agency to change the classroom culture, environment, or curriculum to become involved. As beginning teachers who have experienced coteaching commence their careers, we see that they use their agency to establish the structures of collaboration in the new settings. Coteaching as a model also has the potential to change teacher’s, especially high school, schema about “good teaching.” The idea that “good teachers” exist in their own classroom space with little or no interaction with colleagues has also led to teachers reporting feelings of isolation and loneliness. Coteaching can change this in two ways: first, through teachers, regardless of their grade level or content, seeking collaboration; second, teachers reconstructing their students as equally responsible for the teaching and learning that occur in classes. Teachers can share this responsibility through two innovative practices: coteaching and cogenerative dialogues. With coteaching, teachers redistribute their power by engaging students as coteachers in the class, or by inviting students from another class to coteach. These practices have occurred at college and K-12 schooling levels. Cogenerative dialogues are a pedagogy|research practice, which through the generation of local theory and understandings of teaching and learning, benefit all stakeholders in a learning setting (Scantlebury and LaVan 2006). Cogenerative dialogues have evolved from including a teacher with a small group of students focused on improving teaching (LaVan and Beers 2005) to students and teachers working together to analyze the schema that create cultures that are detrimental to learning and to cogenerate solutions to remove those negative schema (Baynes 2008). Further, cogens can produce solidarity among the participants and enhance teacher’s learning about their students and students’ learning about the subject matter, their teachers, and the social structures that govern schools and education, as well as changing the tone of a cogen into a coteaching opportunity between participants. Further, concepts such as cosmopolitanism have become important in developing understandings between students, teachers, and researchers as the social, cultural, ethnic, religious, and age characteristics between those groups continue to diverge. Proponents of critical pedagogy such as Kinchloe (2008) and Freire (1970, 1993) argue that teaching should engage learners and teachers in a critical examination of the societal structures that generate oppression and lead to cultural reproduction. Cogenerative dialogues can enhance students’ and teachers’ agency to act against these structures and re-examine what is taught, how, and why (see Bayne (2008) review of cogenerative dialogues).

References Baynes, G. (2008). Cogenerative dialogues: The creation of interstitial culture in the New York Metropolis. In W.-M. & Roth K. Tobin (Eds.), World of science education: North America (pp. 513–528). The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

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Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the city. New York: Continuum. Kinchloe, J. (2008). Critical pedagogy. New York: Peter Lang. LaVan, S.-K. & Beers, J. (2005). The role of cogenerative dialogue in learning to teach and transforming learning environments. In K. Tobin, R. Elmesky & G. Seiler (Eds.), Improving urban science education: New roles for teachers, students, and researchers (pp. 149–166). New York: Peter Lang. Murphy, C., Beggs, J., Carlisle, K., & Greenwood, J. (2004). Students as ‘catalysts’ in the classroom: The impact of co-teaching between science student teachers and primary classroom teachers on children’s enjoyment and learning of science. International Journal of Science Education, 26(8), 1023–1036. Roth, W.-M. & Tobin, K. (2002). At the elbows of another: Learning to teach through coteaching. New York: Peter Lang. Scantlebury, K., & LaVan, S.-K. (2006). Re-visioning cogenerative dialogues as feminist research|pedagogy [32 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 7(2) [On-line Journal]. Available at: http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqstexte/2-06/06-2-41-e.htm Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Chapter 4

Coteaching in Science Education Courses: Transforming Teacher Preparation Through Shared Responsibility Christina Siry, Sonya N. Martin, Shelley Baker, Nicole Lowell, Jenna Marvin, and Yushaneen Wilson

This chapter focuses on the implementation of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue as foundational components in science teacher education courses. Our use of coteaching emphasizes sharing responsibility for teaching and learning science and science pedagogy with our students.1 Cogenerative dialogues are conversations between classroom participants (teachers, students, researchers, etc.) to discuss classroom interactions and focus on improving teaching and learning. Coupled with coteaching, they serve as both a method for learning how to teach and a methodological approach to learn about teaching. In our research, we focus on how sharing responsibility with our students for the teaching and learning that occurs in our courses has the potential to transform not only science teacher education but also K-12 science education. Specifically, we have implemented this approach to counter the increasing trend toward the deprofessionalization of teachers, both at the K-12 and university levels. In this chapter, we present our pedagogical perspectives and explore our research into the use of coteaching and cogenerative dialogues as an approach to teacher education courses. Building from critical perspectives of dialogue and participatory education, we explore how coteaching and cogenerative dialogue can be utilized as a tool for engaging students in a theory generative pedagogical approach to learning about teaching. As we detail the development of our courses over time, we provide insights into how our epistemological understandings about teaching and learning have evolved to include sharing responsibility for teaching and learning with our students and how this practice has, in turn, informed our praxis as teacher educators. In the sections that follow, we describe what we characterize as the deprofessionalization of teaching and introduce coteaching and cogenerative dialogue as an engaged pedagogical approach teacher educators can utilize to support new and in-service teachers to “push back” at policies and mandates that de-emphasize the decision-making powers of professional teachers.  In this chapter we use the terms teacher and students interchangeably to refer to the participants in our courses. In general, we refer to course participants as teachers, but in certain instances, as in this one, it is important to distinguish that we, as the course instructors, are sharing responsibilities with the teachers, who are our students.

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4.1 Pushing Back by Sharing Responsibility The increasing standardization of education, the prevailing culture of accountability in teacher education, and the accompanying deprofessionalization of the teacher that is evident in policy mandates and the proliferation of scripted curricula work to limit agency in education and present challenges to educators. Particularly salient to this issue is our work with elementary teachers, who are predominately female and who are experiencing the greatest degree of marginalization as professionals by mandates and materials that are designed to “teacher proof” curricula in K-8 classrooms. Our work with secondary science teachers reveals similar policies and attitudes by administrators, parents, and policy makers as these teachers are increasingly relegated to standardized scripted roles that do not provide for individual decision making. As state and national education policies continue to erode our opportunities to educate teachers to think and to question, we examine the opportunities to push back at these oppressive trends. Specifically, we consider critical perspectives to teaching and learning as supported by bell hooks’ engaged pedagogy (1994) and by critical pedagogy (Freire 1970, 1973; Kincheloe 2003, 2005, 2008). Our research indicates that emphasizing shared responsibility fosters a sense of professionalism and awareness in our students, which enables their critical awareness of national policies, school/district decision-making processes, and their own teacher education programs, in order to be able to situate themselves as professionals who advocate for their needs and their students’ needs. In the next section, we explore our research into coteaching | cogenerative dialogue2 as an approach for sharing responsibility for teaching and learning with our students. We approach teacher education through a framework that is based upon the theoretical perspective of being in/with the other (Roth and Tobin 2002). In sections to follow, we explore the ways in which this framework provides a foundation for our teaching and our research. We begin by articulating our epistemological growth as teachers and researchers, and examine how Freire’s writings on emancipatory dialogue, when applied in the context of coteaching | cogenerative dialogue, allows us to engage our students in a theory generative process of learning how to teach. Second, we provide concrete examples of our cogeneration of local theory with students who share our classroom experiences for the purpose of improving our individual and collective teaching and learning. We do so by integrating perspectives of students from our courses into the text to exemplify the ways in which our commitment to sharing responsibility for teaching and learning in our university

2  The Sheffer stroke ( | ) is placed between two concepts to indicate the existence of the two parts (on either side of the Sheffer stroke) as constituting a whole. Wolff-Michael Roth (2005) utilizes the Sheffer stroke to denote a both/and relationship between coteaching and cogenerative dialogue as a way to help conceptualize the complexity that occurs as this model is enacted. Thus, we use the Sheffer stroke to indicate that coteaching and cogenerative dialogue, are two parts of one whole. Both can take place in the absence of the other, but in order for coteaching to occur as we theorize it, cogenerative dialogues must also occur (Martin 2009).

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courses is transforming students’ experiences, their beliefs about teaching and learning, and their identities as teaching professionals.

4.2 Emphasizing Mutual Participation Operating from a critical theoretic perspective, we focus our analysis on both identifying and developing strategies that support engaged pedagogy. Engaged pedagogy is described by bell hooks as the practice of freedom (hooks 1994). It is a holistic approach to education that asks us to rethink teaching practices so that we pay attention to the emotions and well-being of our students, and a participatory approach to teaching and learning that is responsive to specific situations. hooks advocates “pedagogical practices that emphasize mutual participation between teacher and student” (1994, p. 205). In this spirit of engaged pedagogy, this chapter examines the utilization of coteaching as a pedagogical approach to university science teacher education courses that leads to mutual participation and shared responsibility for teaching and for learning. Coteaching assumes that teaching is a sociocultural activity in which participants learn to teach by teaching (Tobin and Roth 2006), and it is an approach to learning to teach in which teachers teach together and then crucially analyze classroom events together. There has been a significant amount of research into the use of coteaching in a variety of settings. Our research is modeled after the innovative work of Wolff-Michael Roth and Kenneth Tobin, and focuses on learning to teach at the “elbow of another” (2002). Martin (2009) explores the evolution of coteaching in North America through the work of Tobin and Roth and others, and distinguishes between coteaching and other forms of joint teaching models. In addition to the extensive research done by Tobin and Roth into the uses of coteaching in science teacher preparation programs, coteaching has been shown to be effective for developing practices as an urban science educator and for creating possibilities for collaborative research between a university researcher and new teacher (Beers 2005; Wassell 2005). In response to the need to increase new teachers’ confidence around the teaching of science at the elementary level, coteaching has also been demonstrated to be useful for enhancing new teachers’ comfort with teaching science (Murphy and Beggs 2005). Further, coteaching has been utilized in science methods courses in which pre-service teachers coteach with experienced classroom teachers (Eick and Ware 2005). In our courses, learning to teach occurs as praxis3 during which multiple teachers are involved in teaching at the same time. Roth and Tobin have written that

 As we explain the use of certain terms, we would like to clarify that our explanations and definitions are working definitions in that they meet our needs for the use of the terms, but are not exhaustive of their use in the field of science teacher education, as interpretations of words vary widely.

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praxis is “the outcome of the dialectic between agency and structure” (2004, p. 170), and as such, we view praxis as the recursive, interactive relationship between theory and practice, in which knowing is never final. Cogenerative dialogues can be understood as talk about praxis, where the intent is to use “current understandings to describe what has happened, identify problems, articulate problems in terms of contradictions (generalizations), and frame options that provide new and increased choices for enacting teaching and learning” (Roth et al. 2002, p. 9). This perspective of praxis is important for this chapter because teacher education has long focused on a canon of knowledge and of knowing, that Paulo Freire referred to as “banking” (1973). This positivist epistemological separation (between knower/known and between knowing/doing) is a political and methodological separation between teacher and student; one that is reinforced by an emphasis on standardization and accountability as the raison d’être of education. Building on Freire, Kincheloe challenges us to a new teacher education that incorporates a critical understanding of how power shapes individuals and educational practices (2005). Praxis through these theorists involves connecting to power literate problematizing of teaching and learning. Coteaching as praxis occurs as an action in time, and cogenerative dialogues provide a social space in which to critically reflect on praxis in an effort to expand possibilities for action while teaching in the future. We contend that coteaching and cogenerative dialogue offer an alternative to the more authoritative, hierarchical, and sometimes oppressive teaching models that traditionally characterize K-16 education. Our implementation of coteaching requires the use of cogenerative dialogues, and focuses on teacher education courses specifically. Through this approach, we seek to encourage teachers to think critically about events that have unfolded in the classroom, in order to engage in dialogue that examines making changes to improve teaching and learning. We have taken inspiration from Freire’s work focused on dialogue between educator and learner where dialogue serves as both the process and practice of liberation (Freire 1970, 1993). Such liberation is neither a gift from the educator, nor a self-achievement of the learner, but is a mutual process. Freire presented dialogue as a way to move a group toward critical consciousness, and he wrote that “dialogue is nourished by love, humility, hope, faith, and trust … only dialogue truly communicates” (1973, p. 45). We contend that cogenerative dialogue as an approach to teaching and to research facilitates the development of such critical consciousness – and in doing so, offers participants opportunities to generate theory about teaching and learning from a locally situated, first-person perspective. Given that the majority of teachers are women, the deprofessionalization of teaching is gendered in nature, and we contend that women’s voices and experiences need to be specifically considered in addressing this problem. Freire has been criticized by feminist scholars for not being inclusive of the experiences and voices of women in society. However, our utilization of cogenerative dialogue addresses this limitation, as this method lends itself to explicitly addressing inequities and attempting to level hierarchies within a group. Scantlebury and LaVan (2006) have written that cogenerative dialogues can serve as a feminist methodology for

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conducting participatory research, when these collaborative discourse methods provide a social space for reframing discussions, research, and practices to foreground and validate personal experiences as knowledge. This validation of personal experiences as knowledge informs our actions and analysis of interactions with our students. We intentionally set to disrupt the power relations that exist between professor and student and as we consciously work to share responsibility for teaching. By employing these overarching frameworks to theorize the activities of teaching and learning, we can begin to account for our changing epistemological understanding of how this enables participants to equitably share responsibility for teaching and learning at all levels. In the following section, we share how theory has informed our changing praxis as educators over time.

4.3 Shining a New Light on an Old Issue Our evolution as teachers and as teacher educators has led to our understanding of the need for complex theories for thinking about how it is that teachers learn to teach. A theoretical base needs to be utilized in structuring support for the teachers with whom we work. Incorporating coteaching | cogenerative dialogue enables us to strategically employ, identify, and analyze engaged pedagogical practices with our students. As we have gained an increased awareness and appreciation for a variety of theories, we embrace Kenneth Tobin’s metaphor of needing to shine different theoretical lights (Tobin 2008). To explain, he asserts, “as theories illuminate landscapes in particular ways, they simultaneously obscure or fail to discern other potentially salient issues” (p. 1). Thus, Tobin encourages the use of a bricolage approach to research, whereby researchers employ diverse theoretical frameworks and methodologies in a broader social context. For us, this includes involving our students in the analysis of their coteaching experiences by purposefully shining different theoretical lenses on our praxis during cogenerative dialogues, while consciously acknowledging that these lenses illuminate only some windows into the classroom, closing the blinds on others. However, we argue that by engaging our students in cogenerative dialogues about our pedagogical practice in which we share responsibility, we generate new theory about teaching and learning. Thus, cogenerative dialogues provide coteaching participants (including classroom teachers and their students) an opportunity to bring their own theoretical perspectives to light about the shared teaching and learning in the classroom. In shining these different lights, we engage in a reflexive, recursive process with our teachers (and their students), as each theory enables us to reconsider what we are doing in the classroom and enables us to theorize and develop our epistemological understandings. In doing so, we are embracing hook’s notion of engaged pedagogy as we are actively involved and committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes our own well-being united with our effort to empower our students. We distinguish between our use of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue as a method to learning how to teach and a methodological approach to learning about teaching.

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We believe that this is a critical distinction that needs to be made, in that it is in using this as a method that our methodologies continue to develop. This recursive relationship between method and methodology leads to epistemological shifts that then impact our method, and our methodologies. In this spiraling process, our research is always unfinished and evolving. Thus, a challenge that we face in writing this chapter is describing the multilayered approach to teaching and learning that emerges through the use of coteaching and cogenerative dialogues as engaged pedagogical practices. One way we have attempted to mitigate this challenge is by inviting students from our courses to provide additional perspectives on coteaching and cogenerative dialogues. Commentaries appearing throughout the text are intended to offer readers a first-person account of what it is like to be a student in one of our courses.

4.4 Collaborating to Synthesize Experiences Coteaching and cogenerative dialogue, as well as engaged pedagogy are situationspecific, responsive approaches to teaching and to learning. As such, this work acknowledges the difficulty of documenting responsive education. This chapter is a synthesis of work that has been conducted at three universities in the northeast region of the United States. Although we teach in very different programs, we have engaged in collaborative data analysis and theorizing that have served to develop our understanding of the role of engaged pedagogy in teacher education and the possibilities for transformation created through coteaching and cogenerative dialogue. We have met many times during the past several years to share our successes and challenges as participants in these courses. Over time, we have engaged in a collaborative inquiry around the commonalities and contradictions in our experiences, which are built upon our individual ongoing ethnographic studies in the courses we teach. This collaboration has led us to consider questions about our individual uses of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue in our teacher education courses. We have worked together to synthesize our experiences and interpretations to arrive at shared understandings about teaching and learning through coteaching and cogenerative dialogue. Through the emergent nature of our research with our students, the following questions have evolved from our work and have guided our shared analyses: 1. In what ways does coteaching | cogenerative dialogue with pre- and in-service teachers contribute to their professional development? 2. How does critical pedagogy support our practice of implementing coteaching | cogenerative dialogue in our courses? 3. What do we learn about teaching by involving our own students in coteaching | cogenerative dialogue at the university level? Our research into coteaching and cogenerative dialogue as an engaged pedagogical approach to teacher education has followed an emergent design. We examined data

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to collectively analyze the evolution of our courses and the work our students have done with the explicit purpose of considering transformation and finding new ways to empower our pre-service and in-service teachers. Data sources in our individual studies include videotapes of cotaught lessons and cogenerative dialogues, participant writings and work samples, audio taped conversations, and electronic communications (via Blackboard as well as email). In this chapter, we have taken our understandings as have developed through our individual studies, and conducted a collaborative analysis to approach the questions we ask above. Central to this analysis are ongoing discussions between us that support a deconstruction and critical interpretation of our individual experiences, and they lead to a reconstruction of our science teacher education practice. Thus, our learning and theorizing are central foci of this research. We are generative and reflexive as we work with each other and with our students to develop teaching and learning methods and methodologies that refuse to be static, or banked. These questions have evolved from our work with our students and the emergent nature of our research. It is this emergent research and shared responsibility for teaching and learning science that we hope contributes to participants’ professional development (including our own). By involving our students in these processes from the beginning of our courses, we are expanding our own opportunities for learning about our students. In the following section we describe our use of coteaching and cogenerative dialogues in our courses and take a closer look at this approach in the context of our courses as we develop our argument concerning the distinction between methods and methodology and as we map our changing epistemology regarding teaching and learning. Following this, we explore our assertions as related to the three questions above and incorporate the voices of former students as they present their perspectives and experiences in three different science education courses. We conclude the chapter with challenges we face in our courses, suggestions to other teacher educators interested in transforming the nature of traditional education programs, and future directions for our research and teaching.

4.5 Teaching Together Coteaching in the contexts of our education courses is a practice grounded in the phenomenological concept of two or more teachers being-in/with others as they share in planning and enacting a particular curricular activity and then engage in a meaningful conversation about this shared experience in an effort to generate local theory about teaching – from being in a particular situation with other teachers and students. Our use of coteaching has evolved from solely being a method of learning of how to teach to becoming an approach to reflect upon classroom events to improve both the teaching and learning in classrooms. As such, our courses are structured so that the focus is learning to teach and learning about teaching by being engaged in shared responsibility. In a position paper concerning education policies, Roth has called for “more dialogically oriented, democratic approaches to change

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efforts in science education” (2007, p. 725). By enacting collective responsibility for teaching, we seek to address this call for democratic approaches to changing science education by involving teachers in making decisions and thus, emphasizing meaningful change in the teaching and learning of science. This shared decision making necessitates that changes occur based on whatever student is in a course at that time. What we specifically do each semester varies based on our students’ needs and our own evolution from course to course, as course participants change each semester, the structures developed together within the context of a single course will necessarily be different from the structures developed within another course with different participants, even when the content is the same. For this reason, we consider the structure of our courses and our research as design experiments (Brown 1992) in order to allow for a continual redesign of the teacher education curricula as it is unfolding. Thus, we cannot provide a model, per se, for such courses. We do, however, seek to provide a framework for thinking about ways to share responsibility with our students. In the following sections we describe our individual course structures. In a course developed by Chris, undergraduate elementary pre-service teachers develop and coteach lessons to children as an ongoing part of their science methods course. This course meets twice weekly, with one weekly meeting dedicated to cogenerative dialogues at the college, and one weekly meeting occurs in a local elementary school. In this approach, pre-service teachers work with Chris and the classroom teacher to collaboratively develop a 10-week science unit that they coteach in an elementary classroom. Thus, the pre-service teachers, Chris, and the classroom teacher all share the responsibility for planning and teaching the unit to the children. All participants are present, active teachers during the lessons with children, though each pre-service teacher enacts the role of main facilitator at a different time. Cogenerative dialogues in between the lessons serve to provide a space to discuss the events in the classroom and cogenerate plans of action for the future teaching sessions. In a second approach, Sonya structures her graduate preand in-service teacher education courses to involve students in the co-generation of the course syllabus using program, student, and instructor goals and interests to develop the structure of the class, including course assignments and activities. Sonya then works in revolving teams with small groups of students to coplan and coteach each class together, such that Sonya has an opportunity to coteach with each student and then discuss the taught lessons using cogenerative dialogues in a small group involving only the coteaching team and with the whole class to discuss the experience from a student perspective. We each begin our courses by talking about how things have worked previously, but stress that this may not be the case this time, and that we will co-construct course expectations as a group. Through this emergent design, shared perspectives that are facilitated in cogenerative dialogues are used to inform the evolving understandings of learning to teach science. This supports our desire to counter standardization within our courses, and to make the curriculum for teachers as relevant as possible. As we engage our students in structuring their own learning, we seek to encourage students to “experience the mutual communion with teacher and subject

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that makes for profound engagement” (hooks 2003, p. 130). The focus on shared, communal, learning becomes a humanizing approach to teacher education, as participants work together for a shared purpose, rather than competing for individual success at the expense of others. In both our courses, the salient underlying concept is being in/with, where both the instructors and students share responsibility for creating, planning, teaching, and evaluating the course. Collectively enacting these practices provides coparticipants a first-person perspective from which to analyze an individual’s decisions about curriculum choices, sequencing of material, instructional strategies for involving peers in the lessons, and incorporation of informal and formal assessments. However, it is not until participants are involved in cogenerative dialogues with one another about being in the classroom together in which the coplanned lessons are enacted and reflected upon that we can begin to cogenerate local theory about what it means to teach and learn in this instance. Thus, incorporating coteaching and cogenerative dialogue and an engaged pedagogical approach becomes a recursive, reflexive process. As a result, the epistemological shift that we experience is also recursive; as we change our ideas about how learning occurs, we change our teaching.

4.6 Cogenerating Change in Teacher Education Cogenerative dialogues are crucial components of coteaching, as they serve to provide opportunities to “identify and review what seems to work and what does not, especially practices and schema that disadvantage participants” (Tobin and Roth 2006, p. 81). They are implemented in our courses in an attempt to change institutional culture and to equalize power between members of the group, as everyone is able to have and express a viewpoint. Thus, the coteaching approach that we advocate is distinguished from other collaborative models to learning how to teach through the explicit, exclusive focus on engaging in reflective discourse on teaching through these cogenerative dialogues (Martin 2009). Within cogenerative dialogues, participants can begin to analyze reasons for decisions in the classroom and how the enactment of certain practices shapes the specific learning environment in which these participants are involved. These conversations serve to raise consciousness about the praxis of teaching by recursively reflecting on teaching. We use the term recursive to imply that the analysis of shared classroom experiences in cogenerative dialogue is reflexively tied to transforming future actions in the classroom based on what the participants learn about themselves as teachers and learners by reflecting on being in this classroom with others. Actively collaborating with our teacher education students in coteaching experiences supports us in synthesizing the knowledge and experiences of the individual participants into local theory of teaching and learning science. In discussing local theory, we are referring to theory that is grounded in participants’ experiences in the

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locality of our courses. By generating such local theory, we attempt to “understand and explain the classroom events that we experience together with the resident coteachers. In our theorizing, we draw on and adapt existing theoretical tools” (Roth and Tobin 2004, p. 165). Such local theory evolves from the knowledge and experiences of the teachers; it emerges and shifts through collaboration with each other. As we verbalize these understandings with our students, it is with the explicit purpose of making clear the connections they are making, and it is in the ongoing cogenerative dialogues that these theoretical understandings evolve. In becoming aware of what we are learning about teaching by being in/with the other, we focus on how to apply this learning to future experiences when they are teachers in their own classrooms. In this way, we are using coteaching and cogenerative dialogue as an approach to diminish the isolation that teachers often feel in the confines of their own classrooms. We see this approach as critical if teachers, at any level, are to begin viewing the students in their classroom as resources for thinking and learning about science and science teaching. In addition, we see this method as being critical for fostering reflection with others in an effort to develop local theory that can be utilized by teachers and students to improve the learning environment. Our experiences being in coteaching arrangements and cogenerative dialogues with students who are learning to teach provide us with more than a method for structuring our courses, by also providing a research methodology for gathering data about how people learn to teach while employing this method. Taken from this perspective, it becomes clear that by “shining” different theoretical lenses onto our individual and collective experiences being in/with others coteaching and cogenerating theory, we are provided opportunities to engage in an analysis of the teaching and learning that is enacted in our classes over time. In the next sections, we address our guiding questions by providing concrete examples with student perspectives and our theorization of the transformative potential of coteaching | cogenerative dialogue as a method and methodology for effecting positive changes in classroom teaching, learning, and research.

4.7 Our Research on Learning to Teach Science There are multiple layers to our pedagogy and our research, and our shared analysis reveals three findings that are related to our research questions; coteaching serves to support teachers and facilitate their professional development, coteaching | cogenerative dialogue creates a space for teaching and learning to come together and support the emergence of local theory, and sharing teaching experiences with our students enables us to continue to learn and grow as teachers and as researchers. In the following sections, we draw out these different facets to create our approach to learning how to teach science. To provide the perspectives of students’ experiences in our courses, we asked four teachers to provide input to this chapter. Nicole Lowell and Jenna Marvin have

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been students and coresearchers in Chris’s undergraduate course in which pre-service teachers and Chris collaboratively develop and coteach science with an elementary classroom teacher. Yushaneen Wilson, a pre-service teacher, and Shelley Baker, an in-service teacher, have each been graduate students in two different university programs in which Sonya taught. In both programs, Sonya invited her students to co-construct the structure and expectations for a science pedagogy course using coteaching and cogenerative dialogues. We asked all four teachers to read a draft of this paper and to respond in relation to their experiences as students in our courses. In the following sections, we elaborate on our three guiding questions by combining first-person narrative accounts from these students and by presenting a reflexive discussion of our experiences implementing this approach.

4.7.1 Coteaching Serves to Support Teachers and Facilitate Professional Development In this section, we share our general findings related to shared responsibility (developed through coteaching), which supports the development of participants’ sense of professionalism. Each of our courses begins with a framework (based on course objectives and enduring understandings) that serves as guiding points to co-construct the course experiences with participants. By being centrally involved in the structuring of activities, teachers feel as if their contributions matter and that both their peers and we treated them as someone worth listening to. Nicole: There was a true sense of reliance between us in that we each counted on and needed each other, and this helped foster our sense of coresponsibility. Everyone had an equal stake in the classroom, and the use of cogenerative dialogues allowed this sense of equality. Each teacher’s thoughts, concerns, and ideas were important and were heard by the group.

Nicole’s comment emphasizes how, by combining coteaching with cogenerative dialogue, teachers are valuable contributors to their own teacher education curriculum. As we collaborate with these teachers on the development of curriculum for our courses, a variety of issues surface, and cogenerative dialogues serve to provide the opportunity to explore how, as teachers, these issues can be dealt with. For example, a common dilemma faced by pre-service teachers in their interactions with school faculty is that they are privy to conversations in which children are discussed through deficit lenses. Pre-service teachers are distressed by these conversations, but they have expressed having few places within the academy to address their concerns. The cogenerative dialogues provide a space to air these concerns and discuss possible responses to such experiences, and participants explore options to dealing with similar situations in the future. Ongoing participation in cogenerative dialogue supports teachers developing ways of talking, thinking, and approaching situations that expands their agency in their schools. We believe that through engaged pedagogy, we are both improving

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the condition of teaching and learning in our classes, but additionally, by providing these opportunities we are expanding the opportunities for our students as future teachers in their own classrooms. Because these teachers experience learning through engaged pedagogical approaches, they are better equipped to model that same sort of teaching with their students, and to incorporate a focus on student well-being and engagement in the curriculum. They begin to see that we value our students as resources, and that we strive to teach in a way that is relevant to the situation. Through this recognition, they often draw connections to their own practice and roles as teachers. Yushaneen: This experience transformed the way that I view the role of teachers and students. I learned that when responsibility is shared, students are more likely to be engaged in the learning process. They are better able to take ownership for their own learning and progress.

Yushaneen’s comment illustrates how our focus on holistic approaches to teaching correlate to her own perspective of the role of teachers and students. Additionally, as our students experience shared responsibility, they become able to carry themselves as professionals who have had an opportunity to critically examine teaching, school policy, and have had the opportunity to talk about those things using appropriate language. In short, as they learn about being a teacher, they develop an understanding of what it means to them to be a professional teacher; what questions to ask, how to participate in certain conversations, how to advocate for oneself and one’s students. In the following contribution, Nicole discusses this evolution from college student to elementary teacher. Nicole: There was a true transformation of identity for me. I began the course as an Education student, and throughout the course of the semester I began to view myself as new teacher. Our discussions focused on collaboratively producing each of our lessons and then coteaching them in the classroom, and this provided us with the experience of working with other teachers on curriculum decisions. There was a feeling that we were in it together, and this was critical to my understandings of the “real world” of teaching.

In addition to supporting our students, coteaching supports us as instructors in “deviating” from the teacher education curriculum enough to be able to have more holistic conversations that emphasize the profession of teaching. Combining coteaching with cogenerative dialogues is significant in supporting teachers to be able to develop and understand their profession, and their role within that profession; it is in many ways the difference between “training” teachers and “educating” teachers. Coteaching and cogenerative dialogues support us as we examine curriculum standards with our students and explore ways in which standards can be addressed. We intentionally have conversations with our students in which we explore course requirements that we are held accountable for in our teaching. We examine the possibilities for meeting standards, and together we consider ways for us to reach these standards together. Here Shelley discusses how coming into Sonya’s course, her initial expectations for a college class included being presented with a completed course syllabus with predefined topics and activities.

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Shelley: The first class meeting did not involve examining a prepared course syllabus but rather brainstorming and identifying as a class those topics that would be studied. The process was interesting though at moments almost chaotic particularly as we worked toward the identification of the topics that we felt were important to pursue. However, by the end we had not only identified what we would study during our course, but also who would be involved in the co-teaching of those topics based on our particular interests and experiences.

As we challenge the notion that structures within a class must be set and predetermined, we explore the ways to approach course expectations so that a course can be co-constructed to meet participants’ needs, and still meet a given set of programmatic and course standards. As we work with our students to redefine structures within our courses, we demonstrate that there do not have to be “cookie-cutter” approaches to education, and we openly draw connections to the teaching of science to children. While one important facet of our courses is developing our course outlines and curriculum with our students, we do not think that it is sufficient. We must incorporate discussions about what we are learning and how we can apply it, both as students and as teachers. As the courses are co-constructed by all participants through a recursive process that is continually revisited, coteaching and cogenerative dialogue become useful pedagogical methodologies to support teachers to find their voice and figure out the problems they need to address. These shared conversations about what we are learning can be applied to both the experience as a student in this course, and the experience as a teacher where we examine what it means to learn as a teacher and how what is learned as a student in this course can be applied to future teaching. Thus, coteaching | cogenerative dialogues as a pedagogical approach to teacher education serves as a method, in that they are an approach to conversation, as well as a methodology, in that they are a pedagogical approach that supports a conversation about teaching that takes place on various levels. As pedagogical tools for examining teaching and learning, coteaching and cogenerative dialogues provide support for closely examining decision making in teacher education. As our courses have changed over time, we have become more invested in understanding that we are using coteaching and cogenerative dialogues as integral components of the courses that cannot be separated from another. Shifting from using coteaching and cogenerative dialogue mainly as a method to structuring a course to recognizing the broader theoretical possibilities of this approach has allowed us to change the type of questions that we ask about teaching and learning. Additionally, we have become able to broaden our scope of analysis from considering not only what is happening in the present (with this student in my course), to what will happen when this student becomes a teacher in her/his classroom as a result of the experiences as learner in our courses. As a result, we systematically engage students in conversations around not only the present circumstances of the classroom practices we are sharing, but to considering our beliefs and practices in relation to future teaching experiences. Thus, the frame of our analysis has shifted from considering this as a method for conducting our course to a methodology for

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learning about how people learn to teach. This shift required that we organize our thinking around teaching and learning within the context of more sophisticated theoretical frameworks, while simultaneously maintaining a focus on the generation of local theory about teaching with our students.

4.7.2 Coteaching | Cogenerative Dialogue Creates a Space for Teaching and Learning to Come Together and Support the Emergence of Local Theory We began our exploration into this approach to teacher education by discussing how critical pedagogy and engaged pedagogy support our practice of implementing coteaching and cogenerative dialogue in our courses. What we have noticed individually is that through interacting with teachers as coteachers and in cogenerative dialogues we have recognized that there are differences in how the students interact with us and express themselves. We see a growth in their interactions as professionals, and as they learn to navigate teaching using engaged pedagogy as an approach to teaching. Freire wrote of being “aware of the difference in language, the semantic syntactical differences” (1998, p. 15), and Kincheloe reminds us of the importance of recognizing the complex interplay of different types of knowledge (normative, empirical, political, ontological, and experiential) in teacher education (2008, p. 113–116). We are aware of the shifting and multiple differences between students and teachers, and are sensitive to the dynamics between us. As hooks notes, the boundaries between teacher and student are cemented in the academy. Our awareness of our roles as “professors” coupled with our desire to work around these boundaries leads us to be constantly working to create a community and to foster a dialogue of “we” (Siry and Ali Khan 2009). Nicole’s following comment emphasizes the importance of this perspective to her own experiences as a new teacher. Nicole: The success of this course was dependent on our ability to plan and facilitate lessons together. This coresponsibility for the course was shared between us all, and although Chris was the professor of this course, she did not focus on direct instruction, instead the focus was to facilitate our learning and growth as teachers. Our college classroom time was spent engaging in cogenerative dialogues, and I believe that this approach really leveled all of the participants. This is to say there was not a hierarchical nature to our time together. Chris interacted with us, and acknowledged us, as colleagues and teachers, unlike in other courses when I sometimes feel like students are seen as being inferior to their professors somehow.

Engaged pedagogy requires a holistic approach to teaching. It creates an approach that goes beyond course objectives and teaching standards and attempts to include a social space where we are talking about the purposes of having objectives and standards, and the role of the teacher in defining her own objectives that may be in keeping with a district’s objectives. In this vein, cogenerative dialogues provide for conversations in which participants (including us) can open up a

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conversation to discuss their feelings about teaching and decisions they are struggling with, and also be honest about a fear of telling these struggles. From these conversations we are able to transition into conversations in which we can discuss how when our students teach, they will have to make decisions about what it means for their students to have learned. Through cogenerative dialogues, we are able to share examples from our own teaching, such as both struggling to define what we see as appropriate and equitable assessments of our students’ learning to teach. Our example can then lead to conversations about they will each be able to determine when their students have learned something. Shelley comments on how assessment emerged from her group’s coteaching experiences. Shelley: With little initial structure or models to base our preparation on, I believe we all found the beginning steps very challenging. When it was time to conduct our cotaught session, we were well prepared and able to facilitate a beneficial session for our cohort. As a result of our session, several procedures for the preparation, implementation, evaluation and reflection of the co-taught sessions were established, and so we provided a starting point for other groups on which to build and improve.

In this instance, assessment criteria grew out of the shared experience participating in their cotaught session. In addition to supporting us as we co-construct course activities and assessment, engaged pedagogy supports us as we establish trusting relationships with our students; it creates a situation where trust and teaching and learning come together. This sense of trust allows us to take more risks in our teaching because we trust that our students are giving as much as they can in their teaching and in their learning. This worldview of being a “course professor” emerges from the ways in which we both think about teaching and what it means to be a teacher. As we attempt to break down the hierarchy inherent in the professor/student relationship we need to be open to entertaining alternatives. We work to create a place where “the classroom, with all its limitations, remains a place of possibility” (hooks 1994, p. 207). Nicole: The use of cogenerative dialogues as an approach to teaching is key to the success I experienced throughout this course. I was able to witness each day how important and positive this approach can be. As a student, I felt I had an equal voice in our classroom community. As a teacher I had the opportunity to engage in cogenerative dialogues with my elementary students. I do not believe that the feedback that I received in the cogenerative dialogue would have been shared in a “regular” hierarchical classroom.

We have found that, as Nicole explains above, teachers begin to see coteaching and cogenerative dialogue as valuable for their learning and their learning with their students. As they collaborate and dialogue, they begin to recognize that these methods become grounded in local theory and thus help to frame their abilities to do research on their teaching and to incorporate an engaged pedagogical approach in their classrooms. Yushaneen: This course challenged my ideas of how classrooms should be run. Rather than telling students what to do and how to do it, Sonya allowed us to develop in ways that were natural for each us. Students saw that she valued their voices and that built up their confidence in their own abilities. I watch how Sonya’s organic approach to teaching and learning created an empowered and enthusiastic community of learners.

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As teachers experience these pedagogies as students, they discover first-hand the importance of having input in one’s curriculum, sharing ideas for learning, and supporting collective successes in the classroom. Jenna: Sharing responsibility for teaching was extremely helpful, as I was in a classroom with my fellow pre-service teachers, Chris, and the classroom teacher. My classmates really helped me because most of them were more experienced than me in teaching lessons. Because of the focus on shared responsibility, I felt comfortable with everyone in the class, which made teaching the lesson a lot easier because instead of feeling intimidated, I felt that I had a lot of support from my classmates.

When they experience the sharing of responsibility themselves and acknowledge the connections they are making collectively, they become aware of how to utilize these in their own classrooms with students. Thus, their experiences having cogenerative dialogues give them experiences about how to have conversations about teaching and learning that better position them to have those kinds of conversations with their own students. Jenna: I have found that cogenerative dialogues are very helpful because it’s important to have time to discuss different things that happen in the classroom. I think that in order to improve in anything there needs to be both positive and negative feedback. After a lesson we were able to discuss why it went the way it did. We were able to reflect upon the successes and challenges of the lessons and begin to discuss why things may have happened the way they did.

Cogenerative dialogues become a key place to synthesize the knowledge and experiences of all the teacher participants (including us). As we weave together our local theories about teaching and learning, the dialogues ground such theory formation and our collaboration. We learn a great deal from participating in these courses, and in particular, we have learned how to structure our classes so that we meet the needs of our learners. In working so closely with our students, we come to know who our learners are and learn a lot about who we are as teachers and learners as well.

4.7.3 Sharing Teaching Experiences with Our Students Enables Us to Continue to Learn and Grow as Teachers and as Researchers We believe that what we are doing as instructors of these courses is an important way to model new ways to think about teaching, including our own teaching. Earlier, we made mention of the epistemological changes that we have undergone as instructors of these courses. These critical transformations have resulted from our use of coteaching and cogenerative dialogues as an engaged pedagogical approach, which we believe has had major consequences for our students’ learning and our teaching. When we each initially implemented coteaching into our respective courses, we thought that sharing teaching would be an interesting way to structure

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a course, and to learn about teaching. Coteaching served as a method to our instruction; it was what we did in our courses. As we each began to incorporate cogenerative dialogues into these courses, we experienced significant shifts in our epistemological understanding about learning. Before cogenerative dialogues, we were not sharing responsibility or power very openly and we found it was not actually possible to share responsibility as the students only had a tacit investment in the success of course overall. When we began implementing cogenerative dialogues, however, we shifted to a pedagogy that is holistic, and considers the well-being of our students. Doing so demonstrated an ethic of care for our students, which helped to transform our social interactions with our students. Here Nicole expresses the evident ways in which Chris cared for them students, and discusses the connection between being cared about and wanting to learn and participate fully in the course. Nicole: I think a major outcome of the use of coteaching and cogenerative dialogues was a true sense of community that emerged in our class. All of the students trusted and respected each other as colleagues, and our class was a safe environment to discuss many different aspects of teaching, whether specific to our lessons or about broader issues in education. Chris was available just as much outside of the classroom as in it, and so she became more of a mentor than a regular professor. We knew that she cared about us as students as well as people, which made us want to show up and be there. We also recognized how much she respected us by how seeing much time she put into our class. Personally, I felt validated as a teacher, because she treated us as teachers as well as students, and respected our decisions in the classroom.

This sense of being respected and cared about is not dissimilar from what we encourage our students to do with their own students. In our courses, we explore why we do things, and we openly discuss what it is that we are seeking to accomplish with coteaching. We examine how this practice breaks down hierarchies, and we make attempt to make our practices and decision-making processes as transparent as possible. We attempt to raise our students’ consciousness about what we are doing by openly having conversations about our expectations, their experiences, and our collective experiences. In this way, we are working to generate local theory with our teachers. Epistemologically, what we learn about teaching and learning changes in similar ways, shifting the relationship between knower and known, and refuting an epistemological positivist perspective that creates a given truth. Instead, we focus on our fluid and local truths that we explore and reveal together. These shared conversations have led us to talk with our students about what we are learning about teaching teachers. Seeing our students differently changes how we see our role as teacher educators. As a result, we have come to recognize that there is no value in attempting to share a predetermined canon of knowledge about teaching. We have learned that even if there was such a canon of knowledge to share, doing so from a one-sided format does little to impact the beliefs individual students bring with them about teaching and learning to teacher education programs. Indeed, we have come to believe our goal in teacher education should not be to change our students’ ontologies or dispositions regarding teaching and learning, but rather, our goal should be to provide opportunities (for both us and our students)

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to learn what ontologies and dispositions we each hold. We do so not with the intent of forcing students to change their beliefs to align with some predefined standards, but to acknowledge that everyone has something to contribute to conversations about teaching and learning. When we work together to create a social space to talk about these issues, we are better able to support our students to question what it means to be a teacher. The accounts shared by our students in this chapter suggest they are each developing understandings of what it means to become a teacher. Additionally, it is significant that this approach enables us as teacher educators to continue to expand our understandings about how people learn to teach by supporting our students as we collaborative engage in coteaching and cogenerative dialogues in our courses.

4.8 Challenges in Implementing an Engaged Pedagogical Approach While we are completely committed to the utilization of a holistic, responsive, engaged approach to learning how to teach, a challenge with which we have both been faced is gaining the support of administrators and colleagues to teach courses that are so different from traditional course offerings. Additionally, because many teacher education programs are experiencing a push for standardization, it becomes challenging to argue for a course to be developed such that it would change for each student’s needs, as it creates difficulty in meeting a standard proficiency. On the personal level, we have found that when there is an expectation of consistency across all courses, it can be difficult politically and socially for all parties if there is another faculty member teaching the same course. For administrators and faculty members who value standardization across programs, employing this approach could leave questions for those who evaluate our teaching performance in comparison to others who use more traditional approaches. Additionally, student reactions to novel teaching methods that differ from traditional courses may invite critiques that could be detrimental for new or pre-tenure faculty. Here, Yushaneen speaks to her classmates’ initial hesitations around this approach. Yushaneen: I have taken over fifteen graduate level education courses to prepare me for teaching. A common feature of all of these courses was their design. A syllabus was handed out on the first day of class. It detailed readings, learning activities, and homework assignments selected by the instructor to meet specific learning objectives. It outlined the dates for assignment and assessments. The syllabus was the key to understanding the structure of the course. The course taught by Sonya took a much different approach. There was no syllabus! Students were responsible for selecting the topics they wished to explore, deciding how to demonstrate their knowledge, and creating a final project in the medium of their choice. This organic, nontraditional approach made all of the students in the course very uneasy.

However, it has been our experience that while our own students report that they struggle initially to understand how our course will unfold, given that it is generally

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quite different from what they have experienced in other courses, once the course has been running for a few weeks, student comments are overwhelmingly positive, and we personally have received very encouraging feedback from students both during and after our courses. Yushaneen: I remember thinking, “This is not how school works! How can I be responsible for structuring my own learning? Isn’t that the teachers job?” I thought about dropping the class. With Sonya’s support, I was able to work through my fear. She met with me frequently to discuss my progress. She offered suggestions and provided supplementary readings. Each passing week became easier for me to provide myself the structure necessary to accomplish the objectives I set forth. Through weekly class discussions, I was able to learn about the progress of my classmates. These discussions allowed me to get to know each of them. Over time I began to view them as valuable resources that could aid and guide me on my journey. Lastly, through this course I learned about my preferences for structuring my own learning. It helped me to understand how to structure learning for me students in a way that no “create your own lesson plan” exercise in previous courses had done. I also better understand how to guide and support my students as they learn.

While we are wholeheartedly dedicated to this approach, we believe it is important to note that this type of teaching requires a strong individual commitment as well as a departmental commitment. Limited course enrollment is one key to our success, and as such, we need the support of administrators to run our courses. We also need appropriate understanding by faculty evaluators that smaller courses do not necessarily mean less work, simply different work. As course instructors, this approach is time consuming and requires patience and thoughtful reflection. Whereas in a traditional course an instructor may make all the decisions, now we must work with our group to make decisions that affect us all. However, we maintain that it is completely worth the extra time we may put into our courses, because we are in a position to build stronger relationships with students, we learn more about our own teaching, and we expand opportunities for learning in general.

4.9 Implications for Science Teacher Education The combined use of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue connects to create opportunities for college faculty and pre- and in-service teachers to engage in professional conversation about the importance of teaching and learning science. Our work on the use of engaged pedagogy as a lens to coteaching | cogenerative dialogue in our science teacher education courses has direct implications for teacher education in that it provides a critical perspective on learning to teach science. This approach supports the need to reformulate and restructure teaching and learning to promote reflective praxis, to increase professional development communities in schools, and to minimize hierarchical relationships between faculty and pre-service/ in-service teachers. In supporting continued efforts to collectively examine structures related to science teaching and learning, we promote positive classroom climates for all students and teachers at both the college and K-12 levels.

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As the national debate around teacher accountability rages on, issues about what it means to educate highly qualified professionals who are both competent and confident in their ability to support students, and to create positive learning environments in which all students can learn, continues to be of great concern to all teacher educators. We offer some insights into how this approach has made a difference in our students’ lives and our own. We think teacher educators need to reexamine their own praxis at the university level in an effort to better prepare individuals to teach children at the K-12 levels. Our work provides teacher educators a methodological basis for transforming science teacher education at the macro level by engaging future and current teachers in sharing responsibility of their own learning, which has the potential to transform teaching at all levels.

4.10 Conclusions and Future Directions Numerous studies (e.g., Tobin 2006) have shown that the collaboration and support that emerge from coteaching can provide all participants with opportunities to discuss and reflect upon improving their praxis. Further, our experiences with students have served to illuminate for us the political power of coteaching. Echoing Freire, we have found that in our students, “the ‘culture of silence’ was suddenly shattered, and they had discovered not only that they could speak, but that their critical discourse upon the world, their world, was a way of remaking their world” (1998, p. 30). Our research suggests that coteaching and cogenerative dialogues can provide teachers with opportunities to reflect upon their praxis with a focus on improving teaching and learning in the classroom. Additionally, we have discovered that as we focus on shared responsibility, we increase individual as well as collective decision making for the teaching of science, and work toward improving all of our positions, as situated within the profession of teaching. We seek to empower the teachers with whom we work, and see such collective empowerment as “a process intended by the person or persons themselves, and has to be experienced as such by the participants to be transformative; empowerment is something that cannot be conferred but which is co-extensive with the expansion of control over one’s conditions and with the expansion of one’s room to maneuver with respect to changing the conditions” (Roth 2007, p. 740). Thus, our use of coteaching goes beyond learning how to teach, to become a way to transform the teaching and learning of science through a specific focus on understanding praxis and actively contributing to decision making. As we correlate our shared experiences to their classrooms over time, we believe that it necessitates a change in epistemological understandings. At first, we were very much engaged in the method of teaching together. Over time, we have engaged students in the pedagogy and through time we have been able to move outside of the process of teaching a course syllabus to begin to direct conversations about how our shared experiences in the present inform the future teaching of our students’ students, as well as our future students. Interestingly, in our courses, there are ongoing

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changes in how the courses are structured or assignments are developed, but these are predominantly minor changes. The substantial changes are evident in our relationships with students and their relationships with each other, and we believe these changes have come about as a result of negotiating shared responsibility for (co) teaching and learning through cogenerative dialogues. This approach creates a foundation for our praxis at three levels, what we have come to refer to as our present (the “here and now” of what is happening in the courses), your future teaching (what can be possible in the pre- and in-service teachers’ classrooms), and my future teaching (the possibilities in our future courses as science teacher education instructors). In working together with our students, and with each other, we move toward “a place of liberating mutuality where teacher and student together work in partnership” (hooks 2003, p. xv). This work continues to evolve through such partnership, and as such, it pushes back against us and requires us to shift and grow as teacher educators. At the same time, our work pushes back against the deprofessionalization of classroom teachers to emphasize the decision-making powers of professional teachers. Acknowledgments  We would like to thank Shelley Baker, Nicole Lowell, Jenna Marvin, and Yushaneen Wilson for their participation in this chapter. Their perspectives have been critical through the development and writing of this chapter and have enabled us to consider viewpoints that we had not previously considered.

References Beers, J. (2005). The role of coteaching in the development of the practices of an urban science teacher. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 79–95). New York: Peter Lang. Brown, A. L. (1992). Design experiments: Theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions in classroom settings. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2, 141–178. Eick, C. J. & Ware, F. (2005). Coteaching in a science methods course: An apprenticeship model for early induction to the secondary classroom. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 187–286). New York: Peter Lang. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum Press. Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. New York: Continuum Press. Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the city. New York: Continuum Press. Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of hope. New York: Continuum Press. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge. hooks, b. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge. Kincheloe, J. L. (2003). Teachers as researchers: Qualitative inquiry as a path to empowerment (2nd ed.). New York: Falmer. Kincheloe, J. L. (2005). Critical constructivism primer. New York: Peter Lang. Kincheloe, J. L. (2008). Critical pedagogy primer (2nd ed.). New York: Peter Lang. Martin, S. (2009). Learning to teach science. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), World of science education: North America (pp. 567–586). The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2005). Coteaching as an approach to enhance science learning and teaching in primary schools. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 207–231). New York: Peter Lang.

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Roth, W.-M. (2005). Doing qualitative research: Praxis of method. The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Roth, W.-M. (2007). Toward solidarity as the ground for changing science education. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2, 721–783. Roth, W.-M. & Tobin, K. (2002). At the elbow of another: Learning to teach by coteaching. New York: Peter Lang. Roth, W.-M. & Tobin, K. (2004). Coteaching: From praxis to theory. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 10(2), 161–180. Roth, W.-M., Tobin, K., & Zimmerman, A. (2002). Coteaching: Learning environments research as aspect of classroom praxis. Learning Environments Research, 5, 1–28. Scantlebury, K., & LaVan, S.-K. (2006, March). Re-visioning cogenerative dialogues as feminist pedagogy/research [33 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research [On-line Journal], 7(2), Article 41, from http://www.qualitative-research.net/ fqs-texte/2-06/06-2-41-e.htm (Date of Access: June 18, 2008). Siry, C., & Ali Khan, C. (2009, February). Holding hands: An examination of collaboration in research. Paper presented at the Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum, Philadelphia, PA. Tobin, K. (2006). Learning to teach through coteaching and cogenerative dialogue. Teaching Education, 17, 133–142. Tobin, K. (2008). In search of new lights: Getting the most from competing perspectives. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2(3), 227–230. Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Wassell, B. (2005). Coteaching as a site for collaborative research. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 121–139). New York: Peter Lang.

Chapter 5

Producing and Maintaining Culturally Adaptive Teaching and Learning of Science in Urban Schools Kenneth Tobin and Rey Llena

Science achievement in urban schools is related to social class (Morais et al. 1992), especially in high-poverty regions in which ethnic minorities attend neighborhood schools (e.g., Tobin et al. 2005). Unfortunately, solutions to the problems have been characterized in terms of reducing achievement gaps and framing the problems and potential solutions in terms of deficit perspectives that embrace meritocracy, especially holding individuals accountable for their own achievement and, in the case of teachers, for their students’ achievement. Usually ignored are the cultural resources, which are the very building blocks on which science achievement can grow. In our ongoing research, we have searched for the capital used by youth belonging to social categories that appear to be disadvantaged in many fields of their lifeworlds. However, they succeed in many ways and we take care not to overlook the resources they deploy in attaining their goals. Accordingly, our project has sought to identify the culture that is a foundation for success in out-of-school fields and explore ways in which similar culture might support learning in schools (Tobin 2007a). Our research shows how social class, often associated with poverty, affords the production of culture (i.e., science learning). However, social categories such as race, ethnicity, and sex also serve as mediators of cultural production and it can be challenging for teachers who belong to different social categories to be effective teachers of students who are “culturally other.” For example, later in the chapter, we discuss the problems experienced by an immigrant teacher from Egypt, who struggled to teach ethnically diverse youth – none emigrating from Egypt. To teach successfully, a teacher has to know the field in which culture is to be enacted and that implies having a sense of the game that allows her to anticipate what is to come and act appropriately just in time. Being at home with the culture of others usually necessitates, and probably always necessitates, extensive experience with that culture, learning about it by being with actors as they participate in the activity of the field. Implied is cultural adaptivity where teachers know the culture of their students and can adapt to it and students can successfully adapt to one another’s culture and their teacher’s culture.

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Culture is associated with a field and consists of the participants’ practices and other resources that structure the field. Culture is theorized as a dialectical relationship between practices and their associated schema. Hence, within a field, culture is dynamic, reflecting the structural flux in which all enaction is immersed. Culture occurs in fields in characteristic ways that can be thought of as patterns that have thin coherence, always accompanied by contradictions (Sewell 1999). As it is enacted, culture becomes a resource, which is a structure that can support further cultural production either through the agency of participants or passivity (see Roth. 2007)

In a program of research that has extended for more than a decade, we have developed an approach that recognizes the worth of the cultural resources of others and assumes that effective collaborations can be built around differences and support the learning of all participants in a field. In this chapter, we describe what we have learned about teaching and learning science in urban schools and present some illustrative examples of impressive improvements in the quality of learning environments and outcomes such as coming to school, staying engaged, and collaborating with the teacher and peers to focus on the learning of science. Unless noted below, the text reflects a collective voice of the authors. Personal pronouns such as I and me denote Ken’s voice and gray-shaded text denotes Rey’s voice. Usually, Rey’s voice interrupts the text and is not intended to extend ideas being developed either using my voice or a collective voice. Occasionally, I use a textbox to provide a voice-over commentary that is a reflective analysis that occurred after the initial writing of the chapter. My voice-over contributions also are intended to disrupt the flow of the manuscript.

5.1 Researching Science Education in Urban Schools When I was the Director of Teacher Education at the University of Pennsylvania, the principal of a nearby school suggested coteaching as an experiment designed to allow prospective science teachers to collaborate to teach biology to urban highschool youth. The problem he sought to resolve was that the students were so unsettled and seemingly unmanageable that the regular classroom teacher was reluctant to surrender the class to a novice. The principal had other ideas though. He felt that the energy and expertise that prospective teachers would bring to the classroom would be recognized by youth as highly desirable and they would respond accordingly. Since, in this case, all the prospective teachers already had a degree in science, it was possible for them to obtain emergency certification and thereby to teach together without the presence of a regular certified teacher.

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Hence, the initial idea was to capitalize on the strengths of the prospective science teachers to enact engaging and challenging curricula that would benefit urban youth. I agreed to carefully research what happened and ascertain whether or not coteaching was an approach we would use throughout the program. The results from the first test were encouraging, and during the next semester, the entire cohort of prospective high-school teachers was involved in coteaching, an approach that I continued to research with colleagues for the 6 years I was at the University of Pennsylvania. At the same time, the coteaching experiment was initiated, all prospective teachers were collaborating with two youths selected from each class they taught to coach them on “how to better teach kids like me.” When coteaching emerged as a way of teaching urban youth, the conversations between the youth and the coteachers had more participants (since there were now two to three teachers) and a greater sense of collective was evident. After a year or so of coteaching, we formulated a rule structure for what was to happen during these discussions. Initially, the conversations were to be about praxis, that is, the knowledge enacted in the classroom by all participants. The focus of discussion could be on things that were good and should be retained and/or on aspects of the class that should be improved. Since the participants in the conversations should have had a shared experience, we soon realized that individuals could not be held responsible for either good or bad things. The responsibility for high-quality learning environments was shared among the collective of all participants (and by many of those who were not involved in the conversation – such as policy-makers). Hence, at the end of each conversation, it was desirable that the collective could reach agreement on what they had decided to do in the next class meeting. Usually, the outcomes were requirements to make changes so as to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Because all participants needed to concur with the outcomes, we decided to call the field cogenerative dialogue (hereafter cogen). That is, outcomes were to be cogenerated during the dialogue with the purpose of improving the quality of teaching and learning. As our research progressed, it was apparent that the dialogue that produced agreed to changes to be enacted in the classroom that also afforded the interaction of various forms of culture. We regarded cogens as seedbeds for the growth of new culture. In essence, the cogen field was a place where students and teachers could learn to interact successfully and, in so doing, produce a range of culture that would support successful interactions in similar circumstances in the future. When similar structures were present, we would expect much the same culture to be enacted, irrespective of the field. Hence, cogens were regarded as a place for producing new culture, expanding the agency of participants, and changing identities. This was a new way to think about cogens – as places for producing culture. When I left Philadelphia, my new research in New York City (NYC) still involved cogens, but no longer involved coteaching as a primary focus. A new program of research, which is now in its sixth year, involved a set of teacher researchers using cogens in science and mathematics classes in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island. In this chapter, the primary focus is on research undertaken at New York High (NYH), a small school in the Bronx.

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5.2 About This Research The research in this chapter is framed within a sociocultural framework that regards knowing as cultural enactment or production – always occurring in fields that are structured. Structures, which are resources to support production, can be transformed by the agency of participants, and for this reason, fields are dynamic as the structural flux that supports activity is constantly changing. Cultural reproduction also occurs because of resonance, which affords continuous cultural production to occur without the actor having full control, that is action occurs that is nonagentic – theorized here as a dialectical relationship between agency and passivity (i.e., agency|passivity). This relationship is salient to the research we have engaged on cogens because not only is culture produced in cogens due to the agency of the participants, but also because of passivity as participants in a cogen learn from one another by being with one another in proximity. Hence, as we do research on the teaching and learning of science and uses of cogens to improve the quality of learning environments, we seek to understand cultural production in terms of agency and passivity (Tobin and Roth 2006). When I moved to the Graduate Center in 2003, I expanded to NYC a research project that was initiated in Philadelphia. The research was multi-site, each site being coordinated by a teacher researcher collaborating with student researchers. Four teacher researchers began the project in NYC, one site being at NYH, in the Bronx. The first teacher researcher at NYH was Christopher Emdin (Emdin 2007), who is referred to throughout this chapter as Chris. The second teacher researcher, Rey, joined NYH a year later and became a teacher researcher during his first year at the school. The research of another of the original four teacher researchers, Ashraf Shady (hereafter referred to as Ashraf), is cited in this chapter (Shady 2008). In the ongoing research, teacher researchers continue to join the research squads that meet twice each week in NYC and others leave, such as Chris, to form their own squads. At present, the ongoing research on cogens, situated at the Graduate Center, involves 16 teacher researchers and foci on science, mathematics, and technology in K-12 schools, teacher education programs, college (undergraduate through doctoral), and museums. In addition, once a month a larger group of researchers who employ a sociocultural methodology in their research meet in NYC as part of the Urban Science Education Research Network. Through the Network, peer debriefing and collaboration are central to the research project that is the focus of this chapter. The research employs methods that cohere with a bricolage of sociocultural theory that draws on, but is not limited to, cultural sociology (e.g., Sewell 1999), the sociology of emotions (Collins 2004), passivity (Juffé 2003), and phenomenology (Schutz 1962). Although the primary focus of this chapter is on the teaching and learning of science in an urban school in NYC, we employ research methods that include ethnography, conversation analysis, and video microanalysis. The methods are adaptive to what we seek to learn and zoom from micro through meso to macro/global as we examine social life in relation to a structural flux that is global in extent and affords local actions as culture is produced in the fields of

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activity. We adapt activity theory (Roth and Lee 2007) and numerous Bourdieusian constructs from reflexive sociology (Bourdieu 1992), especially fields, which are regarded as unbounded sites for cultural production (Tobin 2007b). Activity occurs in fields and, as I indicated above, multilevel analyses are undertaken. Except for Chris, Ashraf, and the authors of the chapter, pseudonyms are used for all participants in the study and the name of the school.

5.3 Cogens at NYH The population of the Bronx, now more than 1.3 million, is diverse ethnically – 36% Black and 30% White. Forty eight percent of the inhabitants are Latina/o and it is reported that there are more Puerto Ricans in the Bronx than in any other county in the United States. Also, 10% of the residents of the Bronx are Dominicans. Steady population increases are high due to natural births and immigration. The area of 42 square miles is relatively small; hence, the population density is high and the inhabitants are disproportionately poor and working class. In fact, approximately one-third of the households in the Bronx have an income below the Federal poverty line and the per-capita income is about $14,000.

There were 410 students from grade 7 through grade 10. The school population comprised 29% Black, 66% Hispanic, 2% White, and 3% Asian students, including 12% English language learners and 13% special education students. Boys accounted for 19% of the students enrolled and girls for 81%. The average attendance rate was 91%. The school is in receipt of Title 1 funding with 84% eligibility.The science program was designed such that the ninth graders took conceptual physics first, followed by Regents1chemistry in the tenth grade and Regents living environment in the 11th grade. Students were distributed into cohorts based on their math skills, English proficiency levels, and special needs. Four cohorts were created among all the tenth grade students taking chemistry. Most of the advanced students were placed in cohort 10A, English language learners were assigned to 10B, transferees and new admits were in 10C, and those with special needs were placed in 10D. Students in all cohorts received Regents chemistry instruction for the whole year with an after school program being provided to students needing additional help and reinforcement.

 Regents examinations are state-level tests administered in high school courses such as physics, chemistry and living environment. In order to graduate from high school students must pass at least one Regents examination in a science course. Furthermore, the quality of schools and teaching is judged on the basis of students’ performance on Regents examinations. Accordingly, the Regents examinations are regarded as high stakes tests, for schools, teachers and students.

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(continued) As we moved from the introductory part of Regents chemistry course to more abstract concepts, problems started to emerge. Students in 10B and 10D became disinterested and disengaged from the lessons. Also, I started having problems with the English language learners and special education students. They became more talkative in the classroom and did not complete assigned class work. Complaints about chemistry as a very difficult subject were shared among students. I started using cogens in all my chemistry classes. I identified five student leaders to coordinate our plans and together we learned how to enact cogens in the classroom and in the laboratory. The use of video cameras in the classroom was well received by the students. They became more interested in seeing themselves interacting with one another; teaching each other; and becoming more productive in doing laboratory activities. I embraced cogen as my primary approach in reaching out to students who had issues and difficulties in learning chemical concepts. I became a teacher-researcher and immersed myself in observing the transformation that happened in our classroom as a result of enacting cogen.

Christopher Emdin was the first teacher-researcher to enact cogens with his grade 9 physics class. When this freshman class graduated, the students moved on to study chemistry with Rey, who became a teacher-researcher and occasionally cotaught chemistry with Chris. The students were accustomed to cogens and readily enacted them in the chemistry class, though not in precisely the same way. As a new teacher-researcher, Rey introduced some of his own ideas, notable among them being a buddy system. Rey established an academic buddy system in which students involved in cogens selected one or more buddies with whom to collaborate. It was not left as an informal arrangement. Rey changed the reward system to advantage students who actively participated in the academic buddy system and he wrote to parents informing them that the system had been formulated and enacted. Students would earn 20 extra points for each buddy they took on and Rey emphasized the creed that “you do not allow another to fail.” There were numerous reasons for creating a buddy system. For example, students were repeatedly absent from school, came late, frequently left for visits to the bathroom, lost focus in class, disrupted others (including the teacher), and got themselves suspended for violating school rules. Furthermore, homework was not done or was not done well and work that was done in class was not submitted to earn participation grades. Rey felt that a change of roles would support learning while developing the right emotional climate and a sense of family among the participants in his class. As a Filipino immigrant, he was aware that the students experienced his teaching through deficit lenses – a foreigner with an accent.

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He realized at once that there were advantages in him teaching in Spanish (or Spanglish as he called it) and allowing students to tutor one another in their native language. A buddy group comprised a social network. In class, the students sat together and assisted one another to be successful. Not surprisingly, buddy groups set the stage for coteaching. Initially, students within a buddy group tutored one another. However, when Rey was teaching, students often had difficulty with his Filipino dialect. When this occurred, they assisted one another to understand what he was saying. Accordingly, students would interact softly while Rey taught from the front of the class. When it was necessary to do so, students from a buddy group would come to the chalkboard to clarify something Rey had been teaching. It is not a surprising outcome that coteaching emerged from the use of cogens and an academic buddy system. Consistent with a dialectical relationship between teaching and learning, students tutored one another, redirected one another when focus was lost, and clarified Rey’s oral texts when they could not understand his accent. Rey invited buddy groups to present project work to the class and once students experienced being at the front of the room and using the chalkboard and projection tools, there was no stopping them. Students not only cotaught together, but they also cotaught with Rey, including Lily, who cotaught during a Regents review class undertaken on the weekend.

How to learn more about chemistry by coteaching others was the driving force many students internalized in their own selves as we prepare for the Regents chemistry exam. Students were actively involved in coteaching each other. Student leaders in 10A and 10C volunteered to coteach students in other sections during Saturday review sessions. Other students went to one another’s homes to finish group projects and do study sessions with their assigned buddies. We continued to view our video tape recordings and together we celebrated our accomplishments in learning chemistry.I started pairing up the advanced students with those labeled “at risk.” Students who seemed to look helpless in their day-to-day attendance in chemistry class became active participants in their respective groups, especially when they got help from the other advanced students whom they trusted. Positive emotional energy and solidarity were evident in the students’ actions and interactions as we continued to dig deeper in understanding more abstract concepts.

5.4 What Happens in a Typical Cogen? In the third year of high school, the students who had previously studied science with Chris and then Rey studied the Living Environment course. Their teacher was Mariona (referred to by students as Ms. T), in her first year of teaching science.

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Although the students had used cogens in the previous two years, Mariona did not use cogens initially. However, as problems in the class became more numerous, the students who had been most involved in the cogens approached Chris, who was now a university professor and still involved at the school on a regular basis, about using cogens to improve the science class. Chris approached Mariona, who readily agreed to enact cogens. In addition to two male and five female students from two classes, the participants in the cogen included three adults, Mariona, Chris, and me. During the first cogen, many of the problems associated with the class were discussed and the cogen group agreed to enact a game show format for the next lesson based on the TV show Jeopardy. As an example of the interactions and transactions that occur, the second cogen conducted in Mariona’s class is analyzed in the section below. As we moved the furniture into an ellipse, all participants appeared relaxed and engaged in informal conversation until Chris initiated a formal dialogue by raising the volume of his voice and providing a welcome and a description of why we were meeting and how we would function. After reminding participants of the rules, we would follow in the cogen one of the students asked whether the focus would be on the class or the instruction. As I puzzled over what the student meant, Chris quickly resolved the issue by saying, “both.” With that José initiated a discussion on what he enjoyed about the particular class he had just completed. In his remarks, he touched on the class being interesting, getting everybody involved, and his enjoyment of the game show format. While agreeing with José’s general statements, Loida personalized the lesson when she described a segment she did not enjoy and her annoyance at incorrectly answering a question on pathogens. Her comments were somewhat typical of many she made in cogens – pointing out her shortcomings as a student while insisting that she learns from her mistakes. On this occasion, Loida showed that she could elevate the emotional energy of the group by making self-deprecating humor that catalyzed collective effervescence in the form of laughter. Although the participants, including Chris and Mariona, had laughed together earlier in the cogen, Loida’s short turn at talk provided several opportunities for cogen participants to laugh together. Also, since Loida raised the topic of pathogens, students used the opportunity to seek clarification from others. In a discussion that involved everyone except me, all students asked and clarified issues and both Mariona and Chris gave explanations about molecular geometry and the functions of antigens, antibodies, and vaccines. Prescilla also played a leading role in explaining the science, using iconic gestures to depict the chemistry. With the exception of the elaborations from Chris, Mariona, and Prescilla, the turns at talk were short, highly interactive, and often choral as students talked together and engaged in simultaneously unfolding conversations that focused on a common set of issues. Finally, Chris wrapped up this important tutorial when he commented. “Lock down. Lock it down.” The remark amused Sarah who appreciated its double entendre, being reminded of lyrics from several of her favorite music groups (e.g., see youtube.com, Digital Assassins, and Freeway) while appropriately describing the ways in which antigens affect an immune response.

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The following transcript shows some elements of the prosody of a 16s vignette in which the participants finalize what amounts to a tutorial on antigens. The entire group participated in the conversation, which reviewed antigen, antibody, pathogens, vaccines, and structure, especially the way in which the antigen provides a cover to protect the spread of a pathogen.

Chris: … so that’s the antigen (2.3s) [After the pause Chris strikes his hand on the desk (0.3s) making a clunk clunk sound, the second clunk being much louder than the first (82 db) He then speaks emphatically. Chris: Lock it down [down has an intensity of 79db]

Sarah: Laugh [huhu] (0.3s) Sarah: Yeah. Lock it down (0.2s) Chris: Yeah= Mariona: huhu= Chris: I, I like the way it’s cool [students overlap and interrupt]= Sarah: That’s good. Lock it down. The way you said it. Lock it down= Chris: It’s cool you’re talking about the cover and the … [difficult to decipher]

Figure 5.1 is an offprint from the videotape of the cogen. The moment in time is immediately after Chris uttered “Lock it down.” Capture on the participants’ faces are collective expressions of enjoyment and evidence of entrainment. Mariona adopts a relaxed pace in a cogen in which she is ethnically different from all other participants. She learns to interact in culturally adaptive ways by being in the cogen field with other participants – that is, she learns passively. As Mariona develops a sense of the game, she participates fluently, anticipating her turn at talk, acting appropriately, and just in time. In this particular offprint, there is evidence of a shared mood, mutual focus, and entrainment (i.e., all participants act in synchrony). Chris’s role as leader in a group that contained the class teacher was salient during most cogens in which I participated during this year. He was no longer a teacher at the school and yet the students clearly regarded him with affection and assigned him high status. If he moved away from the group, as he did later in the cogen to accept delivery of the Chinese food we had purchased, the participants in the cogen regarded it as an opportunity for time out and relaxed in informal exchanges. On this occasion, Chris’s remarks on locking it down were a signal for closure on the tutorial and a search for a new focus – we had effectively cogenerated a successful outcome and were ready to move on. Throughout this cogen, Chris used language that reflected his growing up in the Bronx and his relative youth. For example, he exhorted students to, “let’s keep it moving. Jazz it up a little bit,” and “that’s dope.” Later he commented, “I think it’s dope, are you clear about it now?” For Chris, to use such language was appropriate from the students’ perspective because they knew he was a hip-hop DJ, lived in the Bronx, and had grown up in a neighborhood that included the school. I point out here that I could not have used terms like “that’s dope,” without participants letting me know my use of the term was inappropriate (i.e., inconsistent with my identity).

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Fig. 5.1  Collective effervescence and focus as Chris uses the term “lock it down”

The power imbalance that favored Chris was a problem for cogen since his ideas tended to be reified. In the past 2 years, we established cogens in which power was shared more equitably. The source of Chris’s disproportionate power was symbolic—akin to charisma and wittiness.

As the group conversed to identify the next focus for the cogen, Mariona asked, “What can I improve on?” Several quick remarks assured her that she was a “good teacher.” As Mariona turned her gaze toward Sarah, the student remarked, “I never liked science. Period!” Although Sarah made the comment with a big smile on her face, Loida and Prescilla were among those who playfully rebuked her. During the ensuing conversation, the focus was on convincing Sarah that there were aspects of science that she did enjoy and whether or not she enjoyed science was just a matter of structuring the class differently. In the wide ranging discussion, students used humor as they cajoled Sarah, pointing out that she enjoyed the TV program “House,” which was about science. During this interactive dialogue, Chris and others affirmed that they also watch and enjoyed the TV program. This shared interest appeared to be a structure around which positive emotions were produced and solidarity was reinforced. However, in a good-natured and somewhat playful way, Sarah resisted these attempts to convince her, pointing out that even though she participated in science, she did not enjoy the class. When pressed, Sarah agreed that she enjoyed the physics class, taken 2 years ago, and whether she enjoyed a class may reflect the teacher and the teaching. Once again, the focus turned to, “Is it about the teachers?” “You are a good teacher Ms. T.” Sarah assured her science teacher who was seated next to her that her dislike of science had nothing to do with the way Mariona taught. However, the preceding conversation provided an opportunity for Mariona to be reflective about her teaching and she explained that perhaps she

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should co-relate science and health to an even greater extent that she did currently. As was the case with all exchanges in the cogen, the dialogue was highly interactive and no one spoke for disproportionate lengths of time. Participants addressed the way Mariona taught and compared the teaching and purposes of the science and health classes. In all instances, students supported their preferences in terms of whether or not they were interested in the topics and their enjoyment of the class. The conversation also encompassed previous science classes, not just at NYH, but also at middle school and even elementary school (in one brief instance). This segment of the cogen included lots of laughter, quick talk, and short bursts of speech. There were numerous examples of multiperson talk and overlapping speech. The focus on Sarah not liking science moved to include her interests out of school. Principal among these were steel drums and music. This was clearly an interest she shared with Chris and provides an explanation perhaps for the numerous examples of her smiling when Chris used expressions from contemporary music in his utterances (e.g., lock it down). Several times in the ensuing conversation about Sarah’s interests in steel drums, Chris mentioned “chemical calisthenics” inquiring whether Sarah had heard it yet. Chris suggested that the class could create a beat and a rhyme, similar to what was done in chemical calisthenics. As the group discussed this possibility animatedly, Chris moved the group to focus on hip-hop and “how do we go about doing this?” Quickly, a division of labor was agreed to and it was decided that one group of students would create a beat and the other would produce the lyrics. Since the next topic of study was to be genetics, there was a consensus that this would be an ideal topic. Mariona then suggested that the students also could make a podcast, creating an audio file and then making it available for students as a learning resource. In making the case for this activity, Mariona pointed out that most of the podcasts she accessed were audio and did not incorporate video, giving an example that she had recently used in class, concerning the planting of a bean seed that was more than 2,000 years old. The cogen group liked this idea and also liked the idea to produce a podcast that incorporated video. Once again, Chris pushed the group to the details of, “how do we do it?” After briefly re-visiting the previously discussed necessity for a division of labor to address the beat and the rhyme, Mariona suggested that an initial task could focus on definitions for constructs like DNA, genes, and chromosomes. After one of the students volunteered to do the first verse, a division of labor involving the entire group was formulated. During these high verve interactions, there were moments of asynchrony, especially when I ventured an idea. My rate of speaking was much slower than others, even when I consciously sped up my delivery. I suggested that, rather than Mariona creating the questions for the quiz show format, the students could contribute the questions and this could be worked into the assessment system. There was little support for this idea and a lull in proceedings until Chris declared it to be a “dope idea,” noting that we could look at the tape together, identify the questions raised by students in class, and use them in a Jeopardy format in subsequent test preparation lessons. However, before all participants agreed to this idea and planned appropriate action, Sarah asked Chris: “Why don’t you offer tutoring in biology?”

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During cogen, students started to discuss how else they could improve their scientific inquiry skills, and data organization and presentation. As we continued to dialogue and plan to improve our classroom activities, I noticed that students naturally regrouped themselves and continued to discuss chemistry concepts even outside the school building. Students began to use the chemical terms as part of an evolving student language. I encouraged them to talk chemistry with their friends and family and to continue the conversations even when they were in buses and subways.

When Chris reminded the group, he no longer taught at the school, Sarah asked a more general question, “How come we don’t do tutoring?” Mariona again alluded to her own inadequacies as a teacher, pointing out that she may not connect with everyone and there were benefits in having a different person tutor science topics that students did not understand from classes taught by Mariona. The group accepted this idea and Chris pointed out that just as they had done today in the conversations about antigens, cogens could serve the purpose of being tutorials. The participants quickly agreed that this was a good example of the value of cogens, an aspect that could be continued in subsequent cogens. However, the cogen participants wanted an activity that would benefit more than those involved in the cogen.

This is an important example of involving students as coteachers in small group tutorials. If tutorials are planned as cogens, the potential outcomes and anticipated levels of success might be expanded considerably.

Mariona suggested coteaching as a possibility and students reminded all participants that the buddy system was highly successful when they studied chemistry with Rey. The group then had a wide-ranging discussion on the value of the buddy system in their chemistry class and how it was organized. Chris then focused participants on creating a plan to enact the buddy system in this Living Environment class. The participants in the cogen agreed to pair a strong student with a weaker student and ensure that assigned grades would reflect not just individual performance but also improvement in the grades of assigned buddies – “If your buddy’s grade goes up, yours goes up too.” The conversation included the value of assigning buddies across the constituted classes, which were tracked. Chris noted that conversations out of class usually did not include understandings of biology, stating that, “they kick it every day after school” but do not help one another to be more successful in their classes. After a lively conversation about whether or not it was advantageous for out of school friends to be assigned as buddies, a consensus was reached to adopt this procedure and that students in 11C could benefit from having a buddy in 11A. Assigning buddies across class groups

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was agreed to when Mariona gave an assurance that the topics being dealt with in 11C only lagged behind those being done in 11A by a few days. The cogen participants agreed that establishing a buddy system was a priority and the specific details would be worked out in the next cogen, prior to the upcoming examination. My own changes highlight the potential of using cogens in professional development of teachers across the career spectrum. By being in the classroom and cogens once a week for a number of weeks, I developed a sense of the game that allowed me to anticipate and to get involved without having to consciously reflect on making sense of the dynamic flux of structures. Over time, I did not have to disrupt flow by asking students to repeat what they said and I did not misinterpret high-energy interactions, prosodic patterns, and bodily movements. My regular involvement in the class and the cogens allowed me to successfully participate in each and greatly expanded my teacher agency.

5.5 Does the Use of Cogens Increase Achievement on High Stakes Tests? So often, the bottom line in classroom research is whether or not changes occur to improve achievement, especially on high stakes tests. For example, in NYC, students must pass the State Regents examinations in five specified subject areas and at least one Regents examination in science. Accordingly, if research is undertaken in high schools in New York, a question that is always on the table is whether or not the study contributed knowledge related to increasing achievement, especially as it is measured on the Regents examinations. We were interested to see if participation in cogens was an affordance for increasing achievement in science. Accordingly, we undertook a longitudinal study involving 67 students who commenced grade 9 in fall 2004 and studied 1 year each of physics, chemistry, and living environment. Rey taught all these students chemistry during their sophomore year. For the purposes of studying achievement in science, we examined the grades awarded by their science teacher in each of the first 3 years and their cumulative grade point average (GPA) based on 4 years of high-school participation. We did not use inferential statistics in our analyses because of differences in the group size and the participants were not randomly assigned to groups. Instead, in grade 9, five students were invited to assume leadership roles in the use of cogens and 17 students volunteered and continued their participation across their 4 years of high school. The remaining 45 students are those who were taught chemistry by Rey, began high school in the fall of 2004 (the first year of the school), and studied the Living Environment course with Mariona in their junior year. The 67 students are regarded as participants rather than a sample from a larger population to which we generalize what we learned from this study. Hence, our analyses of the means and standard deviations are not considered different from other ethnographic analyses undertaken in this research. We systematically examined aggregated and disaggregated data in search of patterns and associated contradictions.

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When the students were in ninth-grade physics, those selected initially to participate in cogens differed from one another in terms of their achievement, motivation to succeed, and other factors such as their attendance in class and the extent to which they disrupted others.

5.6 Achievement Trajectories In Table 5.1, the achievement profiles for the five core participants show that Lily, Sarah, and Tiara were high performing in physics and Prescilla and Loida were lower-achieving students. The lower-achieving youth had a variety of emotional issues that tended to mediate school achievement. For example, after residing with her grandmother, Loida decided to move out to live with her boyfriend in a homeless shelter. In the year in which she studied chemistry, Loida considered dropping out of school to get a job. Prescilla also was in danger of being a high-school dropout. In her freshman year of high school, Prescilla was disruptive in all of her classes and resisted her teachers’ efforts to constrain her boisterous ways of acting in their classes. Her disruptive practices showed in her grades. In 2004, her term 1 average was 72% and her term 2 average was 76%. In the conceptual physics course, she earned 76% in each semester. In contrast, in 2005, when she took chemistry with Rey, her class achievement scores were in the 90s. Prescilla became a close study-buddy of Loida in their chemistry class, assuming the role of a big sister to Loida, not only in their chemistry class but also in other subject areas. Prescilla maintained relatively high scores in her science courses and became a student leader. Throughout the final three years of high school, she regularly participated in cogens, after beginning in the second semester of 2004. Her cumulative grade point average at the end of high school was 83%, just above the peer group average of 81% (i.e., based on the 67 students included in this study). All five cogen leaders graduated from high school and are now studying at college. Prescilla and Loida both started as low-performing students and elevated their achievement levels to graduate from high school, including passes on two Regents Table 5.1  High school science achievement of the cogen leaders Course Lily Prescilla Tiara Sarah Loida Phy 1 96 76 96 89 55 Phy 2 100 76 96 100 79 Ch 1 90 95 95 85 85 Ch 2 90 90 96 90 85 LE 1 95 93 94 85 85 LE 2 95 90 90 P 85 Elective 94 80 85 90 85 R Ch 64 68 72 67 55 R LE 74 75 76 76 67 Cum GPA 93 83 91 89 75 Credits 48 47 42 43 51

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Table 5.2  Science achievement for students who did and did not participate in cogens Group Phys 1 Phys 2 Chem1 Chem2 LE1 LE2 Cum. GPA Nonpart Mean 77.6 81.9 77.2 78.3 74.2 75.3 78.8 N 45 45 45 45 45 45 45 s 10.1 9.6 9.1 6.8 11.9 12.4 7.2 Part Mean 84.8 88.7 84.2 85.1 82.8 82.4 84.9 N 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 s 11.2 8.9 10.3 9.0 12.8 12.6 8.6 Leader Mean 82.4 90.2 90.0 90.2 90.4 89.0 86.2 N 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 s 17.4 11.8 5.0 3.9 5.0 4.2 7.3 Total Mean 79.8 84.2 79.9 80.9 77.6 78.1 80.9 N 67 67 67 67 67 67 67 11.3 10.0 10.0 8.2 12.8 12.7 8.1 s

examinations (chemistry and living environment). Prescilla also excelled in school leadership, becoming President of the student council. The 17 students who participated regularly in cogens had a slightly higher grade 9 GPA (i.e., part; Mean: 82.5; SD: 9.5) than students who rarely participated in cogens or did not participate at all (i.e., nonpart; Mean: 75.9; SD: 8.2). Probably due to the way through which they were selected (i.e., three high achievers and two lower achievers), the grade 9 GPA for the leader group (Mean: 77.8; SD: 13.0) was not especially meaningful, although it was calculated to be between the nonparticipants and the participants. Table  5.2 contains descriptive statistics for each test broken down for each subgroup and the total group. Several trends are striking. First, with the exception of the first semester of conceptual physics, the leader group attained a higher average achievement than the participant group and the nonparticipants. Hence, participation in cogens was associated with higher achievement in science for the teacher-made tests. We do not imply a causal relationship because the participant group had higher achievement averages from the outset and the core group was selected on the basis of their differences. Perhaps, the key issue to reinforce is that participation in cogens for the relatively low achievers is associated with an increase in achievement, a pattern that is consistent with increased activity in class and the adoption of additional roles in science and in other aspects of school life. The new culture that evolved through cogens may have provided the low achievers with sustained motivation to keep up with the high achievers. From the ethnography, it is clear that they set their own high standards to achieve.

5.7 The Ripple Effects of Cogens The cogen leader group and cogen participants, who had 4 years experience of doing cogens, agreed to coach other students and teachers in how to enact cogens and what benefits to expect. With Chris and me, they visited grade 9 classrooms and explained the nature and value of cogens to the students and their teachers.

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Among the benefits, Prescilla noted that, “Cogens. They’re cool. You know, you start off within a small group. It can’t be a big group. … That’s how you know you’re mature enough like when you get picked to be in a cogen because that’s when you know that you can listen to somebody else’s voice and not cut them off. You get to meet a lot of people … go further in life.” Loida addressed the benefits of coteaching, commenting that, “students teach each other. That helped me a lot. Better for me to understand a lesson being that I heard it from students rather than the teacher. It’s pretty weird but it is.” Comments such as these were repeated to the teachers and students of each grade 9 class and to science teachers who had not previously used cogens. Then, the seniors conducted a trial cogen with four to five students while their teacher circulated the room with Chris and me. A feature of the efforts of the seniors to disseminate cogens was the responsibility assumed by these graduating youth for the quality of education at their school. They showed a lot of pride in speaking candidly to the youth in junior grades and speaking forthrightly to teachers who often were reluctant to get involved in using cogens, especially if it meant listening to complaints from students whom they viewed through deficit lenses (e.g., why should I listen to the students who don’t turn up, come late, and listen to their music instead of doing their science?). After 5 years of using cogens at NYH, they are still being used by some of the teachers there. Also, Chris and his graduate students are involved in ongoing research on the uses of cogens. However, despite the successes we have documented through intensive and ongoing research and plans that have included the school principal and other school leaders, the buy-in among the school administration may not be sufficient to expand and sustain the use of cogens in the school. To a marked extent Rey, who is unlikely to return to teach at the school next year, has been the most consistent user of cogens and has worked with his colleagues to reap the benefits on a school-wide basis. Outside of NYH and the other specific sites at which cogens have been enacted, the ripple effects are discernible. Since we began our research in New York, in June 2004, there has been a steady increase in the number of studies incorporating the uses of cogens in an increasing number of fields, including special education students in a district that caters to their learning needs, special education students within schools such as NYH, mathematics classes in a variety of urban schools, technology classes, museums, college science classes, and graduate classes in a variety of colleges, including teacher education programs (but not exclusively so). Each of these projects is a multiyear study and, just as occurred at NYH, the results suggest improved performance of participants and willingness to institutionalize the use of cogens.

5.8 What Next? Irrespective of who is involved in cogens, it is important that a critical perspective is adopted in which participants engage in reflexive practices, becoming aware of culture that may be oppressive to certain sectors of a field. By becoming aware of

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oppression and possible relationships that produce and sustain disadvantage (i.e., schemas and practices), potential hegemons can be identified and become objects for transformation. Adoption of the authenticity criteria described by Tobin (2006) affords ontological changes of all participants, and education regarding others’ cultural enactments including their axiologies. We expect that participation in cogens also will catalyze positive changes in the operation of the cogen and the target fields and afford all participants in cogens the benefits of being involved, irrespective of their positions in social space. One of the assumptions that cogens challenge is that an individual or collective can set goals for another without successfully negotiating these goals with her or him. It seems foolish to assume that curricular goals can be set up for another without that person being involved in cogenerating them. And yet this is what is done almost always in US high schools, including in science education. Curricular goals are handed down from those in authority and are a form of cultural imperialism. On the basis of research undertaken to this point in time, mainstream groups achieve success in science education to a greater extent than social minorities. If cogens were regarded as methodology – a theoretical framework for generating methods of developing curricula, it is possible that alternative models would emerge and science education might become more culturally adaptive. The dialogue should allow participants to tell their stories about their experiences in science education. Participants should be encouraged to describe their lived experiences using their own frameworks, narratives, metaphors, and modes of representation. As participants listen to one another’s stories, they can question/comment and evaluate what is said with the purpose of promoting a respectful, reflexive dialogue that affords ontological change and education. Such a dialogue can provide a foundation for cogenerating agreed-to change. It is important in this process not to expect individuals to adopt the stories and frameworks of powerful (persuasive) others. A reasonable expectation is to understand where others are coming from, respect their rights to be different, and take account of their culture when changes for the target field are cogenerated. Basically, what are generated are potential structures taking the form of responses that would be available to support activity in the target field. For example, new roles might be planned for individuals, new rules might be formulated for a class, new resources might be planned and developed to support activity, and individual and collective goals might be produced.

5.9 Benefits of Cogens One of the most striking outcomes of cogens is the way in which participants learn to enact culture to produce success within the cogen field. Notably, success occurs between individuals who typically enact very different culture. From the very beginning, we set up cogens to include participants who represented difference in social categories that were salient to the classroom from which they were selected. One of the very first categories of difference that was related to asynchronies was age.

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The teachers were older than the students, spoke differently, had different interests and hobbies, and used different expressions in their turns of talk. Over the course of several cogens, we observed a higher incidence of successful interactions, more synchrony, and more focus on the activity of the cogen. That is, there were fewer shut downs, i.e., breaches in the flow of cultural enactment. Participants produced culture that afforded entrainment and cultural fluency. An early problem occurred with a male teacher who emigrated from Egypt (Shady 2008). His students were nearly all African American and we noticed that the expected production of success did not occur when he used cogens to address some problems in the teaching and learning of science. The dysfunction of the science classroom was reproduced in the cogen. In an endeavor to resolve the problem, Shady systematically reduced the number of participants in cogens, first to three and then to two – Shady and one other student. In a two-person cogen, the participants were able to produce some successful interactions and over time the social bonds that developed were a foundation for developing other forms of symbolic capital, including trust and respect. Shady found that after undertaking one-on-one cogens with several students, he was able to include them in cogens involving more students. Then, he began to experience the culture produced in the cogens being transferred successfully to the classroom. In Shady’s case, we became aware of the importance of ethnicity as a resource for cultural difference that produced othering and an associated lack of respect (Anderson 1999). Too often misinterpretations of cultural enactment produced lack of trust, disrespect, and refusal to participate (e.g., silence, body posturing, exasperation, efforts to humiliate, and quietening others). Through his willingness to listen and respond to students’ problems, Shady demonstrated sincerity, empathy, care, and persistence to succeed in the face of failure. Also, he showed that he was willing to strive for success in spite of students’ repeated efforts to disrespect him. His consistent efforts to assist students in the cogens were reciprocated when students “had his back” in the science classroom. Social bonds, networks, trust, and respect all contributed to the production of loyalty and solidarity. At much the same time that Shady was solving the problem of how to structure cogens to produce successful outcomes, the research at NYH entered its second year. Chris reported in meetings of our research squad that he had started to coteach in the chemistry class with Rey, and had initiated cogens to address some of the problems Rey was experiencing in his teaching of the students Chris had taught the previous year. Some of the problems Rey experienced were associated with ethnic diversity. Within the students, there were several ethnic groups and Rey, being Filipino, was ethnically other. Some students even showed their disrespect for his cultural otherness by referring to Rey as “Chino.” During the weekly meetings of our research squad, which then did not yet include Rey, we discussed a model of structuring cogens that would include Chris and Rey with some students. By being in cogens with participants who had previously been involved in them successfully, we felt that Rey would learn how to be successful in cogens and would produce the capital needed for success.

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I was surprised to find that Chris had a Scottish grandfather—I do too. When I was speaking to the students about ethnicity at the start up to a cogen, I asked Loida about her ethnic background. She looked at me squarely and asked: “First Ken, what’s yours?” Very astute, so often White researchers make an assumption that they have no ethnicity and they are researching a construct that is “strange” or other. Loida had the perception to know that if I had an interest in ethnicity, I should have thought about it in relation to my own privilege and oppression—not just about her ethnicity and her privilege and oppression.

Chris had previously established strong social bonds and networks with the students and he was respected by them, trusted, and liked. As an African American, with ethnic links to the Caribbean, and shared interests in hip-hop, the cogens incorporated high levels of verve and positive emotional energy – including collective laughter. In an important sense, Chris sponsored Rey’s membership of the cogen group and ensured that he would be encouraged to speak, that he would be listened to, clarify when necessary, and assisted to succeed. No doubt the capital produced in the cogens in which Chris and Rey were both present provided Rey with stocks of knowledge that would afford success in cogens and in the chemistry classroom when Chris was there and when he was not there. My experience with cogens at NYH was much the same as those described earlier in this section. As an Australian immigrant, I was ethnically different from everybody I encountered in the school. Also, I was older, spoke differently, and had a very different lifestyle to the teacher and the students. In the 5 years in which I have been involved in research at NYH, other resident teachers, including Chris, Mariona, and Rey usually. The culture I produced in cogens was then available to me in the classroom when I interacted with students from the cogen and others. The social bonds and networks established in cogens were a foundation for expanding them in the classroom, and by producing appropriate culture at just the right time.

5.10 Are (Co)Learning and (Co)Teaching Inseparable? The first generation of research on cogens focused on altering the division of labor in science classrooms so as to mediate improvements in learning. To a marked extent, the dialogues focused on changing roles to produce higher-quality participation in the classroom. Inevitably, teachers and students adapted their practices and the results were consistently positive. However, negotiating changes that promise the right kinds of improvement and enacting them to produce the intended outcomes necessitate that many not so obvious forms of culture also must be produced and maintained.

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Increasingly, it has become clear that emotions are central to creating and sustaining productive fields, such as cogens and science classrooms. When interactions succeed, the emotional valence is positive and if positive emotional energy can be maintained for the length of a class period or the duration of a cogen, then solidarity and affiliation can be imbued in subsequent activities in the fields. Rey’s idea to take the cogen into other fields through the creation of buddy systems shows how cogen structures can penetrate fields (of the lifeworld) to afford outcomes similar to those reported in this chapter. A buddy system is regarded as a cogen situated in fields such as recreation, hobbies, streets, and home. What Rey did in effect was to begin with a core cogen group and then each participant recruited buddies to participate in two-person cogens, just as Ashraf did with students in his science classes. Rey’s buddy groups greatly expanded the number of participants in cogens, produced culture that could be enacted in the science class, and expanded the opportunities for all students to participate and succeed. Successful participation in cogens requires participants to stay focused on goals and motives and act in ways that afford others’ ways of high-quality participation. That is, a person’s actions should intend to produce synchrony, entrainment, and success. In cogens, all participants act for others, that is, not only to meet individual goals and thereby contribute to the collective motives but also provide affordances for others to get involved appropriately and succeed. As we mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, successful action will always be both agentic and passive. Furthermore, if and when participants act in these ways, they are simultaneously teaching and learning with others. We find comfort in a concluding realization that what began as two fields, coteaching and cogen, are theorized and enacted as constituents of a whole, the parts are inseparable and each presupposes the other. That is, to coteach is to participate in cogen and to participate in cogen is to coteach. The symmetry of our conclusion sheds light on the potential of the following pathways that actively foster cogens and coteaching, including the possibility of these pathways being beyond urban schools and beyond formal learning institutions.

References Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York: W.W. Norton. Bourdieu, P. (1992). The practice of reflexive sociology (The Paris workshop). In P. Bourdieu & L. J. D. Wacquant (Eds.), An invitation to reflexive sociology (pp. 216–260). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Emdin, C. (2007). Exploring the contexts of urban science classrooms: Cogenerative dialogues, coteaching, and cosmopolitanism (Doctoral dissertation, City University of New York, 2007). Dissertations Abstracts International, AAT 3283206. Juffé, M. (2003). Lévinas, passivity and the three dimensions of psychotherapy. Paper presented at Psychology for the Other: Seminar on Emmanuel Lévinas, Seattle University, Seattle, WA. Retrieved August 28, 2007 from http://www.seattleu.edu/artsci/psychology/conference/2003/ archive2003.html

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Morais, A., Fontinhas, F., & Neves, I. (1992). Recognition and realization rules in acquiring school science - the contribution of pedagogy and social background of students. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 13, 247–270. Roth, W.-M. (2007). Theorizing passivity. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2, 1–8. Roth, W.-M. & Lee, Y. J. (2007). “Vygotsky’s neglected legacy”: Cultural-historical activity theory. Review of Educational Research, 77, 186–232. Schutz, A. (1962). Common sense and scientific interpretation of human action. In M. Natanson (Ed.), Collected papers I – The problem of social reality (pp. 3–96). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Sewell, W. H., Jr. (1999). The concept(s) of culture. In V. E. Bonell & L. Hunt (Eds.), Beyond the cultural turn (pp. 35–61). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Shady, A. (2008). Immigration and cultural as factors mediating the teaching and learning of urban science (Doctoral dissertation, City University of New York, 2007). Dissertations Abstracts International, AAT 3325395. Tobin, K. (2006). Qualitative research in classrooms: Pushing the boundaries of theory and methodology. In K. Tobin & J. Kincheloe (Eds.), Doing educational research: A handbook (pp. 15–58). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Tobin, K. (2007a). Issues of class in urban science education. In J. L. Kincheloe (Ed.), Cutting class (pp. 171–198). New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Tobin, K. (2007b). Collaborating with students to produce success in science. The Journal of Science and Mathematics in South East Asia, 30(2), 1–44. Tobin, K., Elmesky, R., & Seiler, G. (eds). (2005). Improving urban science education: New roles for teachers, students and researchers. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam: Sense Publishing.

Part III

Coteaching Contexts

Introduction This section describes a range of coteaching contexts, which emphasize the versatility of the approach. The studies have utilized coteaching as a model for initial teacher education, for teachers’ professional development, to enhance the learning experience of students, and to expand the role of parents as coteachers in schools. Several of the chapters examine coteaching between preservice teachers and cooperating teachers. Gallo-Fox’s reports on how coteaching enabled teachers to engage in risk-taking pedagogical practices. Yet, the risks teachers took were different from that taken by cooperating teachers and interns. Carlisle’s chapter focuses on the progression of coteaching practices between the preservice and cooperating teachers as the placement continued. Initially, preservice teachers observed in the classroom, but their practice evolved to a cosharing of the teaching responsibility and a diverse range of roles as they gained more experience and confidence. Kerr’s chapter reports on how student and cooperating teachers undertook shared learning via a continuing professional development program focused on creative science teaching before embarking on coteaching in school. Their coteaching centered on the implementation of the creative science teaching approaches in the classroom. This model, in which coteachers both learned and taught together, has provided some of the best evidence of sustainable professional development for teachers. O’Conaill’s chapter describes the implementation of coteaching to create partnerships between final-year preservice teachers and cooperating teachers, which acknowledged the cooperating teachers’ expertise and their willingness to work with preservice teachers. Neither of these features are common to most Irish teachereducation programs – there is no formal mentoring role for the cooperating teacher. Assessment of preservice teachers is carried out by the university teacher-educators. Coteaching, in this case as a subject-specific collaboration, provides teachers with the opportunity to counter the increasing dominance of performativity discourse in primary education, as the purpose and outcome of each lesson are publicly negotiated. This contributes to ownership of the teaching process and as opposed to an agenda of delivery and deliverance, enables risk taking responsive teaching beneficial to all as teachers and learners.

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Two chapters explore the teaching of science through the use of coteaching between a university science professor and a teacher. Carambo’s chapter shows a different context for coteaching between teachers and content professors. It shows how K-12 teachers with many years of pedagogical experience can expand the learning opportunities in a class that is focused on improving teachers’ content knowledge. Nilsson’s focus is on how a physics professor collaborates with a primary school teacher to coteach a physics course for preservice primary school teachers. Two more chapters consider coteaching between school teachers. Juck, Scantlebury, and Gallo-Fox’s study follows three science teachers who experienced coteaching as the structure for student teaching into their first year of teaching. While they faced challenges similar to those faced by many first-year teachers, all three examined their changed teaching structures to prioritize collaborative relationships with peers, mentors, or colleagues at other schools. The strength of coteaching as a structure for teaching students is illustrated in Upadhyay and Gifford’s study of teaching science to Hmong students in Minneapolis. For these students whose culture is very different from their teacher’s, the result of having a coteaching arrangement where one teacher better understands science and the other the students’ culture was a more positive-learning experience in which the students begin to appreciate the importance of science in their lives. Moving into yet another context, Willis and Ritchie explore how parents became involved in coteaching and cogenerative dialogues in a primary school classroom. The teacher and parent used e-mail as a structure to coplan lessons when direct contact was not possible. Willis and Ritchie conclude that there may be considerable merit in parents positioning themselves, where appropriate, in new spaces for meaningful school engagement. The chapters address the three main criticisms of coteaching. First, it has been argued that preservice coteachers could be “encultured” into poor practice by working with a less-effective classroom teacher. All studies argue that this is overcome by the coplanning, coteaching, and coevaluating that take place, through which coteachers, often through the process of cogenerative dialogue, jointly decide on the best practices and then reflect on the approach and change if necessary. This way of working militates against, as opposed to encouraging, enculturation. A second major criticism of coteaching is that a poor relationship between coteachers could cause major problems in the classroom. The work in these studies addresses this issue by focusing on ways to promote positive working relationships and includes strategies such as focusing on the students’ learning as opposed to differences between coteachers, training, and preparation for effective coteaching, “matching” coteachers, and modeling good coteaching practice. Third, we have encountered those who suggest that preservice teachers who have cotaught will not be able to “go it alone.” The studies in this section suggest several ways that ensure an effective transition from coteaching to solo teaching, such as including independent teaching alongside coteaching in the initial teacher-education program and encouraging beginning teachers to disseminate their preservice coteaching experiences

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and the benefits for all participants (perhaps prepare a short document for them) to the school administrators, and see whether it may be possible to introduce an element of coteaching in the new school. The 10 years of research and development in coteaching described in such a variety of contexts in this section demonstrates the versatility and universality of coteaching as a way to improve the experience for learners in the twenty-first century.

Chapter 6

Risk-Taking as Practice in a Coteaching Professional Learning Community Jennifer Gallo-Fox

This chapter develops the concept of risk-taking as a daily part of teaching practices of a coteaching community of practice (Wenger 1998) comprising eight cooperating teachers and eight teaching interns. These coteachers collectively taught science in a suburban high school located in a mid-Atlantic state in the United States. The public nature of coteaching practice opened up situations for risk-taking and also created an environment of support and experimentation within the coteaching community. While both interns and cooperating teachers described taking risks in practice, their perceptions of risk were different. The experience of learning to teach in a public arena created a sense of vulnerability and exposure for the interns who were experiencing many firsts and challenging themselves in their daily practice. In contrast, cooperating teachers experienced risks when they cotaught with interns and expanded their pedagogical repertoire. These risk-taking efforts were in contrast to norms of teaching practice that reflect isolation in practice and conservative pedagogy (Lortie 1975). Across both types of risks, the culture of the community was one of support and encouragement that enabled participants to take on new challenges. Over the course of the semester, learning alongside each other and sharing uncertainties became a regular part of coteacher practice, as did regular experimentation with new pedagogies in classroom instruction.

6.1 The Public Nature of Coteaching Practice and Risk-Taking Lortie’s (1975) sociological study of the profession of teaching in the United States depicted the work of teachers as isolated with few opportunities to engage with others in or about practice. He attributed teacher independence and isolation to sociocultural historical aspects of the field including division of labor by subject areas and grades, assumptions that teachers would work independently to meet job responsibilities, and the frequent need to replace employees in a field with historically high levels of turnover. He argued that this isolation limited opportunities for teacher growth. To this day, the structural isolation of teachers remains the norm (Little 2007). Due to the culture of isolation within school structures and the teaching C. Murphy and K. Scantlebury (eds.), Coteaching in International Contexts: Research and Practice, Cultural Studies of Science Education, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3707-7_6, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

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profession, teachers rarely have opportunities to talk about their practice and learn from one another (Little 2002). Teacher learning communities have been explored as a means of teacher professional development (Borko 2004). The typical teacher learning community described in the research literature comprises teachers who do not teach together in the classroom, but who gather outside the classroom to discuss common aspects of practice. Frequently, teacher-learning communities are organized and facilitated by teacher educators or researchers for the purpose of professional development. Teacher participants may or may not be representatives of the same disciplinary department or grade level at their school. One goal in creating professional learning communities is to provide forums for teachers to talk about and share their practice. Teacher learning communities can create supportive environments that enhance teacher learning and the integration of new practices back in their classrooms (Achinstein 2002; Freedman 2001; Grossman et al. 2001). It is argued that learning communities can break the isolation of practice and afford rich opportunities for teachers to develop new understandings for practice through their shared examination and co-construction of practice (Little 2003). There are notable differences between teacher learning communities typically represented in the research literature and the coteaching community of practice that I describe in this chapter. The coteaching learning community comprised eight cooperating teachers and eight interns who cotaught together for the interns’ full practicum semester. These coteachers cotaught, coplanned, and shared co-responsibility for their mutual students during five out of seven class periods each weekday1 for a full semester (Scantlebury et al. 2008). Everything that occurred within the coteaching community of practice was publicly situated in the coteachers’ interactions, negotiations, and practice. Learning that occurred was situated within participation in this learning community. The public nature of practice opened up opportunities for coteachers to collaborate and talk about practice in an ongoing way that is not typically found in traditional teaching or student teaching experiences (Lortie 1975; Smith 2005), or professional learning communities. As is argued in this chapter, this structure supported ongoing risk-taking in practice. The paragraphs that follow briefly describe the public nature of coteaching as represented within this data set. In the secondary science coteaching community, practice was public in multiple ways. The public nature of practice and the risk-taking emanated from more than just physically sharing the same classrooms. Coteachers shared responsibility for classroom instruction and student learning. They collectively planned and taught together. Teacher communication was ongoing across the entire semester and included time inside the school day as well as outside of the school. Through their ongoing interactions, these coteachers opened-up the private side of practice as they strove to practice in a way that supported their own learning and that of their students. In her critical ethnography of the student teaching experience, Britzman (1991) 1  Interns cotaught four classes, solo taught one class, and had two planning or preparation periods that they spent in concert with coteachers. The term intern is used instead of student teacher in order to reflect differing expectations and responsibilities for pre-service teachers in coteaching models.

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highlights the private nature of learning to teach, arguing that teachers’ uncertainties and thoughts about practice are typically left unspoken. She argued that myths of teaching such as the views of teacher as expert and the need for certainty constrained student teacher voices and left them to struggle through these uncertainties in isolation. Britzman’s (1991) analysis provides a marked contrast to the public nature of practice within the coteaching community of practice. As the coteachers worked together and co-constructed their practice they shared their ideas, thoughts, and perceptions about teaching. Coteachers did not always share the same views about practice. Differing perspectives became apparent as teachers debated which pedagogical and curricular approaches to use, and as they talked about their practice in informal spaces. One example of this occurred when Samantha and Sean, two interns, debated which lessons to videotape for their self-reflection assignment. This debate centered around differing perspectives of teaching. Samantha wanted to videotape an Anatomy and Physiology lesson in which she would be leading an introductory discussion about the digestive system. Following the overview, students would engage in small group activity to illustrate the path that food follows through the human digestive system. During that time Samantha would be moving around the classroom and interacting with student groups about their work. Sean questioned if this was a good lesson to analyze because as he stated, “You’re not doing much teaching.” In contrast he felt that it would be better to analyze the teacher-centered lecture that he had planned for his Coordinated Science class. While the interns did not agree in their definitions of “good” teaching, they had a rich debate about characteristics of teaching. Their cooperating teacher also participated in this discussion (Fieldnotes, March 3). This is just one of many examples in which coteachers debated the nature of practice, pedagogy, and knowledge that occurred during the coteaching semester. As the interns were developing their own professional identities of practice, such conversations exposed the conflicting beliefs of participants. Instead of reinforcing the concept of certainty in practice, these conversations opened up the complexity of teachers’ work and helped to illuminate many different ways for approaching practice. Regardless of their differing views about teaching, the coteachers needed to come to an agreement about what form their coteaching practice would take in their shared classes. Their plans for action and understandings needed to be tightly coordinated so that they could operate as a cohesive unit in the classroom. Co-planning meetings provided space to discuss differences of opinion and form unified plans for practice. Another way in which coteaching practice was co-constructed occurred during the ongoing daily negotiations of action in practice. The coteachers made many collective decisions about their work throughout each teaching day. As Amanda (intern) described, There are so many “executive decisions” – that’s the term that we use – executive decisions made throughout the day. [For example,] “Okay, well I’m going to cut that, or this isn’t working at all, or we need to totally revamp that.” Even just little things like, when can students retake a test? … With regular non-coteaching you’d only have to worry about your own schedule, or your own opinion on the matter … As opposed to needing to take the time to go find the others and talk it out and … being able to come to consensus. Sort-of just making whole group decisions. Go through that whole process of convincing people if there are differing opinions. That definitely was difficult sometimes. (Interview, May)

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Not all of the coteachers had the same views about practice. As they worked to come to a “consensus” they explicated their views, and each other’s understandings about teaching were shared. Patsy (cooperating teacher) described this experience as if her “brains were coming out in the open,” I think I’ve learned a lot more about styles working with other people because you become more verbal in terms of the co-planning. I’m hearing more about what I’m thinking now. It’s like my brains are coming out in the open. … I see that and they [my coteachers] see that. (Seminar, May 10)

As these coteachers worked together, they created a community of practice in which the coteachers shared ideas, co-constructed and problematized their practice. Central to coteaching were the shared interactions that occurred within it. It was through communicated messages and gestures, and also in the spaces where things were left unsaid, or assumed to be mutually understood that participants shared, negotiated, resisted, and transformed the cultural practices and meanings of the community (Gallo-Fox 2009). Interactions served as the conduit for sharing meaning and creating change; they also opened up the public face of practice and created an environment that supported ongoing risk-taking in practice. The public, shared nature of practice broke down the typical isolation of the classroom (Lortie 1975). Teaching and learning together provided coteachers with a rich learning environment. However, coteaching also opened up a sense of risk as participants took chances sharing ideas and teaching and learning in front of one another. Many of the interns expressed a sense of exposure and vulnerability as they tried things for the first time and worked to create their own identities as teachers. Furthermore, cooperating teachers moved outside of their comfort-zone to teach in new ways. These experiences created a sense of uncertainty and risk in practice. In the sections that follow I develop the nature of risk-taking within the coteaching community of practice. I first describe the concepts of risk-taking as presented in the research literature. Then, I present my research design and this coteaching model for learning to teach. I argue that the public nature of coteaching opened up two different types of risk-taking for the coteachers. One type of risk-taking related to the ways that the public nature of coteaching practice created a sense of exposure and vulnerability for the teachers. The second type of risk-taking connected to expanded pedagogical practices that occurred within the coteaching experience. Interns and cooperating teachers perceived each of these risks differently. In this chapter, these differences are described as in how the environment of the coteaching community of practice supported successful practice and risk-taking efforts while creating a stance of risk-taking as a regular part of coteaching practice.

6.2 The Conception of Risk-Taking School reform and innovation have been reported to cause teacher uncertainty and increased risk-taking, yet the notion of teacher risk-taking itself has received little attention in the educational literature (Reio 2005). Furthermore, while empirical

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studies of teacher learning communities mention that risk-taking and support for risk-taking occurs within these groups (Freedman 2001; Stoll and Louis 2007), the literature typically does not describe the nature of this risk-taking. In fact, Ponticell (2003) reported only three studies that examined teacher risk-taking. Despite limited attention in the education literature, the concept of risk has been widely explored in the fields of psychology, political science, anthropology, and sociology (Breakwell 2007). Yates and Stone (1992) identified the following elements inherent in all risk: potential for loss, significance of loss, and uncertainty. Early research into risk interpreted risk-taking as a decision-making process in which participants make decisions about behavior based on weighing the potential gains and losses involved with their behaviors (Ponticell 2003; Slovic 2000). Later, affect was incorporated into research on risk-taking with understanding that people make both intuitive and calculated choices based on perceived benefits and perceived degree of risk (Slovic 2000). Many conceptualizations of risk situate the notion of risk within the minds of individuals (Slovic 2000). However, Douglas and Wildavsky (1982) first began to explore the connections between risk and culture. In arguing that the notion of risk is shaped by and embedded in the social institutions that people participate in, they opened up research around the sociocultural nature of risk. This work and other anthropological and sociocultural work that followed moved the concept of risk from being positioned within the individual toward the cultural practices and views of collectives. These ideas are reflected in the educational literature, where community practices and the climate of a school setting are viewed as factors in risk-taking (Kellermeir 1996; Ponticell 2003). Ponticell (2003) grounded her work on risk within psychological frameworks of risk. However, she found these conceptions of risk-taking to be too narrow and called for further development of a “sociology of risk-taking behavior,” particularly in relation to “social interactions, organizational processes, and group or organizational values that influence collective behavior” (p. 21). While Ponticell identified these broader conceptions of risk-taking as sociological, they can also be understood or interpreted through a sociocultural framework. Multiple types of risks have been identified in the literature. This study of risk is situated within research related to the risk of common everyday life (Hunt 2003; Smith 1998). Hunt depicts risk-taking in everyday life as linked to the anxiety resulting from problematization of life circumstances and the discourse of risk surrounding response to a situation. Smith contrasts risks embedded in everyday life to those which he describes as thrill-seeking and describes the implications of everyday risk-taking in terms of the personal, intellectual, social, moral, and ethical. Others have connected such risks to learning processes and identity development. Taking everyday risks is not viewed as negative (Hunt 2003; Smith 1998), but rather linked to sense of vulnerability emanating from the uncertainties of life and ongoing decision-making. Like all other types of risks, these risks involve uncertainty, vulnerability, emotion, and trust. Additionally, a sense of morality and ethics toward others are implicated. Smith, whose work relates to pedagogy and adult responsibility toward children in their care, developed the term “pedagogy of risk.” He argues that when adults assume responsibility for children’s growth and learning,

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an “ethic of risk” is implicated and “there is an obligation placed upon [adults] to consider risk in light of the child’s growth” (p. 15). The term responsibilization is used in the literature to describe risk-taking that entails an embedded sense of responsibility towards others (Hunt 2003). Research on risk across disciplines has argued that risk is subjective and that different groups of people (e.g., experts versus laypeople, men versus women) perceive societal risks differently (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Slovic 2000). In the educational research literature, both Freedman (2001) and Ridenour and Twale (2005) have noted that different generations of educators experience risk-taking differently. Ridenour and Twale (2005) write about how different generations of academics (faculty and doctoral students) involved in an education leadership program encountered different types of risks within the same setting. They typify faculty risks as professional risks resulting from the implementation of innovations in practice, whereas risks encountered by students are both professional and personal. Freedman (2001) in her work with teacher research groups has also noted differences in how new and experienced teachers talk about and experience risk in their practice. This chapter about risk-taking is situated within a sociocultural theoretical framework of learning and development (Murphy and Carlisle 2008; Stetsenko 2008) and addresses these ideas through a discussion of the culture of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991) that emerged within this coteaching community. Interpreting the coteachers’ experiences of risk through a sociocultural lens provides a way to gain insight into the patterns of practice that coteachers participated in as part of their ongoing work. It also develops understanding into the culture of practice and the historical underpinnings embedded in participant practice. This study illuminates the ways that the coteachers engaged in risk-taking practices, supported each other in their work, and experienced noticeable differences in the types of risk incurred within the coteaching experience. In summary, the nature of risk examined in this chapter reflects the everyday risk-taking in teaching and is connected to social relations, identity building, learning, and the ethical sense of responsibility that teachers hold in connection to student learning. This conceptualization of risk implicates an ethic of responsibility regarding the implications of teacher decisions toward student learning and is understood within the context of the uncertainty of teaching (Dudley-Marling 1997) and coteachers’ problematization of their ongoing practice.

6.3 The Context/Research Design The coteaching model implemented by a State University in a mid-Atlantic state in the United States placed a cohort of eight undergraduate preservice interns with eight cooperating teachers in suburban secondary science classrooms. The interns were not assigned to a single cooperating teacher as is often done in traditional student teaching arrangements (Guyton and McIntyre 1990). Rather, interns taught with up to four cooperating teachers and two other interns over the course of each school day.

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Teaching interns were partnered by discipline. Each teaching pair then was assigned to work with cooperating teachers who had their own classroom and a certified special educator with a chemistry degree who worked in inclusion science classes to support students with Individualized Education Programs.2 Coteaching groups were generally organized around disciplinary specialization (i.e., biology, chemistry, earth science). For example, chemistry interns worked together with the other chemistry teachers in the department. Course assignments reflected teachers’ specific science disciplinary specialty and also included interdisciplinary science classes. Placements were designed to provide experience teaching a wide variety of courses in order to provide interns with a range of teaching opportunities. Interns were each responsible for teaching five class periods a day. They cotaught four of these classes, and following a more traditional model of student teaching independently taught one “solo” class period. All of the coteachers in the science department at Biden High School interacted regularly throughout the day in informal spaces and also during weekly on-site coteaching seminars. The coteachers cotaught in disciplinary groups comprised three to six coteachers and organized around content area and course taught. Together these groups of coteachers taught and cotaught the same courses sharing responsibility for student learning and instruction. They coplanned lessons together, discussed views of practice, and reflected upon their successes and failures while supporting each other’s efforts. Coteacher comments about risk-taking, even when made in whole group seminar settings, referred to experiences coteaching and learning within these disciplinary subgroups. Data collection occurred over 7 months with field observations during the 4 months the interns worked at Biden High during the 2005 spring semester. Data collected include 41 formal interviews, over 150 h of observational data (i.e., fieldnotes, audio and video recordings of coteacher practice and coteacher meetings), and classroom documents. Data analysis merged methodologies from ethnography and discourse analysis (Gee and Green 1998) and was informed by sociocultural theories which frame learning and development as shared contribution (Murphy and Carlisle 2008; Stetsenko 2008). Analysis around the concept of risk was begun after the theme emerged from the data. Data were then analyzed around this theme to develop greater understanding of the ways that participants conceptualized the notion of risk as a part of their coteaching practice.

6.4 Exposure and Vulnerability, or a Welcome Respite? The beginning of coteaching was a time of anxiety and uncertainty for the interns. Many of them indicated early in the semester that they were anxious as they began their full practicum – unsure of what to expect and nervous about coteaching as In the United States, classrooms that include students with identified special needs are called inclusion classrooms. In these classrooms general educators and special educators often work together to support the learning needs of all students.

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they had never seen it in a high school setting. As Sean explained in a phone interview on March 20, “I think it’s going pretty well. I mean, I enjoy the teaching and I wasn’t sure at first that I would. I mean, I never had any really experience teaching.” He reiterated these ideas in his May interview. At first when I came in, I didn’t know if I would really be able to do it. You know what I mean? Like, stand in front of the room and have everyone actually like listen to me. I was worried. (Sean Interview, May)

During the early weeks of coteaching, everything about the teaching experience was new and incorporated some level of risk. Early in the semester interns described the experience of learning to teach in a public arena as creating a sense vulnerability and exposure in a time when they were taking many new risks and challenging themselves in new ways. During the initial weeks of coteaching, many of the interns reported that the public nature of coteaching led to an underlying sense of anxiety and uncertainty as they exposed their vulnerabilities as learners and new teachers to their colleagues. Both Javier and Samantha had difficulties getting along with their intern teaching partners, and seemed to experience this most acutely. Early in the semester, both Javier and Samantha explored the possibility of leaving the field practicum experience. Javier felt vulnerable teaching and sharing instructional ideas in front of others. Anxiety about how others would judge his ideas or teaching practice often made him hesitant to share ideas and led him to quietly participate in conversations. As he explained, I guess I felt uncomfortable in front of the students, and I felt uncomfortable teaching around other adults. I felt uncomfortable teaching when Julie was in the room, not so much when Jeanine was there, but it’s getting better … one of the reasons I didn’t feel comfortable around her [Julie] was that I felt like I was being judged all the time. You know? Like, I always felt self-conscious about teaching and speaking out to the kids, and stuff like that. (Interview, March) Maybe I’m a little unsure if my ideas are good ideas. … I just have a problem when it’s an open floor and everybody’s talking, I have a problem just butting in and beginning to put my two cents in. (Interview, March)

As Javier’s relationships with coteachers improved, he reported that his anxiety slowly diminished. However, he was never completely comfortable coteaching with others. Samantha was also exceedingly anxious about teaching. She was overwhelmed by the complexity of practice and she struggled to teach with coteachers with different philosophical orientations. Patsy, one of her cooperating teachers, and her cohort peers supported her developing practice and helped ease her anxieties. As Samantha explained, “I expressed to Pasty how nervous I was about everything and she just weaned me in. She didn’t just throw me in there, because if you just threw me in there, I wouldn’t have done it” (Interview, May). Interns taught four-fifths of their classes alongside coteachers, this meant that their actions were visible to peers and colleagues throughout the day. It was in these public spaces of practice that risk-taking occurred and participants reported feelings of vulnerability and anxiety as they exposed their developing practices to other adults. Interns did not typically use the term “risk” in their discourse, but this is unnecessary

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as the discourse of risk typically references the associated concerns, anxieties, and sense of vulnerability that emanates from perceived risk and insecurity (Hunt 2003). For interns, experimenting in practice while in direct sight of colleagues created strong feelings of uncertainty and anxiety particularly early in the semester. Two examples of vulnerability resulting from the public nature of practice were evident in the Environmental Science coteachers’ instruction on fossil fuels. The first example illustrates how the public nature of planning and practice led to instances where an intern admitted that he did not know something. The second example depicts the uncertainty another intern experienced as she taught in new ways and with new materials for the first time. During the Environmental Science group’s coplanning session in mid-February the coteachers began to develop plans for the fossil fuel unit; here they discussed avenues for opening up classroom discussion and gaining insight into student prior knowledge. Vincent, the cooperating teacher, suggested that they might use a “pairshare.” After two other interns and Vincent used the term “pair-share” an additional six times Luke asked, “This might, probably, sounds ridiculous, but what is a pairshare thing?” In asking for clarification of the term Luke exposed the fact that he did not know this practice. He could have chosen not to expose this knowledge gap; however, it was becoming apparent that the group was considering incorporating a pair-share in their lesson plans and Luke would need to understand exactly what this was. Luke’s couching of the question shows some hesitation – “this might, probably, sounds ridiculous, but.…” This exposure of a personal knowledge gap was a source of personal and professional risk-taking (Ridenour and Twale 2005). However, not asking for help would have been equally problematic. What would Luke do if he were in charge of either writing up the lesson, or arrived to teach without fully understanding the plans for the day? While Luke was hesitant, remaining quiet had more significant negative consequences for practice. Luke’s question launched a conversation in which his coteachers together developed a definition of the term and described what it would look like in the classroom for this activity. His coteachers’ response is illustrative of the cohesive nature of the group and the support that they provided for one another throughout the semester. BERNADETTE: It’s when they find a partner and then get out a piece of paper and answer some questions, and they discuss it. LUKE: With each other? BERNADETTE: They share with each other. JAVIER: It could be a pair-share activity. You could have questions on the overhead, or like with your partner—“Find a partner sitting next to you, please,” you know, “[and] answer these questions.” JULIE: Share their knowledge at the beginning of the chapter. What is a fossil fuel? And what do we use fossil fuels for in everyday life? —Or something like that. VINCENT: What is a fossil fuel? Name three examples. Where do they come from? How are they formed? JULIE: And do the pair-share and then bring them back as a class and discuss it.

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Luke’s risk-taking lead to a group co-construction of the meaning of pair-share, afforded learning opportunities, furthered development of group relationships, and solidified group meaning of the term for the group’s collective practice. Trying out new teaching approaches and working with cultural tools from their new position as teacher in the public coteaching arena also created a sense of uncertainty for the interns. One example of this occurred the third week of coteaching when Bernadette used an overhead projector for the first time while she leading the class “pair-share” discussion developed during the coplanning session. When Vincent encouraged her to lead that part of the lesson, she did so, but afterwards admitted to me, “I felt like an idiot up there. Vincent came up to me and said, ‘Hey, do you want to do the group discussion?’ And he kind-of just threw me into it, and I was like, ‘Okay, I will do it’” (Fieldnotes, February 22). Although Bernadette felt as if she were thrown to the center of the room to lead the classroom discussion, it was not as if she was entirely unprepared. She had been an integral part of the development of the lesson, had prepared for class and read through the lesson plans that Julie had typed up for the group, talked to Luke about the lesson after he taught it period 3, and conferred with Vincent about leading the pair-share just before she led the class. Vincent supported Bernadette’s practice by coteaching alongside her as she led the pair-share discussion. He contributed to the classroom instruction, provided classroom management support, and debriefed with her about the lesson right after it occurred (Fieldnotes, February 22, 2005). Regardless of her preparation and Vincent’s support, Bernadette’s words portray a sense of unease, uncertainty, and vulnerability as she moved into this new role. Her sense of vulnerability was paralleled by the comments of many of the other interns, who engaged in new types of practice each day, particularly during the early weeks of the semester when everything was new. Over the course of the semester, interns became used to the public forum of practice. For example Joe, a chemistry intern, cotaught an interdisciplinary science course with Samantha and Henry (cooperating teacher). Later in the semester when they cotaught a unit on evolution, Joe taught outside of his content area. He drew on his coteachers’ expertise to support both his practice and also student understanding of the material within the public forum of the classroom. As he explained, JOE: Once we started getting into more bio, I kind-of struggled in that. So I would ask questions as we were teaching. If I had a question I could ask Henry or Samantha and they would answer it. I thought that was good, because if I was confused about something, chances were that the kids were confused about it. So—JEN: So you had an open dialog about it as you were going through the class.JOE: Yeah, and that worked out really well, I think. (Interview May)

Additionally, the interns reported that teaching in the classroom with other adults and observers actually helped them when they were interviewing for jobs. They explained that after teaching alongside colleagues and having supervisors and researchers in the classroom, having administrators in the back of the classroom during an interview demonstration lesson was not problematic – being observed by others had become a norm of practice.

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Freedman (2001) reflects on 20 years of experience working with teacher research network groups. She notes differences between the ways that first-year teachers and more experienced classroom teachers talked about taking risks in the teacher research groups. For the more experienced teachers, this risk-taking in the research arena and the support in the group setting fed into risk-taking in the classroom. For the new teachers, it made the whole act of teaching, which was generally a risky business, more manageable (Freedman 2001, p. 198). Clear parallels can be drawn between Freedman’s findings and the ways that these participants talked about the risk inherent in their practices. Intern and cooperating teachers’ responses to the public nature of practice was markedly different. In contrast to interns, cooperating teachers were overwhelmingly positive about the experience of coteaching with others. This was evident on several levels, the first of which appeared linked to the cooperating teachers’ sense of responsibility toward student learning. Tim, for example, had refrained from taking a student teacher until he was able to stay in the room and coteach. Vincent also expressed similar sentiments, I think I’d be more apprehensive to step away from the classroom and just kind-of give it all over … like that traditional method. … I’m always in there. There’s always like a failsafe if something is going wrong. It’s a learning experience for the student teacher, but yet you don’t lose the quality instruction for the kids (Interview, June).

Additionally, the cooperating teachers believed that having multiple coteachers in the classroom supported student learning by enabling increased teacher contact time with individual students and small groups. Cooperating teachers also welcomed the opportunity to break the isolation of practice. They described the experience as “refreshing” and “rejuvenating.” They explained, I just like the team approach. It is so refreshing compared to doing everything by yourself. Teaching can be kind-of isolating at times. You are always looking within yourself for something. It always helps to have a fresh vantage point. (Henry, Interview, June) Once you are in your classroom, you don’t see anybody else teaching. These guys come in here and make me reflect on how I was in student teaching, how I am now, and how there are still some things that I need to change. (Patsy, Interview, March)

Cooperating teachers explained that the ongoing interactions and mutual nature of practice opened up a rich sharing of ideas and perspectives. As Jeanine stated, “They [interns] help you look at things from a different angle” (June Interview). Cooperating teachers talked about how the public nature of practice increased their reflective practice, opened up metacognitive discussions about practice, and afforded opportunities to learn. As per Patsy’s comment above, many of the cooperating teachers described an increased sense of self-awareness that came from working with a coteacher. They reported that watching interns and reflecting on their own practice helped them see ways that they could improve. At the core of these comments was a sense that working with the interns provided valuable learning opportunities.

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In summary, the process of coteaching was very open and visible as the coteachers collectively practiced. The public nature of coteaching appears to have created a sense of risk-taking for interns that resulted from an increased sense of vulnerability as they learned and practiced within a public arena particularly in the early part of the semester. In contrast, the cooperating teachers found that this public forum afforded rich opportunities for learning. All coteachers described ways that they learned from being in and with others. The second type of everyday risk-taking described by coteachers was pedagogical risk-taking. Interestingly enough, the cooperating teachers expressed a greater sense of risk in this area than interns who had learned about inquiry-oriented instruction in their science methods courses and believed that this was the best way to support student learning.

6.5 Moving Outside Comfort-Zones: Pedagogical Risk-Taking Teacher practice typically tends to be conservative, drawing on activities and pedagogies that are tested and safe (Ball and Cohen 1999; Little 1999; Ridenour and Twale 2005). As Hertzog (1998) writes, “teachers take risks with all instructional activities by not knowing ahead of time how well the students will perform or respond to the activity” (p. 29). Despite the risk inherent in the uncertainty of instruction, it was found that all coteachers across the coteaching community experimented in practice – trying out new practices and taking chances implementing lessons that were characterized by seasoned teachers as “risky.” Collective discussions about pedagogical risk-taking occurred on a regular basis, and coteachers took chances in their practice by incorporating new activities and labs, group work, hands-on activities, and inquiry-based approaches into their practice. Intern’s pedagogical risk-taking was grounded in professional knowledge of teaching and learning from their science methods course, and was informed by their understanding of theory and a commitment to providing instruction that they believed would best support student learning. All cooperating teachers agreed that these were important approaches for shaping instruction and teaching students; however, they did not always do this in their own practice. Through their work with the interns, all cooperating teachers reported that they expanded their practice by incorporating more practices into instruction and expanding their pedagogical repertoires. Coteacher conversations throughout the semester, evidenced concerns about pedagogy, feasibility of the activities, issues related to limited resources, and concerns about student success related to both completion of the activities and learning outcomes. All coteachers acknowledged the time and effort needed for inquiry-based instruction. Each of these issues reflected some of the dilemmas science teachers must confront when engaging in hands-on, inquiry-based pedagogy and reflect known barriers for teachers trying out such instructional approaches. However, as a collective, the group members worked to problem-solve around concerns and worked to make the curricular approaches possible for their setting and successful in practice. Taking pedagogical risks became a regular part of the practice that was supported by the collective resources, energy, and support of group members.

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The interns valued this type of practice but acknowledged the complexity of these practices and the amount of work that it took to implement them. All coteachers appreciated the expanded power of the group to prepare and implement instruction. The interns viewed the workload as a challenge that was surmountable when divided up amongst the coteachers. However, all of their lessons required significant amounts of preparation. Interns typically worked at home over the weekend and late each weeknight to prepare for classes. They did not appear to question the amount of work needed to prepare for instruction, but rather interpreted this as what one needed to do to prepare for class. Interns’ commitment to reform-oriented practice was grounded in their science methods classes and also a sense of responsibilization toward student learning. They believed that reform-oriented pedagogy and mixed methods that addressed diverse learner needs were the best ways to reach their students. Pedagogical risk-taking was grounded in a commitment toward improving student learning. For example, Bernadette expressed concerns that some of the students in her Biology/Forensics class were bored and disengaged because they were not being challenged enough in class. She believed that pedagogical and curricular approaches in the classroom were important for engaging student learning, impacting student motivation, and improving student learning (Fieldnotes, March 8). In order to better reach students in her independently taught class, she deviated from the cotaught Biology and Forensics lesson plans, which were greatly shaped by her cooperating teacher, and tended to be more teacher-centered. Coteachers refrained from any pedagogical risk-taking that might negatively impact student learning. For example, Amanda cotaught and solo taught an Honors Coordinated II Science class with a Chemistry emphasis. This course was the first of a three-course sequence that culminated with Advanced Placement Chemistry. When Amanda realized that her cooperating teacher deviated from the textbook, she became concerned that if she did not keep her practice closely aligned with his, her students might be negatively impacted in future years. I think it’s just a matter of coming into a curriculum that you don’t know… Not really being familiar with how far they have to get; what in-depth knowledge they need to know .… [Tim] gave the first couple of lectures. … When I saw… how completely different his approach was from the material covered in the book. It was like, “Okay, well, maybe follow along with what he is doing so they keep on the same page.” … So it was a desire to keep them together, [to] not keep my solo class back from where all the other sophomores were going to end up. (Interview, May)

There were two distinct differences between the interns and cooperating teachers in regard to pedagogical risk-taking. Interns did not use the term risk, but rather framed discussion around questions and concerns for practice. How would students respond to a certain approach? What might the implications be for student learning if one approach was utilized over another? For interns, all practice was new and uncertain. Yet, their pedagogy reflected what they had been taught at the university and what they understood as appropriate. In contrast, cooperating teachers talked about expanded pedagogical practices as “risky.” For example, as the Anatomy and Physiology coteachers devised a model-building activity Patsy (cooperating teacher) commented, “That is the risky route to take. I mean that is kind-of inquiry”

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(Coplan Meeting, February 17). For the cooperating teachers, even those who typically utilized active learning in their classroom, new approaches and changed curriculum brought an element of uncertainty and risk into their work. These pedagogical changes challenged the conservative norms of teacher practice as practice moved away from proven approaches. Patsy’s comment above comes from a coplanning session where Anatomy and Physiology coteachers were planning the opening days of a unit on muscles. Teachers could have begun the muscle unit the same way that Patsy had done in previous years by labeling the parts of the muscle on a worksheet. However, Sean had located a model-building activity online and shared the idea with the group. As constructed by the group, this activity was an open-ended, inquiry-based activity in which the students would construct models of muscle fibers while developing understanding of the structure and functionality of its components. The model-building activity challenged Patsy to expand her teaching repertoire. Numerous times throughout the planning and implementation of the lessons she mentioned the “risk” embedded in the model-building activity. On a number of occasions, both before doing the activity and in class with the students, she expressed her concerns about how the activity would work. Patsy had not often used such activities in her practice, and she expressed concern that the activity might be overly challenging for students. To reinforce just how risky this was for her, during the coplanning meeting she stated, And it will be – I mean – I have not done a lot of things where these guys, really – I mean, like, that type of thing. This will be unique. They are kind of figuring to do something different.

This is just one example of the numerous times that Patsy identified the activity as one that entailed taking risks in practice. However, her willingness to try new pedagogical approaches reflected the support and openness toward risk-taking fostered by the Anatomy and Physiology coteachers. Patsy’s willingness to consider these practices and participate in these experiences helped open up learning opportunities for the collective. The model-building activity involved risk-taking for all members of the group, in fact in the coplanning meeting coteachers identified 15 potential problems with the lesson. Each of these they carefully evaluated and figured out how to address prior to implementing the lesson in the classroom. Despite the perceived risk, the success of the activity served as a source of enthusiasm about their achievements and their potential as a group. This provided further enthusiasm and encouragement for the collective as they worked together on new challenges. Coteachers generally believed that student learning was enhanced by their collective practice. Their risk-taking reflected a responsibilization of practice and an ethic of care toward their students. Coteachers did not take risks that would negatively impact student performance; rather, the risks incurred were related to the teachers’ own learning and practice. As will be discussed in the next section, teachers found that coteaching provided space for them to learn in practice while supporting each other as they took chances in the classroom.

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6.6 Risk-Taking Within a Supportive Environment: “Somebody Had Your Back” In coteaching you have someone right there to help you with something that you might not know, or something that happens during the class, or someone asks a question and you’ve already explained it three times and you don’t know how else to explain it. There’s somebody else there who could say, “Okay, how about if we look at it this way?”… So I know that for me, in a co-teaching classroom, I was much more willing to take risks. (Anne, June Interview)

Freedman (2001) noted how learning communities supported teacher researchers as they dealt with risk-taking in their practice. Coteaching with others may have increased the interns’ sense of vulnerability as they learned and cotaught alongside others while student teaching, but as Anne, a cooperating teacher, stated above, the context of coteaching provided her with additional security in practice. Coteaching provided support for expanding participant practice and afforded opportunities for learning about teaching. Like Samantha who found that her cooperating teacher helped support her through her initial anxious weeks, Bernadette found the community to be a safe and supportive learning environment. It’s like a safe learning environment. I felt really comfortable there with all the other science teachers. I don’t know what I would have done if they weren’t nice like they were. Vincent – I mean, he would just go into his room when I’d be like, “Oh, I need to figure out something to do,” and he’d pull a book off the shelf and be like, “Here you go, try that,” you know? So it was really nice to have that all. (Interview, May)

As the semester progressed interns’ sense of anxiety around teaching and talking about practice with others diminished; instead, the dominant sentiment reflected a sense of collective, mutual responsibility, or co-responsibility (Scantlebury et  al. 2008). The extra support that resulted from collective responsibility enabled coteachers to take on new challenges or chances within their practice. As Anne said, “I was much more willing to take risks.… Somebody had your back, for lack of a better phrase” (Interview, June). It was clear from coteacher comments that there was a clear sense of support and communal commitment toward achieving success in practice. Cooperating teachers and interns supported each other’s practice as a regular part of coteaching. They helped one another as they layered instruction by intertwining their voices in the classroom to insert additional ideas, extra content material, and correct mistakes. Teacher huddles which occurred during cotaught lessons provided points for coteachers to confer about ongoing classroom events, provide extra support, redirect, or adjust practice. On a number of occasions both interns and cooperating teachers pitched in during their preparation periods to support colleagues in classes that they typically did not teach when colleagues were teaching in ways that were new, challenging, or risky, or if they needed extra support for a classroom demonstration, activity, or lab. Teaching within the secondary science coteaching community became mutually supported with a sense of colleagues supporting one another’s success and also student learning. This sense of mutuality helped to diminish

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the risk of failure in the classroom and also diminished personal vulnerability around failure. Additionally, it fostered coteachers’ ability to take on new challenges. As Pam (cooperating teacher) stated during a weekly seminar meeting: Something that Vincent talked about last year was that when you’re trying something new, which seems to be the nature of Coor III. It’s so much easier when it’s not you by yourself. …we had five of us that were co-planning, we decided to do a whole series of mini labs. Which, when you think about it; if any of us think about it. Would we ever—you know, by ourselves, would we have done everything that we ended up having to do?.... But we have— it was a support group. I mean, first of all, it was a new content [area] that most people hadn’t taught, with kids who had no clue what’s going on, and we were trying to put together this whole sequence of lab activities. As an individual, it would’ve been a totally overwhelming task, and we probably would’ve backed off, but together — I mean, we knew we could do it together (and we didn’t give ourselves a big timeline to get it done). But with all the hands pulling together, we nailed it, got it out to the kids; and it worked so well. (Seminar, May 10)

Vincent agreed saying, “There’s definitely safety in numbers” (Seminar, May 10). The coteachers observed and supported each other in action when they were trying out new things, experimenting, and taking many risks on a daily basis. Taking chances within this public arena required a large degree of trust in fellow coteachers. The general tenor of the group reflected a community culture of support and encouragement. Furthermore, the ways that coteachers talked about practice, worked to expand pedagogical repertoires, or inquired into one another’s thinking, afforded ongoing learning opportunities. Learning to work together and support one another’s practice was critical to the learning and transformation that occurred during the semester. Coteaching is a highly interactive approach for learning to teach. An important part of this experience was learning how to work professionally and support one another’s practice, even when participants did not get along. As the interns explained in their final interviews, their mutual practice was not contingent upon friendship, but rather reflected work as professionals who supported one another’s practice and students’ learning. This stance of unity and co-responsibility helped to diminish the risks inherent in public practice and the successful implementation of new pedagogies and new ideas. Writing about the importance of classroom environment, Kellermeir (1996) describes the value of creating learning contexts that support risk-taking by making participants feel comfortable enough to participate in the intellectual work of the classroom. Kellermeir and Grossman et al. (2001) draw on the notion of midwifery in their writing about learning communities and the ways that “the group assists in the birth of new ideas. For such births to occur, the group must provide a safe environment in which individuals are free to voice uncertainty, explore ideas, and state, and retract opinions” (Grossman et al. 2001, p. 984). The collective efforts of the coteachers to support risk-taking also served as a form of midwifery. The coteachers, working in concert, helped one another deal with the uncertainty and vulnerability experienced within practice and develop confidence and experience success as they took risks in their classroom. The results were new understandings for practice and successes that further fostered willingness to talk about practice and expand classroom instruction.

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Rogoff, Baker-Sennett, Lacasa, and Goldsmith (1995) write that the sociocultural practices developed within communities reflect past, present, and future action. They postulate that cultural development has implications for future practice – as people shape ongoing actions and decisions they draw on previous patterns of practice and understandings about participation. It seems likely that practices borne from the coteaching experiences were brought forward into a subsequent setting and helped to shape their practice in these new settings. Coteachers’ successful experiences teaching hands-on inquiry science provided a knowledge base for future practice. Talking collegial risks in opening up one’s practice and sharing classroom experiences also afforded opportunities for further growth and development in new settings. Experiences within the science coteaching community could be drawn upon in future practice and used to shape work in new settings. Evidence exists that the pedagogical risk-taking that cooperating teachers engaged in with the interns shaped their future practice even when these interns were no longer members of the community. In a personal email communication with Patsy in December 2007 she wrote, “I have used the sarcomere activity every year since it was piloted. The kids do really well with it.” The fact that Patsy continued to utilize the sarcomere activity in the 2 years following her work with Samantha and Sean provides evidence of how these curriculum development activities impacted her practice even after the interns had left the classroom. It illustrates the shared contributions of the coteaching group toward her expanded curricular and pedagogical practice and her ongoing willingness to incorporate what she had initially perceived as “risky” into her practice. Furthermore, it illustrates how the coteachers’ collaborative practice contributed to the learning experiences of future classes of Anatomy and Physiology students and also the additional pairs of teaching interns who worked with Patsy each of those years. Through their work together the coteaching group from 2005 contributed to the classroom learning of future students and coteachers at Biden High. Other coteachers also utilized curricular and pedagogical changes in successive years. Vincent used opportunities for developing labs with interns to shape and impact his future practice. Bill, a more teacher-centered practitioner explained that the interns helped him diversify his practice, and that he intended on drawing on the lesson plans that the group had developed in future years. Finally, Anne, one of the most traditional cooperating teachers in community, remarked that her work with interns pushed her to think in new ways and expand her practice. Interns were not followed longitudinally into their own classrooms. It is unknown how the interns’ identities and practices shifted as they moved into their new settings. However, data from interviews show that all of the interns valued the inquiry-oriented, hands-on pedagogy that they were able to use while coteaching and believed that such approaches were important to enhancing student learning. Furthermore, interview data suggest that each of the interns (even those who had most resisted the collaborative coteaching experience) strongly valued collegial interactions as a way to extend practice, to examine problems, and to improve their work in the classroom. While we do not know exactly what they did when immersed in new teaching communities, the data suggest that these new teachers hoped to utilize collegial networks to support and improve their efforts.

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6.7 Risk-Taking as Collective Practice: Conclusions and Implications Deborah Britzman (1991) described the uncertainty of practice that student teachers struggled with as they shaped their identities as high school English teachers. She noted that cultural myths that depict teachers as assured knowers and experts constrasted with the uncertainties of the classroom and proved to be a significant hindrance in student teachers’ development. In marked contrast to Britzman’s findings, the coteachers at Biden High school came to accommodate the everyday risk-taking embedded within the teaching and learning experiences in the secondary science coteaching community. Both types of risk-taking illustrate ways that the coteaching community moved participants to work in opposition to the traditional structures of isolation and conservative norms of practice. It appears that the supportive environment that emerged and the ongoing interactions between the coteachers about and during practice fostered both individual and collective risk-taking within the community and held potential for continued risk-taking practices. Ball and Cohen (1999) called for change in teacher culture in order to create environments that would provide opportunities for teachers to critically examine their practice and beliefs and learn along with others. Their comments were made in the context of the standards reform movement in the United States that required teachers to expand their curricular and pedagogical learning and practices. Such learning and growth continue to be imperative in light of the current accountability reform No Child Left Behind. However, the implications of accountability increase a sense of responsibilization for teachers toward both their students and the schools. Curricular and pedagogical risk-taking in practice carries with it increasing levels of risk, particularly in light of high stakes accountability centered on student test scores. Students must be prepared for the state testing. If students do not do well and test scores do not show improvement, schools risk being labeled as a failing school and could potentially face reorganization. Although this chapter reports on the experiences of only one coteaching community, it appears that the coteaching model helped to foster important pedagogical practices and the development of a learning community that enabled participants to engage in rich conversations and debates about the meaning of practice. It helped participants cope with the uncertainty of practice and the vulnerability that resulted from sharing the private side of practice with colleagues. Finally, it helped participants expand their pedagogical repertoire and develop new ways for supporting student learning. These are goals of professional learning communities. As this study illustrates, coteaching can afford opportunities for teachers who, across their life span, continue to further their practice as lifelong learners.

References Achinstein, B. (2002). Conflict amid community: The micropolitics of teacher collaboration. Teachers College Record, 104(3), 421–455. Ball, D. L. & Cohen, D. K. (1999). Developing practice, developing practitioners: Toward a practice-based theory of professional education. In L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds.),

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Chapter 7

Enactment of Coteaching in Primary Schools: Moving Towards a Shared Responsibility Karen Carlisle

This chapter considers coteaching in primary schools across Northern Ireland. It examines the different roles undertaken by student and class teachers during the enactment of coteaching and the ways in which coteaching challenged more ‘traditional’ teacher–student roles in the classroom. My interest in coteaching first came about through my involvement at the start of the first coteaching project in Northern Ireland. The projects were implemented principally to evaluate the contribution of primary science-specialist student teachers to the enhancement of science classes for teachers and children (see Murphy and Beggs 2005; Murphy et  al. 2004). Through my role as researcher observing coteaching lessons, I became increasingly interested in the student teachers’ experiences of coteaching and any impact it might have on their initial teacher education. When I observed student teachers coteaching with the class teacher, I felt there was something different in how they worked together. Informal chats with the student teachers during coteaching supported the notion that they were doing something new and I was intrigued to find out the different ways student teachers and class teachers were working together and how this could contribute to their professional development. My interests were further ignited during the student teacher interviews after the placement when they talked about how coteaching differed from their solo teaching practice as there was more shared responsibility for all aspects of the lessons. It was then that I began my journey into studying coteaching within the context of student teachers’ experiences of initial teacher education The fundamental idea of coteaching, that two or more teachers teaching together and sharing the responsibility of meeting the learning needs of children, is shared by many researchers. However, it is important to clarify that coteaching described in this chapter involves science-specialist undergraduate student teachers coteaching with experienced primary school teachers. Coteachers work alongside each other in the planning, teaching, and evaluation of primary science lessons. In our coteaching model, equal roles are promoted in the classroom by assigning ‘expert’ roles to the student and class teacher. Many primary teachers are anxious about conducting science investigation because most are not science specialists. Thus, the science-specialist student teacher is the ‘science expert’ and the classroom teacher is the ‘pedagogy expert’ (see Murphy and Beggs’ chapter). C. Murphy and K. Scantlebury (eds.), Coteaching in International Contexts: Research and Practice, Cultural Studies of Science Education, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3707-7_7, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

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One of the challenges facing student teachers during their initial teacher education is their role in schools during assessed solo teaching experience. Many student teachers feel they are not viewed as a ‘real teacher’ and as a consequence, experience feelings of isolation, lack of control, and alienation within the placement school (e.g. see Moore 2003; Furlong and Maynard 1995; Edwards and Protheroe 2003). These, coupled with their concerns about their working relationship with their class teacher and university tutor, can impact on their experience in schools (McNally et al. 1997; Volante and Earl 2002). It is in the context of student teachers’ role in schools that I focus on the impact of coteaching on their experiences in the classroom. By examining how coteaching was enacted, I report on how coteaching facilitated a progression from the traditional role of student teachers in schools towards a more shared responsibility for teaching and learning. I also consider the activity of coteaching drawing from socio-cultural theory in relation to its impact on student teachers’ experiences in schools. Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) is one such theoretical framework, which I use to explore the structures that support coteaching in the classroom.

7.1 Coteaching and Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) As a prelude to exploring how coteaching was enacted, it is important to expand on what is meant by CHAT and how it can be used to articulate the changing cultural systems and mechanisms that support coteaching as opposed to solo teaching. Coteaching between student and class teachers can be considered as a socially mediated activity. Indeed, Engeström and Miettinen (1999) argue that in order to understand learning and teaching practices, it is necessary to look at the social and cultural systems and mechanisms that sustain particular activities. CHAT supports the concept that a subject’s (person or group) relationship with the objective world is always mediated by activity and most behaviour should be viewed as ‘purposive and culturally meaningful actions’ (p. 103) rather than reactive to environmental stimuli (Kozulin 1996). The first generation model of activity theory is claimed to have arisen from collaborations between Vygotsky and Leont’ev and based largely on Vygotsky’s theories of cognition and learning (Engeström 2005). The model was based on the premise that individuals do not just react to their environment but that all actions have meaning and how individuals relate to their environment is mediated by tools. The first-generation model, represented in Fig. 7.1, focused on human activity in terms of the tools developed by individuals to work on objects of activity (Warmington et al. 2005). Tools can be defined as anything we use to help us meet our needs, for example, writing and language; the nature of the tools we use also shapes our own thinking about what to do and how to do it (Capper and Williams 2004). The object in the activity system is defined as a purpose/motive of an activity through which tool-mediated actions result in outcomes (Leont’ev 1978).

7  Enactment of Coteaching in Primary Schools: Moving Towards a Shared Responsibility 127 Mediational means/ Tools (writing, speaking, gestures, etc)

Subject (individual, group)

Object / Motive

Outcome(s)

Fig. 7.1  First-generation activity theory model (Redrawn from Leadbetter 2005)

The limitation of the first generation model was that it focused on the individual (or group) rather than the individual within the community. This was expanded by the second-generation model, largely through the work of Leont’ev (1981), who differentiated between collective and individual activity. The first-generation model of activity theory focused on activity at the micro level of the subject. The secondgeneration model looked at the activity at a more macro level taking consideration of the social and community aspects. However, Leont’ev never graphically expanded the first-generation model to incorporate his new ideas. Engeström (1987) developed a second-generation model of activity theory based on Leont’ev’s theory. Engeström (1987) illustrated the second-generation activity theory through a simple triangle that highlights the core features of an activity system (Fig. 7.2). Within each field of activity, the subject is linked to the object through a range of tools. For example, in teaching, teachers rely on pedagogy and curriculum materials (tools) to assist student learning (Roth and Tobin 2004). Furthermore, each field of activity is characterised by its community, the rules which govern the way they interact and how the labour is divided between them (Engeström 1987). In the example of teaching, the curriculum and pedagogy employed by a teacher are shaped by being in a particular context and working with others. Therefore, the lower part of the triangle highlights these contextual, cultural and historical factors shown as rules, community and division of labour. The third-generation activity theory model devised by Engeström, as illustrated in Fig. 7.3, moved towards a greater emphasis on the collective nature of activity and focused on conceptual tools to understand dialogues, multiple perspectives, and networks of interacting activity systems (Daniels 2004). What this means is that the expansion of the framework of the second-generation activity system draws on ‘multivoicedness’ and the multiple interactions that can occur between many activity systems. The object of activity is depicted with the help of an oval indicating the openness of the processes involved and the ambiguity of the outcomes. By interpreting the activity systems as interacting with one another, involving many perspectives,

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Subject Who’s perspective

Object

Outcome

What are people working on?

Rules What rules influence activity

Community Who else is involved?

To achieve what?

Division of labour How are tasks and roles divided?

Fig. 7.2  Second-generation activity theory model (Adapted from Engeström 1987)

Fig. 7.3  Third-generation activity theory model (Engeström 1999)

Engeström also envisaged activity processes as contradictory, conflictual and requiring analysis of power and control within emerging activity systems (Daniels 2004). Thus, the third-generation activity system supported the idea of networks of activity within which contradictions and struggles take place.

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The minimal representation, which Fig. 7.3 provides, shows two of what may be a number of interacting systems which can exhibit patterns of contradiction/tension (illustrated by the different objects of activity) but can result in the creation of the ‘potentially shared or jointly constructed object’ (Daniels 2004). CHAT can provide a structure for conceptualising the complexities of coteaching and learning to teach. It incorporates the interacting systems of all potential actors involved in coteaching (i.e. student teachers, class teachers, children, university tutors and school staff). It makes explicit each of the elements of the activity and allows for questions to be asked of each element and highlights tensions between each element and interacting activity system. Activity theory considers the social and historical context. This recognises that each element of the activity system has over time, developed its own dynamic and interpretations for the actors involved with an emphasis on the larger context. Thus activity theory can also incorporate the historical and cultural aspects associated with the implementation of coteaching. An important part of analysing coteaching using activity theory is the consideration of the contradictions which appear within an activity system. Roth (2002) argued that contradictions should not be viewed negatively. They should be considered as a driving force for change and development because they lead to the ‘articulation of actions and change’ (Roth 2002, p. 9).

7.2 The Enactment of Coteaching in the Classroom In this section I describe how coteaching was enacted during the placements. I illustrate the elements of effective coteaching and the changing roles of student and class teachers over the course of the placement. Coteaching placements in primary schools varied. Coteachers either cotaught investigative science for one half day for 10 weeks in local schools or as part of normal teaching practice in schools close to student teachers’ homes (i.e. across Northern Ireland). Prior to the placements participants attended an introductory seminar aimed at introducing coteaching, enabling coteachers to get to know each other and to work together in ways that which would promote successful working relationships. In order to build up a full picture of coteaching, data were collected from a variety of sources. Classroom observations were collected by the use of participant classroom observation, digital recordings and transcripts of lessons. Student teachers and class teachers were asked to reflect on their coteaching at various points during the placements. Interviews were also conducted after the coteaching placement and student teachers’ solo teaching practice. A number of common approaches to enacting coteaching emerged by combining the data collected in the classroom with the reflective diaries and student interviews There are three main elements in the enactment of coteaching: coplanning, coteaching and coevaluation, highlighted in Fig. 7.4. Effective coteaching was more evident when all the elements of coteaching were fully utilised. In other words, coplanning informed coteaching; coevaluation and the outcomes of coevaluation informed coplanning for the next coteaching lesson.

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COEVALUATION

COTEACHING

Fig. 7.4  Elements of enacting coteaching

Coplanning was crucial for coteaching and creative use of time for coplanning, flexibility of roles and clear lines of communication were key to successful coplanning. Effective coplanning was also important to the working relationship between coteachers and promoted shared understandings and a collective responsibility for outcomes. Coteaching early and later in the placement highlighted a number of different roles adopted by coteachers in the classroom. Coteaching early in the placement reflected the expertise roles of student teacher and class teacher which were promoted during the introductory seminar. During the later weeks of the placement the contribution and role of the student teacher in coteaching increased through a shared responsibility for coteaching. Finally coteachers were encouraged to participate in a shared ‘coevaluation’ of cotaught lessons. Student teachers indicated that coevaluation promoted their status as teachers when they perceived that the class teacher respected their contributions.

7.3 Coteaching Early in the Placement Underpinning the coteaching experience was the promotion of equity between coteachers, facilitated by the sharing of expertise. The student teachers shared their science expertise and class teachers their pedagogy expertise. More democratic roles were also promoted by means of shared responsibility for all tasks. Coplanning early in the placement focused on developing more democratic working relationships. The role of teachers in the coteaching classroom early in the placement was based on the strengths of each teacher-the class teacher taking the lead in classroom management and the student teacher providing scientific support. Early coevaluation of lessons were limited by time and focused mainly on reviewing the previous lesson. During the initial weeks of the coteaching placement, student teachers relied on the guidance of their class teacher with regard to their role in the classroom. The first week of the placement involved the majority of student teachers observing the class teacher teaching a lesson. This observation allowed the student teacher to get to know the children (and vice versa), the layout of the classroom and resources

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available. Coplanning early in the placement was essential not just in terms of the preparation for cotaught lessons but also for laying the foundations of a more equitable working relationship between student and class teachers. There was an expectation that student teachers and class teachers would plan the lesson together. In some cases finding time for coplanning was difficult due to the teachers’ full teaching timetable and student teachers’ university commitments. Very often in the initial weeks of coteaching the class teacher would plan the lesson whilst the student teacher would provide assistance or be a peripheral participant. An example of this type of coplanning arrangement (where one teacher planned and the other provided assistance) is described in the reflective diary excerpt below: The lessons were planned by me and Miss Benn1 and we decided at the beginning of the practice that I would prepare some lessons and Miss Benn would prepare some. … We found that this was the most successful way to structure our lessons.

Student teachers reflected on their role in the classroom during the early weeks of coteaching. Some student teachers noted that there was an element of confusion for the children about what their (the student teacher) role was in the class and fear of stepping on the teachers’ toes. This uncertainty early in the placement also affected how the student teacher viewed themselves in the classroom: As it was the first week I was not very sure of myself or my role in the lesson so I depended quite a lot on the advice and guidance of the class teacher. So in fact I was actually adopting the role of classroom assistant more than that of a coteacher in this particular lesson. I don’t think I put my ideas in the teaching forward enough, probably because the class teacher was teaching as well and I didn’t want to interrupt.

The role of the student teacher in the following weeks of coteaching moved from observing the lesson to contributing in a variety of ways. For example, a shift from peripheral participation, to providing one to one/group support to children, or leading question and answer sessions with the children. The role of class teachers in the early weeks of the coteaching was mainly classroom management and taking the lead in teaching. Teachers saw their role as providing support for the student teacher in the delivery of lesson because they had an intrinsic knowledge of the children. Table  7.1 provides a summary of the most common roles adopted by coteachers early in the placement. Whilst there were a number of ways in which coteachers worked together during the early weeks of the placement, it was also commonplace for coteachers to move between different roles during a science lesson. The following lesson transcript provides an example of coteaching in the classroom during the first few weeks of the placement. In this excerpt the teacher led the introduction to the investigation on forces and took on the classroom management of the lesson. The student had a more peripheral role and contributed less but was walking around the class observing and supporting the children. The coteachers then set a task and worked together in small groups to guide the children in the activity.

Pseudonyms are used throughout this chapter

1 

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Table 7.1  Coteaching early in the placement Teacher roles in coteaching

Description of coteaching

Class teacher leads and student teacher observes

Similar to observation element of solo teaching practice in that the class teacher took the lead in the lesson and the student teacher observed. The class teacher led the lesson and the student teacher Class teacher leads and student assisted the teacher and the children. The role of the teacher is a peripheral student teacher was essentially to support the teacher in participant the smooth running of the lesson and observe for signs that they (the teacher or the children) need additional support. Class teacher and student teacher Class teacher and student teacher agreed on teaching specific parts of each lesson; for example, the class teacher take specific parts delivered the introduction to the lesson and the student of the lesson teacher took the lead in the practical part of the lesson. Class teacher and student teacher Both class teacher and student teacher worked together with teach in small groups small groups of children. Most commonly observed during very practical lessons which required a higher level of support for the children. Student teacher contributed to the science aspects of a Student teacher leads (science lesson; however, the teacher also contributed by guiding expert) with active support and supporting the student teacher. Useful for teachers from class teacher who were less confident teaching investigative science as it played on the strengths of the student teacher.

Teacher: We want to know what we are going to find out, Anna? Child: Which car goes the furthest? We are going to race them and see which car goes the furthest. Teacher: Ok, so you are going to measure the distance the toy car will go. Next group? Child: We are going to have a race to see which one goes the quickest? Teacher: Ok, next group? Child: We want to see which one goes the fastest. Teacher: Do you think you are going to be able to do that? [Class are unsure] Teacher: Which one do you think as scientists would be easiest to do? Child: Which one will go the furthest? Teacher: Which car will go the furthest is what we are going to find out!! Student Teacher: Does anybody know what the Nutty Professor is? Child: He’s a scientist. Student: And what does a scientist do, what does he use? Child: His brain. Student Teacher: Yes he has to think about what he is going to investigate. So as we are scientists too we are going to have to think what we are going to do in this race. In your groups I want you to think carefully about ‘What we will do,’ ‘What we will change’ and ‘What we will measure.’

The children discuss in groups and the teacher and student teacher work in small groups. Teacher: What did your group think? What are you going to change? Child: We are going to change the cars and the person pushing the cars.

7  Enactment of Coteaching in Primary Schools: Moving Towards a Shared Responsibility 133 Teacher: Very good. What are we going to measure? The length of the car? Child: The length they go. Teacher: Yes, what else do you call that? Child: The distance. Teacher: Brilliant!!

In this lesson the role of the student teacher was essentially to support the teacher in the smooth running of the lesson. The approach also provided an opportunity for the student teacher to get to know the class and to observe the teaching style the children were accustomed to. In this example the teacher took the lead in the lesson but the student contributed through her summary of the introduction. Using her scientific expertise she made it clear to the children what questions they should be asking in their groups. The teacher and student then supported the children by working in small groups before the teacher took the lead again in the discussion. In many cases the contribution made by each teacher early in the coteaching placement was dependent on coplanning and working arrangements for each lesson. In the early weeks of coteaching it was common for the coteachers to assume the roles which were suggested during the introductory seminar. The student teacher would take responsibility for the science in the lesson and the class teacher was responsible for other aspects (such as classroom management and pedagogy). Reflections on early cotaught lessons from student teachers were primarily focused on their contribution in terms of their science expertise. On the whole student teachers were comfortable with this role in the classroom, as illustrated by the following comment: It was my responsibility to introduce the scientific concept of sound vibrations and sound waves. Having identified the ability of the class and how they learn I tried to make it as concrete as possible. Initially I used a drum with rice on the surface and an investigative approach to direct the children to discover for themselves how a sound is made.

Figure 7.5 is a diagrammatic summary of teacher roles in coteaching during the early weeks of the placement. The first cotaught lesson normally entailed the student teacher observing a lesson. In subsequent coteaching lessons, coteachers adopted different roles in coteaching which necessitated an increased contribution by the student teacher. Another feature of the cotaught lessons early in the placement was the variety of roles adopted by coteachers in each lesson. There was no pattern of progression between the different roles, i.e. peripheral participation of student teacher moving onto coteachers taking specific parts of a lesson; however, it was commonplace for most coteaching teams to move between different roles depending on the need of the class and content of the lesson. Coevaluation is the third element in the enactment of effective coteaching and is a form of cogenerative dialogue adopted as part of coteaching in the USA, Canada and Australia (e.g. Tobin and Roth 2006; Roth 2001; Scantlebury et  al. 2008; Rigano et al. 2005). Engagement in coevaluation was raised as part of an introductory seminar for coteaching which encouraged coteachers to participate in a shared evaluation of cotaught lessons. Time available for coevaluation was limited because of the class teachers’ teaching commitments and student teachers’ university timetables. Early in the coteaching placements short coevaluations occurred

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Class teacher leading and student teacher is a peripheral participant

Class teacher and student teacher take specific parts of a lesson Class teacher leading and student teacher observing

Class teacher and student teacher teach in small groups

Movement between approaches within cotaught lessons

First cotaught lesson Student teacher leading (science expert) with active support from class teacher Early cotaught lessons

Fig. 7.5  Coteaching early in the placement

immediately after the cotaught lesson or formed part of the coplanning sessions for the next lessons. Discussion during coevaluation of coteaching normally reviewed the previous cotaught lesson – what worked well and what could have been improved. The children did not participate in coevaluation of lessons; however, the discussions between student teachers and class teachers were focused on how best they could meet the needs of the children. Student teachers considered coevaluation a very important aspect of the coteaching placement. In addition to discussing aspects of each cotaught lesson many comments indicated that they saw the process as a way of developing their teaching skills based on the feedback they received from the class teacher: After discussing this lesson with my teacher I was able to learn the areas of my teaching which were good quality and the areas which needed improvement. She told me that the thinking shower and aprons were a good practical way of distributing the information as it got the children involved. She also said the worksheet helped reinforce and assess what they had learned and therefore was also a useful resource. I also learned however that I needed to structure my questioning more efficiently so that the children can get the most out of the discussion as possible.

Coteaching early in the placement saw student and class teachers playing to the strengths that they could bring to each lesson. Hence, the student teachers contributed

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to the science aspects and class teachers to the pedagogy aspects. The role of the student teacher during the early weeks of the placement was also a more supportive role. Indeed other researchers have reported a similar coteaching arrangement whereby the student teacher takes on a more peripheral role early in the placement (Eick and Ware 2005; Tobin and Roth 2006; Scantlebury 2005). In contrast the majority of classteachers took the lead early in coteaching and saw themselves as supporting the student teachers as they settled into the classroom. This approach to coteaching early in the placement was to be expected as student and class teachers needed to get to know each other to develop a working relationship.

7.4 Coteaching Later in the Placement: Moving Towards a Shared Responsibility In the later part of the placement the roles of coteachers evolved and student teachers’ contributions to coteaching increased. Comments from reflective diaries and interviews highlighted how coteachers supported each other in coteaching through building a collective responsibility for lessons. Coplanning for coteaching saw more flexibility and communication to foster a more democratic working relationship. Student teachers’ contribution to coteaching in the classroom increased and there was a greater movement between different roles in the classroom. Coevaluation of coteaching later in the placement remained limited by the time available to reflect on their lessons. However, in some cases, student teachers reported feeling more like a class teacher as a result of the teacher respecting their contribution to coevaluation. Over the course of the coteaching placement there was greater sharing of responsibility and shared understandings within the planning process. A variety of methods were also adopted by the coteaching teams to ensure this, for example, the use of telephone and e-mail. This comment from a student teacher after the coteaching placement illustrates how e-mails had facilitated her coplanning with her teacher. It was through e-mails that we had our contact, through e-mails, she would have sent me a message on Monday evening about Monday’s lesson and would say what did you think and for the next week she would send a worksheet or something or her idea and I would e-mail back and by the Friday we would have had something sorted. It wasn’t you’re coming into my room on Monday and I think you are going to do this.

Some student teachers also planned their cotaught lessons together and shared those ideas with their coteachers. The following comment describes one student teachers experience of working with another student teacher and the benefits in terms of her experience of coteaching. We met every Monday afternoon and planned our lessons together, we got the resources gathered and taught pretty much the same thing-what was really good was the fact that I could bounce ideas off Ken and then go to my teacher and share those ideas with her. … It was a fantastic way of working.

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Effective coplanning during the coteaching placement maximised the time student teachers spent in school. Student teachers overcame the difficulties of the primary teachers’ full teaching timetable by being flexible with coplanning time. Indications from student teachers suggested that when time was set aside specifically for coplanning for example, before or after lessons or during a break from lessons, coteaching lessons were more successful. We had to meet during lunchtime to prepare as she had a lot of extracurricular duties. It was different because normally I would be doing it by myself at home in the evenings.

There were some issues with planning which surfaced when contradictions arose regarding coteachers’ level of participation or understanding of their role in coplanning the lessons. An example of this type of planning issue is illustrated in the comment from an interview with a female final year student teacher. At the start I thought it was going to be more team work but I don’t think that happened in my case. … I think we are both to blame because I went there with everything planned and I just carried it out without incorporating the teacher but I was afraid you can never tell a classroom teacher what to do. Maybe that’s a teaching practice thing as well. It’s what we’re used to. It could have been overcome with a 10 minute meeting at the end of each lesson as opposed to going home and coming back the next week

In this example, there appeared to be a lack of understanding about the student teacher’s role in coplanning the lessons. The sense from the student teacher was a perceived imbalance in roles and an inability to address coplanning issues because of this imbalance. Also there was recognition that the situation could have been easily resolved through better communication with her class teacher. However, issues around coteachers’ roles in coplanning were infrequent. In most cases, the working relationship within coplanning developed through communication and renegotiation of roles which focused on the learning of the children. These extracts from student teacher diaries are examples of how coplanning evolved during the placement: [The] relationship that I had with the teacher developed at a steady rate. In the beginning I was aware of her concerns and apprehensions as I was in a similar situation. However I feel that as the weeks progressed we established an excellent rapport and planned our work effectively as a team.

In the end we were planning science lessons with less formal structures and this gave room for, if the children came up with ideas we were able to follow through on those ideas. It was well worth it in the end! Effective coplanning was crucial for coteaching. The key ingredients for effective coplanning were coteachers making the most of their time, being flexible and creative. Participants acknowledged that the role of each coteacher in the planning process was revisited regularly. A shared ownership of planning activities was also important, comments from student teachers suggested that effective coplanning involved a shared responsibility in the planning of lessons. Over time, coplanning for coteaching provided opportunities for student teachers to develop their working relationship with their class teacher, thus lessening the feelings of isolation experienced by many student teachers when in schools. More importantly coplanning had the potential for student teachers to feel more like class teachers who could contribute

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meaningfully to the lessons, as illustrated in the following interview comment from a student teacher. …when you were planning a lesson, when we got together we would talk about the lesson and work out the resources and what we would cover for the lesson. I liked the idea of having the teacher there taking on my ideas and not just telling me what to do. So I think I had a big input in the planning. In saying that it didn’t seem as formal and it was a more natural approach to teaching science.

Student and class teachers’ interpretations of coteaching took on the guiding principles of sharing responsibility for all aspects of the lesson and developed how they worked together in the classroom. They worked on an approach that would best meet the needs of the children being taught. The most effective coteaching involved student and class teachers supporting each other and complementing each other’s roles in the classroom. Some of the ways in which they cotaught in early weeks continued to be employed by the coteachers and a number of new ways of coteaching emerged as the placement progressed. Therefore, during the later weeks of the placement, coteachers adopted a wider variety of roles within coteaching. It was also commonplace for coteachers to move between different roles within a cotaught lesson. Table 7.2 provides a summary of new teacher roles which emerged in the later weeks of the placement. Many student teachers reported that their responsibility for and contribution to each lesson increased as the placement developed. A number of student teachers described their increased contribution as taking a greater role in the overall delivery of the science lessons. Increasingly student teachers talked about taking the lead in science lesson in the later weeks of the coteaching placement. The following examples of coteaching are taken from classroom observations of a cotaught lesson in the middle weeks of the placement and then during the last week of the placement. They illustrate the increasing contribution to coteaching by the student teacher. The student teacher was placed in a Primary 2 class of 20 children (5–6 years) in an inner city co-educational school in Belfast. The student teacher was in her final year of the BEd degree course. Her solo teaching practice to date Table 7.2  New coteacher roles adopted later in the placement Teacher roles in coteaching

Description of coteaching

Student teacher leads, class teacher is a peripheral participant

The student teacher took the lead in the lesson and the class teacher was in the supporting role. The student teacher provided the introduction to the lesson, then both teachers were involved in any practical aspects or group work, and the student teacher finished up the lesson. The student teacher took the lead in the lesson and the class teacher observed the main part of the lesson. Student and class teacher were both equally involved in the delivery of the lesson. In many cases involved both teachers standing/or sitting at the front of the class teaching the lesson and both sharing the delivery of the lesson.

Student teacher leads and class teacher observes Equal partnership: class and student teachers teach lesson together

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had involved teaching Key Stage 2 children (8–11 years) in schools outside Belfast. In addition to gaining experience of teaching in a new setting, the student teacher saw roles within coteaching as, ‘..she [the teacher] giving the benefit of experience, I hope to bring expert knowledge along with knowledge of new teaching methods in science’. The class teacher’s view of their roles mirrored the student teacher’s ‘… to act as a partner to the student … to give advice and guidance to her’. The student teacher and class teacher in this coteaching team had a similar understanding of each other’s roles and expectations of the placement. This symmetry in understanding was reflected in how they worked together. The science lesson described tool place halfway through the placement. It was a practical lesson on things that float. The class were in the wet play area, outside the classroom, standing around the water tray. The class teacher was standing at one side of the tray and the student teacher at the other side. Teacher: Everyone stand up and form a wide circle around the water tank. Student takes out a metal knife Student teacher: Can anybody tell me what this is? Children put up their hands Child: A knife Student teacher: Very good. What is the knife made of? Children put up hands Child: Metal Student teacher: So what do you think will happen to the knife if I put it in the water? Child: It will sink. Teacher: Should we check and see? Student teacher gives the knife to a pupil who puts it in the water tank. The knife sinks. Children confirm that the knife sunk Student takes out a plastic book Teacher: Children: Teacher: Child: Teacher: Children:

What is this? A book What is it made of? Plastic Do you think it will float or sink? Float.

Student gives the book to a child who puts the book in the water and it floats The excerpt shows the student teacher and class teacher teaching the lesson together. It was in the middle of the placement and there was a sense that the class teacher was taking the lead and doing most of the talking whist the student was demonstrating. Lesson reflections from the student teacher indicated that the teacher may have been taking the lead in the investigation, but they were still working as a team. I think we worked particularly well this week. The children needed much support and encouragement when taking part in the practical and writing up the investigation. … Discipline was important during this lesson because children were working at the water tray, the teacher and I again approached this as a team.

The class teacher had similar views on their approach to the lesson. We worked well, both participating in asking questions, giving suggestions/hints to the children and helping keep order (i.e. children dry).

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This next excerpt was taken from their last coteaching lesson. The student teacher and class teacher were introducing the topic of materials and sorting toys. The class was sitting in a circle, the class teacher and student teacher were also sitting on the small chairs crouched down so they were at the same level as the children. The teacher was talking to the class and the student was holding some prompt cards to help the children. Teacher: How do we find out about something, we put on our scientists hat and can you remember some of the things that are on these cards to find out… Student teacher: Yes.… Teacher: Put your hand up. Child: Eyes Student teacher: Well done! Teacher: Yes you look to find out, anybody remember anything else that we do to find out? [points to a child] Katy. Child: Listen. Student shows the class the listen prompt card Teacher: Listen Student teacher: Well done Katy! Teacher: Good! Two ears to listen. Anything else? Ryan. Child: You lick ice cream Teacher and student: A haa! Student Teacher: What do you do when you lick ice cream? Teacher: What do we call that? Child: Taste. Teacher: Excellent, John. Student teacher: Well done! We’ve got 2 more. Who can think of them –Emma? Child: We listen. Student teacher: Well done! Child: We smell. Student teacher: Would we use smell, do the toys smell, do you think? All: No!

The increased contribution of the student teacher is evident in the lesson. The student teacher and class teacher are sitting side by side almost mimicking each other’s tone. The student’s verbal contribution to the lesson is equal to that of the teacher’s and she is using children’s names with ease. This was a big concern for the student teacher in relation to the smooth running of lesson. The children respond equally well to both which may indicate that they viewed the student teacher as another teacher rather than a student teacher. A comment from the student teacher at the end of the placement reflected her positive working relationship; she felt her expertise was being valued and her ideas included in the lessons. The teacher was very helpful and enthusiastic. She took my ideas and suggestions on board and implemented them when teaching … we worked extremely well as a team. We discussed the structure of each lesson and the questions to be asked. During the lesson we shared responsibility for questioning, blackboard writing, helping children record, discipline and the marking of work. … Every week we took 10 minutes before I left and we talked about what we would do for the next day. She knew the class better whereas I had the science background. It did balance itself really well.

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A significant number of comments from student and class teachers articulated their contribution in terms of how they supported each other in coteaching. The ways in which they supported each other varied across coteaching teams and whether it was early or later in the placement. However, this was more prevalent when coteaching teams were well matched in terms of the strengths each teacher could bring. It allowed them to support each other in areas in which they were less confident. Thus, by supporting each other through adopting complementary roles they promoted a collective responsibility for lessons. Therefore, both coteachers had a shared responsibility for the all aspects of the lesson, regardless of the contribution made by each teacher in cotaught lessons. I think it worked well, working as a team because whenever I was stuck on a question the children asked then the teacher came in and he helped me out and then there were ideas I brought in that he’d never heard of before. (STUDENT TEACHER) I think the project was very worthwhile, both in terms of extra resources as well as increased staff confidence. Two adults in the room, both focused on science and complementing each other’s teaching was very valuable for the children. (TEACHER)

These comments from coteachers also suggest that their collective responsibility for lessons enhanced their children’s learning experiences. Other published studies of coteaching in Northern Ireland have demonstrated the positive impact of coteaching on children’s experience and enjoyment of science lessons (Murphy et al. 2004; Murphy and Beggs 2005). There was a small percentage of coteaching teams who experienced a mismatch in relation to the level of work each teacher was expected to contribute to lessons. In some instances it was the class teachers who did not fully engage with coteaching and left the student teachers to do a larger share of the work. This approach to coteaching saw a more traditional role for student teaching practice, and so the student teacher took responsibility for the lesson whilst the class teacher observed. The following comment from the present study highlights the student teachers’ dissatisfaction with the class teachers’ contribution. Although I don’t mind doing the work I feel myself and the teacher should be taking a more shared responsibility.

Other instances of incompatibility emerged when the student teacher did not contribute enough or when the teacher did not relinquish control over the lesson. I prompted several times for Gayle to explain some things again to children. Rephrased some questions for her … (TEACHER)

Even when I was teaching –he would just take over … it wasn’t my place to start interrupting. He just liked to run the show (STUDENT TEACHER) Figure 7.6 is a representation of the different roles of coteachers from the mid to later weeks. The early/mid weeks of coteaching normally entailed the class teacher taking the leading role with an increasing contribution by the student teacher. The later weeks of coteaching evidenced a greater variety of teacher roles within coteaching and a greater contribution by the student teacher to coteaching. As with earlier weeks, it was commonplace for coteachers to adopt different roles in the course of a lesson.

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Class teacher and student teacher take specific parts of a lesson

Class teacher leading and student teacher is a peripheral participant

Class teacher and student teacher teach in small groups

Class teacher and student teacher take specific parts of a lesson

Student teacher leading (science expert) with active support from class teacher

Class teacher and student teacher teach in small groups

Student teacher leading (science expert) with active support from class teacher Midway through coteaching placement

Student teacher leading class teacher is a peripheral participant

Movement between approaches within cotaught lessons

Student teacher leading and class teacher observing

Equal partnership class and student teachers teach lesson together Coteaching during latter part of placment

Fig. 7.6  Coteaching from mid to later part of the placement

In the coteaching placements there was recognition of the importance throughout the development of coevaluation of cotaught lessons. Interviews with student teachers suggested that coevaluation was beneficial for talking about teaching and reflecting on their teaching skills. Student and class teachers engaged in varying degrees of coevaluation of lessons, such as making it part of coplanning sessions, immediately after the cotaught lesson or during lunchtime. A significant factor which hindered the implementation was limited time and space to develop coevaluation. In a number of cases student teachers reported coevaluation sessions which were similar to the cogenerative dialogues adopted in other coteaching contexts outside the UK and Ireland (e.g. Tobin and Roth 2006; Roth 2001; Scantlebury et al. 2008).

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Tobin and Roth (2006) suggested that the outcomes of cogenerative dialogues can be a shared commitment to ‘changing the structures of the classroom and thereby expanding individual and collective agency of participants’ (p. 82). The potential of coevaluation to expand the agency (or capacity to appropriate resources) of student teachers is illustrated by the following comment from a final-year female student teacher. She discussed the benefits of coevaluation in terms of her increased status in the eyes of her teacher when her input to evaluating cotaught lessons was taken on board: She was just as up for learning different things and seeing what I had and the level of respect that you were given really did boost your confidence and they were sitting and listening to what you had to say and what you felt and they were taking it on board and you are still only a student you are sometimes putting yourself down but she made me feel that I had as much to offer and her and was more than willing to go with my idea over her and it was brilliant. We also briefly reviewed how each went, reflecting on how it might be done differently.

The comment from the student teacher suggests that her experience of coevaluation made her feel that her contributions to cotaught lessons were valued because the class teacher respected her suggestions. Coteaching was most successful when there was a mutual sense of co-respect for one another’s contributions and a shared sense of responsibility for meeting children’s needs. In order for this to happen class teachers needed to relinquish some control to support student teachers as they move towards equal status in their contributions as coteachers. However, as demonstrated through observations of coteaching, interviews and diary entries this was not simply a case of student teachers automatically taking on a shared responsibility for all aspects of the lessons. Like many collaborative endeavours, over time, coteachers moved towards a shared responsibility for cotaught lessons as their working relationship developed.

7.5 The Different Role of Student Teachers When ngaged in Solo and Coteaching The experiences of coteaching presented in this chapter suggest that in coteaching the essential elements of coplanning, coteaching and coevaluation differ from solo teaching practice. During solo teaching practice student teachers mainly teach alone and are observed by others or observe the class teacher during lessons. The elements of coteaching compared to solo teaching can be articulated using CHAT (see Fig.  7.7). Second generation activity theory (Engeström 1987) is illustrated through a simple triangle which highlights the core features of an activity, taking into consideration contextual, cultural and historical factors (rules, community and division of labour). The first activity system in Fig. 7.7 highlights important elements of enacting coteaching from the perspective of the student teacher. The tools available included coplanning, coteaching, coevaluation subject and pedagogy knowledge. The division of labour was based on a shared responsibility for lessons and depended

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COTEACHING WITHIN INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION

Instruments / coplanning, coteaching coevaluation, class teacher, subject knowledge, pedagogy

Object

Subject

student teacher

Rules

corespect, coresponsibility coordination

SOLO TEACHING WITHIN INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION

Subject

student teacher

Rules School policies, University policies

teach lesson

Community

Outcome enhance learning and enjoyment of science for all participants

Division of labour

Sharing all aspects of teaching

university tutors, researcher, parents, community

Instruments / Subject knowledge, pedagogy

Object

Outcome

teach lesson Prepare for assessment of teaching;

Community student teacher, class teacher, university tutors, children, community

Division of labour teaching alone/observing experienced teacher teaching

Fig. 7.7  A comparison of the activity of enacting coteaching compared with solo teaching practice

on the needs of the lesson. The rules supporting the enactment of coteaching were based on co-respect, coresponsibility and coordination. The second activity system illustrates elements which are important in the activity of student teacher solo teaching practice. A key difference for solo teaching practice

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is that the division of labour is based on student teachers being assessed and observed teaching alone or observing a more experienced teacher. Rules supporting solo teaching practice are largely based on school and University College policies. The tools available for student teachers’ solo teaching reflect the knowledge gained from University. During solo teaching practice student teachers are working on teaching lessons (object). It could be argued that the desired outcome of lessons in solo teaching is to achieve a good teaching practice grade. Examination of the two activity systems highlights potential value of coteaching within initial teacher education. With fewer tools available for solo teaching than for coteaching, the student teacher may feel isolated and less confident to deal with issues within the classroom. The isolation may be compounded by the lack in division of labour in the classroom which was an essential element of coteaching, yet absent in solo teaching. This suggests that coteaching can provide a more supportive environment for student teachers when they are teaching in schools. The findings from this examination of coteaching suggest that coteaching differs from ‘solo’ teaching practice because the emphasis is on the collective activity which expands the resources available for children’s learning and for learning to teach. The student teachers contributed their expertise in science and the class teachers contributed their pedagogy expertise in the shared planning, teaching and evaluation of coteaching. Thus, coteaching provided student teachers and class teachers with more tools for teaching through the sharing of expertise and increased interactions between coteachers. The minimal representation of coteaching as an activity in Fig. 7.8 shows two of what may be a number of activity systems which are interacting, with the potential for developing new tools and new ways of working (Engeström, 1999).

Instruments / Tools Instruments/ tools Science knowledge

Investigative science lesson

Subject

Pedagogy knowledge

Children’s increased enjoyment and experience of investigative science

Outcome

Investigative science lesson

Object

Object

Subject teacher

Student

Rules

Community

Expert roles of each teacher Perceived equality of roles

Division of Labour

Rules

Community

Expert roles of each teacher Perceived equality of roles

Co respect, Co responsibility Expanded opporCo ordination tunities for teach-

ing and learning for all

student teacher

Fig. 7.8  Two interacting activity systems

classroom teacher

Division of labour

Co respect, Co responsibility Co ordination

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The activity systems illustrate that the sharing of expertise in terms of the student teachers contributing science knowledge and class teachers’ pedagogical knowledge were important tools for actualising effective coteaching. Daniels (2004) argued that systems of activity are interactive processes which are contradictory and require analysis of power and control within emerging activity system. Critical for the promotion of productive and proficient coteaching in the present study were the rules (expert roles and perceived equality of roles) and the division of labour (co-respect, co-responsibility and coordination). Contradictions emerged in the study of coteaching when there was a perceived imbalance in equality of roles and when class teachers did not respect the contributions of student teachers. The outcome of effective coteaching in the present study (as illustrated in Fig. 7.8) was the creation of new knowledge and new practices which not only increased children’s enjoyment and experience of investigative science but expanded opportunities for teaching and learning.

7.6 Conclusions In this chapter I have described the enactment of coteaching within the context of initial teacher education. I would contend that effective coteaching requires a progression of practices normally associated with solo teaching towards more shared planning teaching and evaluation of lessons. Equitable responsibility for coteaching can be encouraged through the promotion of shared expertise. In the study described in this chapter class teachers and student teachers shared pedagogical and science expertise in a mutual exchange that was widely beneficial for all participants. Student teachers involved in coteaching benefited from the opportunities to work with and learn from another teacher lessening their feelings of isolation. Furthermore coteaching recognised the skills that student teachers’ bring to the classroom in terms of their expertise and resources – class teachers valued student teachers contribution to cotaught lessons. Therefore, coteaching could promote a more positive experience of teaching for student teachers. This work does not advocate the removal of solo teaching practice as it has an important role in preparing student teachers for teaching alone when they are qualified. However, I would argue for inclusion of coteaching as part of school experience to provide student teachers with more opportunities to teach alongside a more experienced teacher, sharing responsibility for lessons and enhancement of science teaching in primary schools.

References Capper, P., & Williams, B. (2004). Enhancing evaluation using systems concepts. American Evaluation Association. Retrieved September 30, 2008, from http://users.actrix.co.nz/bobwill/ activity.doc Daniels, H. (2004). Cultural historical activity theory and professional learning. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 51(2), 185–200.

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Edwards, A. & Protheroe, L. (2003). Learning to see in classrooms: What are student teachers learning about teaching and learning while learning to teach in schools? British Education Research Journal, 29(2), 227–242. Eick, C. & Ware, F. (2005). Coteaching in a science methods course: An apprenticeship model for early induction to the secondary classroom. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 187–206). New York: Peter Lang. Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orieta-Konsultit. Engeström, Y. (2005). Developmental work research: Expanding activity theory in practice. Berlin: Lehmanns Media. Engeström, Y. & Miettinen, R. (1999). Introduction. In Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen & R.-L. Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 1–18). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Furlong, J. & Maynard, T. (1995). Mentoring student teachers: The growth of professional knowledge. London: Routledge. Kozulin, A. (1996). The concept of activity in Soviet psychology. In H. Daniels (Ed.), An introduction to Vygotsky (pp. 99–122). London: Routledge. Leont’ev, A. N. (1978). Activity, consciousness, and personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Leont’ev, A. (1981). Psychology and the language learning process. Oxford, Pergamon Press. McNally, J., Cope, P., Inglis, B., & Stronach, I. (1997). The student teacher in school, conditions for development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 13(5), 485–498. Moore, R. (2003). Re-examining the field experiences of pre service teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 31–42. Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2005). Coteaching as an approach to enhance science learning and teaching in primary schools. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 207–231). New York: Peter Lang. Murphy, C., Beggs, J., Carlisle, K., & Greenwood, J. (2004). Students as ‘catalysts’ in the classroom: The impact of co-teaching between science student teachers and primary classroom teachers on children’s enjoyment and learning of science. International Journal of Science Education, 26(8), 1023–1036. Rigano, D., Ritchie, S., & Bell, T. (2005). Developing wisdom in practice through coteaching: A narrative account. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 169–186). New York: Peter Lang. Roth, W.-M. (2001). Becoming-in-the-classroom: Learning to teach in/as praxis. In D. R. Lavoie & W.-M. Roth (Eds.), Models of science teacher preparation (pp. 11–30). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. Roth, W.-M. (2002). Being and becoming in the classroom. London: Ablex Publishing. Roth, W.-M. & Tobin, K. (2004). Coteaching: From praxis to theory. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 10(2), 161–180. Scantlebury, K. (2005). Gender issues in coteaching. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 233–248). New York: Peter Lang. Scantlebury, K., Gallo-Fox, J., & Wassell, B. (2008). Coteaching as a model for preservice secondary science teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(4), 967–981. Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Volante, L. & Earl, L. (2002). Teacher candidates’ perceptions of conceptual orientations in their preservice program. Canadian Journal of Education, 27(4), 419–438. Warmington, P., Daniels, H., Edwards, A., Leadbetter, J., Martin, D., Brown, S., et  al. (2005). Interagency collaboration: A review of the literature. Bath: Learning in and for Interagency Working Project.

Chapter 8

‘It Certainly Taught Us How to Change Our Minds on Teaching Science’: Coteaching in Continuing Professional Development Karen Kerr

This chapter examines a model of coteaching in which student teachers and classroom teachers learn together first, for example, on a continuing professional development (CPD) programme and then implement that learning together as coteachers in the classroom. Teachers from 25 primary schools (covering all areas of Northern Ireland) and the student teachers, with whom they would be placed, attended a CPD course aimed at enhancing creativity, thinking and enquiry in primary science learning and teaching. The focus was on expanding teacher and student teacher agency by empowering them to involve children more in their own learning. Research shows that primary teachers who are not qualified in science tend to keep control of the knowledge and to discourage children from asking questions because of a lack of confidence in their own subject knowledge. Many of the activities in the CPD workshops were of the ‘black box’ type with no ‘correct’ answers. Data collection incorporated focus groups, individual interviews and confidence/attitudinal audits with teachers, student teacher and children. A sample of coteaching lessons was video recorded and examined together with the reflection and presentation workshops. The findings showed that the combination of relevant and exciting workshop activities designed to empower teachers to enable children to ‘lead’ their science learning, and the coteaching of science in the classroom, changed the way these teachers approached their science teaching. The success of this work was a result of the solidarity built up by group members learning together, expansion of teacher and student teacher agency through coteaching, which helped them increase children’s interest and engagement with science. A specific strength of this approach lies in its sustainability. One of the main issues with CPD is sustainability. Very often teachers find it difficult to implement new ideas and approaches and highlight lack of time, existing curricular pressures and lack of support as problems. In the current programme, we address the issue of sustainability by incorporating science student teachers in the CPD. The student teachers provided specific support in terms of science expertise in coteaching, coplanning (which helped address issues around lack of time) and co-reflection. Both teachers and student teachers developed professionally as they made sustainable changes to their teaching approaches and how they think about teaching science.

C. Murphy and K. Scantlebury (eds.), Coteaching in International Contexts: Research and Practice, Cultural Studies of Science Education, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3707-7_8, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

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8.1 The Coteaching Context Science has been a compulsory element of the Northern Ireland primary curriculum since 1991. However, many primary science teachers in the UK still find science difficult to teach (Wellcome Trust 2005). There are also concerns around the disappearance of science in the primary school in Northern Ireland because of the introduction of a Revised Curriculum. As part of the revision, science, which was previously taught as a subject on its own, now has to be taught with history and geography as part of ‘The World Around Us’ learning area (The Northern Ireland Curriculum Primary, CCEA 2007). Teachers’ lack of confidence in science could, therefore, lead to their ignoring science and concentrating on teaching only history and geography (Addis et al. 2007). Various studies in Australia, Northern Ireland and North America have shown that coteaching supported student teachers’ and class teachers’ learning of science teaching (Carlisle 2008). Earlier, coteaching work in Canada (Roth 1998; Roth and Boyd 1999) was designed to help address issues of confidence around investigative science teaching with practicing teachers. Later, Tobin and Roth (2006) analysed and reflected on the cotaught lessons and concluded that the teachers learned how to teach from each other. Similarly, in Australia, Rigano et al. (2005) reported that teaching and learning for a novice teacher and an experienced class teacher was enhanced by coteaching (Carlisle 2008). Rigano et  al. (2005), cited in Carlisle (2008), reported that the novice teacher learned about primary classroom management from the experienced teacher and the experienced teacher learned about science teaching from the novice teacher (a science expert). With specific reference to continuing professional development, Murphy, Beggs, Carlisle and Greenwood (2004) demonstrated that coteaching between classroom teachers and sciencespecialist student teachers enhanced the professional development of class teachers. Not only did this work present evidence for increased teacher confidence in teaching primary science but also about teachers who reported that their science knowledge was enhanced because they had taught with science experts, the student teachers (Murphy and Beggs 2006a). All of the work carried out by Murphy and her colleagues in Northern Ireland grew from the Science Students in Primary Schools (SSIPS) project, which was initially set up in 2001. The SSIPS project was designed to: evaluate the contribution of pre-service primary (elementary) science, specialist student teachers towards the enhancement of science and technology classes for teachers and children. (Murphy et al. 2004, p. 1023)

In doing so, the SSIPS project team considered whether coteaching between science-specialist student teachers and classroom teachers was effective in enhancing teacher confidence in the learning and teaching of primary science (Murphy and Beggs 2006a). Indeed, I was a ‘science specialist student teacher’ in the initial year of the project. On reflection, I feel that my involvement greatly enhanced my confidence in the classroom and enhanced the class teachers’ scientific knowledge and confidence in the delivery of practical science. The initial SSIPS project and numerous subsequent coteaching projects in Northern Ireland lay the groundwork

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for a more, recent blended CPD approach within initial teacher education (ITE) and form the basis of this chapter. A focus on Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is timely, given the current climate of change in Northern Ireland and an international concern surrounding a decline in the uptake of science post-16 and the lack of suitably skilled science graduates. In the USA, the National Academy of Sciences stated that: If we are to meet the needs of diverse students and the nation’s needs for scientifically literate citizens and skilled workers, it is essential that teachers have the opportunity to continue to expand their knowledge and develop their pedagogical skills (throughout their professional career). [NAS 1996, p. 2]

There has been a greater emphasis on improving science teaching and learning in the UK at post-primary but the importance of a focus on primary level is addressed in many studies. Murphy and Beggs (2003, p. 109), when discussing the problem of low Post-16 uptake, pointed out that: several researchers have indicated that part of the reason for this is that children are ‘turned off’ science at school when they are quite young

% of positive responses

A recent study conducted in Northern Ireland (Kerr 2008) revealed that children as young as 6/7 years do not think science is useful for getting a job when they are older (see Fig. 8.1): In fact, significantly fewer 6/7-yeavr olds (at p < 0.01) compared with 4/5-year olds reported that they think science is important for getting a job when they are older. Evidence of this trend at primary level is a concern given that Blatchford (1992) found that children were aware of their future careers before going to secondary school. Does this mean that primary school children are already dismissing science as part of their future long before (6 years) they make their post-16 choices?

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Fig. 8.1  The percentage of positive responses, with respect to age band, for the item ‘Do you think being able to do science will help you to get a job when you are older?’ The p values represent significant differences between successive age bands (**sig. at p < 0.01) (Taken from Kerr 2008)

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The current chapter outlines a innovative blended CPD approach of workshops and coteaching which specifically addressed science in primary school – in particular the introduction of a Revised Curriculum in Northern Ireland. Carlisle (2008) stated that coteaching fundamentally involves two or more teachers teaching together and sharing responsibility for the learning needs of children. Teachers and student teachers involved in this blended CPD approach were also learning from each other. With reference to the current study, both teachers and student teachers talked about the knowledge and expertise they gained from each other. The teachers felt they learned from the students’ science knowledge and how to teach science and the student teachers felt they gained a lot from the teachers’ experience. ‘I thought it was a good idea having help from someone who has the knowledge of teaching science’ [Key Stage 2 teacher] ‘Well, the benefits were that we had somebody who had the scientific knowledge and expertise.’ [Nursery teacher] ‘With their experience as well, their knowledge and all too, you know that way, I thought it was good’ [student teacher]

In the current study, the use of coteaching meant that teachers and student teachers could work together to implement new approaches. Together, they enhanced their professional development. For example, teachers gained confidence in carrying out practical activities and teachers and student teachers worked together to increase children’s interest and engagement with science. Not only did the teachers and student teachers share the responsibility for implementation of the activities presented in workshops but they were also supported (in-class) by the project team.

8.2 CPD Approaches – Past and Present Murphy et al. (2007, p. 426) carried out a UK-wide survey of primary teachers’ in teaching science and concluded that teachers who had experienced any science professional development, regardless of what type and for how long, were significantly more confidence in most aspects of science teaching than teachers who had not carried out any science professional development

They found that teachers benefit from professional development. Nevertheless, they (Murphy et al. 2007, p. 428) also found that half of the teachers in their survey still highlighted ‘lack of teacher confidence’ as well as ‘ability to teach science’ in primary school as the major issue of concern. Murphy et al. (2007) compared their findings with data from Harlen et al. (1995). Both studies highlighted that a lack of professional development in primary science was a major factor relating to low teacher confidence. CPD which aims at innovative delivery of programmes designed to improve teacher confidence and expertise in science teaching is not a new idea. In fact, many

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science educators the world over have reported on recent successful approaches. Almost every study outlined a checklist of criteria for successful CPD that they purport to have addressed. Very often, this checklist is drawn from an historical overview of previous (deemed unsuccessful) CPD approaches. In an attempt to mark out what good CPD looks like, evaluative studies also consulted those for whom CPD has been designed (Garet et al. 2001). Table 8.1 outlines example studies, the CPD approach they considered and their ‘checklists’. Most of the studies in the table refer to CPD within the UK and those which directly involve teachers (that is, not those directed at management level): The final column in the table is a summary of the ‘checklists’ from the literature. According to the frequency of the factors mentioned in the international literature, there are a number of core criteria for successful CPD: • Active participation: including follow-up work in schools (Garet et  al. 2001; NPEAT 1998) • Importance of self/teachers (prior knowledge/experience, needs) and context (school, classes): i.e. planned and focused upon the needs of specific teachers and pupils (NPEAT 1998; PDE 2000) • Working together (teachers, universities, other agencies) • Reflection (on good/not so good practice/process) • Presentation of work • Long-term/ongoing programme (sustainability) Active participation in CPD is paramount. Many studies highlight that active participation must go further than the structural elements of a ‘course’ or a ‘workshop’ to encompass contextualised professional development with follow-up activities (Garet et al. 2001) that take place in school and which are embedded in everyday work (NPEAT 1998). The US-based National Partnership for Excellence and Accountability in Teaching (NPEAT 1998) and, more recently, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE 2000) published documents outlining principles for effective CPD. These reports summarise the importance of self/teachers and schools for effective CPD as a programme which is planned and focused upon the needs of specific teachers and pupils. The final column in Table 8.1 also outlines less frequently mentioned elements that contribute to effective CPD and can be grouped as follows:

• • • • • • • • • •

Clear aims Holistic programme Use of experts Reference to recent science Reference to Nature of Science (NoS) Flexibility Good support Appropriate workload Financial backing Support of head teacher

Workshop planning

In-class

Whole school

Table  8.1  An overview of some exemplar studies which outline ‘checklists’ for effective CPD – an summary of the main elements is presented in the final column Study Country CPD approach Checklist Summary Science CPD: − Flexible Hanley et al. (2008) England Cyclical application of • Shared vision of goals and outcomes − Work the Buchanan and • Flexibility in implementation together McCalman’s (1989) four • Negotiate common understanding for all layer modela • Collaboration in planning and implementation − Reflective Solomon and England Consider professional identity • New skills and content knowledge with … − (Self) • Active reflection personal to feed back into self image Tresman (1999) through knowledge, belief − Present • Keep personal status and action • Enable professional judgement, e.g. show progress to others − Experts Gray and Bryce Scotland Reflection on socio-scientific • ‘Expert’ input for scientific knowledge and practical skills − NoS (2006) issues • Nature of Science and the changing paradigms of systems − Recent science (e.g. biotechnologies) science • Make teachers’ beliefs and knowledge explicit − Reflective • Personal and group activities for alternative pedagogical − Work approaches to look at ‘post normal’ science issues together • Appreciate systems thinking − Long term England An inquiry approach in • ‘On-going’ reflection and analysis on practices, beliefs and Harrison et al. − Active (2008) Israel chemistry learning (own and others’) − Reflective • Planning, actioning, reporting on evidence of practice − Work • Recognise good practice– make sense of its complexities, together understand the effects and synergies − Importance • Collaborative activity of self • Personal conversations − Present − Long term • Active process of agency: ongoing throughout working life Scotland Partnership in Primary Rodrigues et al. − Work • Communal practice (2003) Science (PIPS) together • Not just teaching skills/subject knowledge but engaging and project – developing − Reflective demonstrating complex reasoning and synthesis science with ICT − Importance • PCK as ever-evolving, allows for influence of structure (the pedagogical content of self school), agency (activities of teacher and pupils) and process knowledge (PCK)

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Other CPD: Duncombe and Armour (2004)

Ireland

England

The use of Regional Curriculum Support advisors

Collaboration – primary PE

• Change practice, assess the merits/drawbacks, adjust beliefs accordingly (Guskey 2002) • Support in collaborations to see its worth • Make more aware of effective ways to collaborate • Collaboration must have (Darling-Hammond 1994, p. 209–217): − Mutual self-interest and common goals − Mutual trust and respect − Shared decision making − Clear focus − Manageable agenda − Commitment from top leadership − Fiscal support − Long-term commitment − Dynamic nature − Information sharing and communications • Information sharing and communications• Appropriate training for advisors: more on skills (facilitation and group dynamics) • Sufficient number of advisors • Schools prepared for visits: supervision of children • Needs analysis-all teachers/different categories of teachers • Recognise teachers’ capacity to accommodate change • Less emphasis on planning and more on implementation • Reflection by teachers

• Holistic approach: subject knowledge, teaching and learning views and craft knowledge overlap • Promote teacher powered agency and process

− Present− Work together − Supported − Importance of self − Context − Active − Reflective (continued)

− Reflective − Work together − Clear aims − Workload − Head teachers − Money − Long term − Active − Present

− Context − Holistic

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Teachers as researchers

England

US

Campbell (2003)

Evaluative Study: Garet et al. (2001)

• Focus on science/maths content knowledge • Active learning • Coherence with other learning activities • Form of the activity (i.e. workshops vs. study group) • Collective participation of teachers from the same school, grade, or subject • The duration of the activity (the longer the better)

• Recognition: research in classrooms requires preparation, thoughtfulness and support for methodological approaches • Collaboration between teaches and experienced researchers • Provide teachers with a voice, debate findings • Inspiring teachers through active participation in inquiries • Questions for research in classrooms, informed by research and practice of others • Collaboration (colleagues, own pupils/kids in other schools) • Partnership with universities and local authorities

Checklist

− Active − Context − Work together − Long term

Summary − Context − Work together − Importance of self − Active − Learn from others − Present

a

Trigger (need for change), vision (articulating it and communicating it), conversion (implementation – persuading and converting people to the vision), maintenance and renewal (identify mid-term outcomes, ensure desired changes are institutionalised

Survey of 1,027 maths and science teachers on what constitutes effective CPD

CPD approach

Table 8.1  (continued) Study Country

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The next section considers in more detail how the coteaching approach used in our CPD project met the criteria for effective CPD. The section will present and discuss the main findings to demonstrate how coteaching facilitates teachers and student teachers to learn together, resulting in successful, sustainable CPD.

8.3 Coteaching in CPD It is well recognised that there are several models of coteaching and collaborative teaching and that participants can play different roles in the process. The current study initially embraced the model of coteaching described in Murphy and Beggs chapter in this volume. In this model, the teacher and student teacher have equal roles and each brings their own expertise: the class teacher as a teaching expert and the student teacher as a science expert (Murphy and Beggs 2006a). In other words, they are harvesting their own experience for the benefit of the children. By increasing a student teacher’s agency and enhancing a teacher’s confidence in the delivery of science, the children benefit (Murphy and Beggs 2006b). In this model, agency is taken as ‘the power of the pre-service teacher to appropriate resources in the classroom’ (Murphy and Beggs 2006b, p. 2). The programme used a blended CPD approach of workshops and coteaching. Teachers and student teachers attended a series of daylong workshops which focused on thinking skills and personal capabilities, creativity in the science classroom, assessment for learning (AfL) and coteaching, all linked to The World Around Us learning area. The teachers and student teachers implemented the new approaches to science teaching and assessment in their classrooms. By teaching together, teachers and student teachers shared the CPD. Each coteaching team also shared their experiences with the other project participants via presentations and discussions at follow-up workshops. Student teachers worked with the teachers in school for one morning per week for the first semester before they began their full-time school experience in the same class. Data collection incorporated focus groups, individual interviews and confidence/attitudinal audits with teachers, student teacher and children. A sample of coteaching lessons was video recorded and examined together with the reflection and presentation workshops. In order to demonstrate how the programme addressed the core criteria for effective CPD, the following sections discuss aspects of the programme in conjunction with evidence derived from the data collection (reflective diaries, interviews, focus groups, audits, classroom observations, presentations).

8.3.1 Active Participation The workshops were led by experts in various areas – practical science, coteaching, Nature of Science, use of puppets, thinking skills, assessment for learning (AfL).

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The activities were designed to expand teacher and student teacher agency by empowering, via engaging children in particular types of science activities, to change their approach from teacher delivery of science to children leading their own science learning. The first workshop activity involved observation as Hans Persson (a leading in-service science educator from Sweden) poured clear water into a plastic bucket through a plastic funnel – the water then flowed out of the bucket via a plastic tube (inserted into a hole on the side of the bucket) into a container. Hans then poured red and then green-coloured water into the bucket, but each time it was clear water that flowed out (see diagram, Fig. 8.2). Participants were asked to draw what they thought might be ‘happening’ inside the bucket. Interest was really raised when Hans explained that, having carried out this activity with both children and adults for many years, all drawings fell into one of only seven different explanations of why only clear water flowed out of the bucket. Many of the activities were practical, ‘black box’ activities with no ‘correct’ answers which can be daunting for teachers who are less confident about their science knowledge (Harlen et al. 1995). As a result, teachers may discourage children from asking questions. However, many teachers talked about the benefits of these workshops and how easy it was to transfer the activities into the classroom. Implementation was not difficult because they had the support of the student teacher in learning new approaches in the workshops and for implementation in the classroom. We also ‘trained’ coteachers to use puppets in science classrooms (see Fig. 8.3). Most frequently, the puppet was acting ‘underneath’ the children, for example by asking questions or showing lack of understanding of the activity or concept, or behaving as a younger child. The process of correcting the puppet by children in the class is a feature of Vygotskian-informed teaching, leading children to act ‘above’ themselves and hence to expand their zone of proximal development (Holzman 1997). Coteachers also referred to their active participation in the workshops as a contributory factor in implementing the activities in school.

Fig. 8.2  The bucket! (Copied from Hans Persson, personal communication, 2007)

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Fig.  8.3  A teacher (pictured on the left) and student teacher (pictured in the right) working together in learning how to use puppets to teach science

The following excerpt from an interview with a teacher of 6–7-year olds summarises what many of the teachers said about being involved in the workshops: …you don’t get access to that within a normal school setting. … I think everybody can say, have it down on paper, this is a great thing, do it, I think that’s what made it, and you were actually maybe involved in some of the experiments and I think that’s what made you believe that this could work … the fact that it was etched in your memory … it was practical, it was doable, it was just fantastic! You didn’t have to sit and read through things and perhaps you weren’t too sure, you know, am I doing this right? [class teacher]

This teacher was empowered to carry out science practical work without a fear of being ‘wrong’ because she was involved in the activities in the workshop and was reassured that they would ‘work’ with the children.

8.3.2 In-Class Element Active participation in the workshops fuelled enthusiastic coteaching in the classrooms. The teachers and student teachers supported each other and worked together to develop and try new ideas – beyond those presented in the workshops. Many of them reported on the benefits of having the opportunity to ‘try out’ what they had learned in the workshops. I think it was a good opportunity to throw out a lot of stuff that you had been doing that you didn’t like and try and reinvent it and it (the CPD programme) gave you that courage to have a different, more creative approach to the activities and a more practical approach. It injected enthusiasm in science again, for me, and I think that passed on to the children. [class teacher]

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In terms of sustainability, many teachers talked about being given the opportunity to ‘try new things’ and ‘change their approach’ to teaching science. All teachers felt that they would continue with this new approach because they had plenty of time and support in order to ‘practice’ and become confident. In their interviews and during their presentations, many of the teachers compared this programme with other professional development ‘courses’ they had attended in the past. They talked about how difficult it is to implement ideas from courses because of time and other priorities. However, they found it easier in the current programme because the implementation is shared and they had the support of the student teacher throughout in terms of coplanning and coteaching. These elements led coteachers to facilitate children to lead their own learning in science (see Fig. 8.4). Bishop and Feasey (2006, p. 37) discussed in-school opportunities for professional development and argued that professional development ‘is often thought of quite narrowly as ‘going on courses’’. In this programme, implementation did not require reading lots of literature given out at a ‘course’. For example: you look at a sheet and you think this is brilliant and they give you loads of activities, again, literature which you don’t have time to read, it gets shelved up in your cupboard but the fact that it was etched in your memory you could say, well, I don’t have to read anything here, I could just go and do it. [class teacher]

A crucial element in the success of the coteaching element of this CPD approach was the fact that the teacher and student teacher attended the ‘workshop’ section together before embarking on the in-class teaching together. Many teachers felt that working with the student teacher spurred them on and encouraged them to try out the new ideas. They could support each other because they had both attended the workshops.

Fig. 8.4  Children involved in an in class element of the project. These 7/8-year-old children are working together in an attempt to mix water, oil and syrup

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As well as supporting each other, the teachers and student teachers were supported by in-class visits from the project team. This gave them the chance to discuss what they were doing and offered reassurance. Johnston et al. (2007, p. 232) considered the benefits of in-class support and advice in Ireland and found that teachers perceived this type of support as ‘grounded within the context of the school’ and that they liked the ‘professional privacy’ it afforded. In other words, they were more likely to discuss concerns during these visits than at seminars, where other teachers were present. Many of the teachers in the current programme also brought to light their concerns during visits from the project team. In this way, it is important for teachers, student teachers and the CPD deliverers to work together to support the science teaching in classrooms.

8.3.3 Working Together As with previous coteaching projects in Northern Ireland (Murphy et  al. 2004; Murphy and Beggs 2005; Murphy and Beggs 2006a) teachers and student teachers reflected upon the advantages of coplanning, coteaching and coevaluating both in terms of the contribution to their professional development and in terms of the children’s learning and enjoyment. We felt the co-teaching was very successful because we were able to plan, teach and evaluate each lesson together, we were able to give each other ideas how to approach teaching plants and animals. The class teacher, Joseph1 and I were able to work in partnership to be creative in each lesson and the pupils enjoyed having support and guidance from both teachers. They knew when we were co-teaching science that they were able to go to Joseph or go to myself for help. [student teacher] I think it’s good for planning and evaluating, it’s always good when two people come together and say well how do you think that went? And somebody might notice something that the other person didn’t or might look on it a different way and that’s, that’s very useful. I think planning and evaluation particularly would be the two main benefits of the coteaching. [class teacher]

***The teachers and student teachers supported each other and worked together to develop and try new ideas – beyond those presented in the workshops. The teachers also reported that it was ‘easier’ to carry out practical work with the science student teacher in the room because they were able to help with group work and were more confident at conducting practical work. As a result of carrying out practical activities with the student teacher many teachers felt they were more confident and inspired to continue incorporating practical work into their lesson, even after the student teacher had left. Many had changed their long term planning and will continue to use the approaches they learned which also addresses the issue of sustainability and CPD.

 For the purposes of anonymity, pseudonyms have been used for the participants

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The solidarity built up between teachers and student teachers learning together and supporting each other in this way contributed to the overall success of the programme. Expansion of teacher and student teacher agency was also evident in the data. Not only did teachers and student teachers talk about sharing ideas/teaching/ planning but some teams also mentioned that they were ‘equal partners’, each bringing their own expertise. For example, this teacher talks about sharing expertise during lessons to enhance the experience for the children: I think also that teachers have to realise to be open about it and let your class go and don’t think you’re a teacher and there’s a student, you’re equals. I think that’s key, because I was glad if there was something we were maybe doing and I could say oh Emma (student teacher) what is that in a science way? And she’d come in whereas Emma would say to me, with different things, discipline wise and just different things and for a lesson, is this OK? And I’d be, like, yeah and she wasn’t afraid, she was never afraid to say to me, is that OK? And what do we do now? We all don’t have the answers, you know, if I don’t know I’ll ask Emma and I would say to the children, we don’t know, we’ll find that out or they’ll find it out for me, let them go, you know.

This excerpt is also an example of how the teachers and student teachers expanded their agency by working together during a lesson to let the children lead their own learning and find out things for themselves. The approaches used during coteaching and the teachers, student teachers and children working together to enhance the learning experience had a definite impact on the children’s attitudes towards science. The 190 participating children also completed a questionnaire at the beginning of the project and at the end of the academic year (2 months after the end of the programme). There were 13 items relating to their interest in and enjoyment of school science. Figure 8.5 shows the increase in the percentage of positive responses to nine out of the 13 items.

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like science lessons more than other lessons?

like thinking about science?

like revising for science tests?

like there to be look forward to like watching like doing work more science science lessons? programmes with fair testing? lessons in about science on school? TV?

like science lessons?

like there to be more science lessons in school?

questionnaire item

Fig.  8.5  The percentage of positive responses from the children’s audit before and after the programme

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8.3.4 Needs of Specific Teachers and Pupils The flexible nature of the in-class activities meant that teachers and student teachers could tailor their lessons to meet the needs of their pupils. For example, the teaching teams did not need to ‘try’ every activity and ideas from the workshops and were free to adapt everything to the needs of their class. Regular in-class support and the support and new ideas offered by teachers to student teachers and vice versa also contributed to the flexible nature of the programme. In an initial audit, teachers were asked to rate their confidence in knowledge to develop children’s understanding of The World Around Us learning area (teaching science with history and geography). For effective CPD to take place, Gray and Bryce (2006) highlighted the importance of making teachers beliefs and knowledge explicit – the audit and discussion with teachers during the workshops was a way of doing this. Many teachers were not confidence in their knowledge to develop the children’s understanding – very few rated their confidence as ‘fully confident’ as opposed to ‘OK, ‘not very confident’ or ‘need help’. The graph below (Fig. 8.6) shows how the percentage of teachers who rated their confidence as ‘fully confident’ increased in the final audit: When asked about the benefits of coteaching with the student teachers, the majority of teachers talked about learning from and utilizing the student teachers’ science knowledge. the benefits were that we had somebody who had the scientific knowledge and expertise. [class teacher]

In a similar coteaching project, Murphy and Beggs (2005, p. 223) also concluded that teachers developed their science knowledge as a result of coteaching with the student teachers, in particular, their knowledge in ‘the physical science areas’. Focusing on the needs of specific teachers and pupils is one of the main criteria, suggested in the literature, for effective CPD (NPEAT 1998; PDE 2000).

% fully confident

30 25 20

24% 20%

15 10 5

19%

17%

20%

before after

11% 6%

0 Interdependence

Place

Movement and Energy

Change over Time

Fig.  8.6  Teacher’s confidence in their knowledge to develop children’s understanding of The World Around Us learning areas

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Given the range of schools involved in the sample (primary, nursery and special needs schools) every attempt was made to meet the specific needs of the teachers. In particular, teachers in the special needs schools talked about how, very often, provision is not made for their sector and they are not invited to attend mainstream ‘courses’. Overall, it was very enjoyable and, I think, very beneficial for us, you know, and it was nice to be involved as a special school because, very often, we’re left out. [class teacher, special needs]

Teachers also talked about how the activities could be targeted to meet the needs of specific children. For example, some of the ideas were multi-sensory and suitable for children with profound special needs. Other activities, such as the puppets and encouraging the children to present their ideas, helped improve the confidence of weaker pupils in the classes.

8.3.5 Co-presentation of Work Providing teachers with the opportunity to showcase their work is a common thread which runs through a lot of CPD literature. In particular, Harrison et al. (2008, p. 589) discussed the ‘reporting on evidence’ on many levels. Teachers should not only present their work but engage in analysis of practice, recognising good practice (own and others’) and making sense of the complexities and the potential for practice to be better when teachers work together. Coming together after implementation of new practice (suggested during a professional development ‘course’) is one way to facilitate this type of analysis. Teachers can be given the opportunity to present their work and talk about it. In the current study, teacher and student teachers were initially apprehensive about presenting their work (in the form of posters). However, the benefits far outweighed the negatives, as highlighted in the following quotes: just gathering it all together, I think, just thinking of that idea for the presentation … it sort of widened my horizons as to what other things I can do. [class teacher] the presentations were very useful and I think it’s always very useful to see how other people did things and even to get talking to people, putting our heads together is usually the most beneficial of all, just even informally sometimes, the whole thing was just very good because it really made Mary (the student teacher) and I sit down and rethink how we were going to plan science for such a long time and it really made us think about it and what were we going to do and how were we going to do it and what were the outcomes and I think it definitely improved, very much, the whole quality of what we were teaching and how we were teaching it. [class teacher]

In the excerpts above the second teacher talks about how good it is to be given the opportunity to talk ‘informally’ to other teachers. This is reminiscent of what Harrison et al. (2008) referred to as teachers becoming engaged in ‘personal conversations’ to discuss their practice. Presentations and discussions during the project,

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in the reflective diaries and in the interviews afterwards can result in some high level reflection from teachers.

8.3.6 Co-reflection When given the opportunity to work together in class and during presentation work, teachers and student teachers can engage in a high level of critical reflection on themselves and their teaching. For example, many teachers and student teachers talked about a change in ownership in the classroom, with the children leading the lessons. As a result many teachers felt that they had adapted their approach to teaching science and, as a result, had made sustainable changes to how they will view science teaching in the future. We were just really stepping back and maybe just trying to give them little bits of direction but it was really driven by them and they just absolutely loved it. [class teacher] We were just going to sit back on the periphery and listen to them which is so different to your traditional teaching. [class teacher] We really enjoyed it because it made us think about our approach too … we let them take over their lesson. They had ownership of everything and it certainly taught us how to change our minds on teaching science. [class teacher] Our whole approach, we’re rethinking now. [class teacher] They sort of took ownership of the lesson … all of a sudden we had weights out and we’d balance scales, they sort of prompted what we were doing really. [class teacher]

As mentioned earlier, this shift in ownership was a common discussion point among teachers and student teachers. Once again, these excerpts are excellent examples of a shift in the agency of teachers and student teachers by empowering them to involve children in their own learning. With specific reference to coteaching, many teachers and student teachers reflected on the importance of developing a good relationship in order to effectively teach together and facilitate change. Murphy and Beggs (2006b, p. 6) also reported that ‘matching’ teachers and student teachers, as opposed to ‘random pairing’ resulted in more harmonious coteaching. In a similar fashion, for the current CPD programme, the project team met with school principals to ‘discuss potential coteaching teams’ (Murphy and Beggs 2006b). This ‘careful and sensitive’ process has proved to enhance the coteaching experience (Murphy and Beggs 2006b). However, not all coteaching teams prove to be ‘harmonious’. In the current study, one teacher felt that the work was not evenly divided between teacher and student teacher. She felt that she was completing most of the work. In this instance, the teacher felt she did not want to get the student ‘in trouble’ by flagging up this issue, even privately. This experience was used in subsequent coteaching preparation sessions to underline the importance of coteachers’ early communication of feelings of uncertainty (student teacher to university tutor and teacher to school

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principal) so that issues can be addressed sensitively and effectively. We ensure now that coteachers are fully aware of and happy to use an agreed protocol for dealing with communication issues.

8.3.7 Long-Term Issues: Sustainability One of main issues with CPD is sustainability – many studies the world over therefore suggest that CPD must be long term in order to be effective (Duncombe and Armour 2004; Garet et  al. 2001; Rodrigues et  al. 2003). Our original programme ran for one academic year, and there have been longer term changes as a result of the work carried out. Many schools have added the activities, materials and approaches to their whole school plans for coming years and for different year groups. The positive feedback and involvement of Education and Library Board (ELB) advisors has resulted in changes at Board level revised curriculum courses (these are nationwide). ELB advisors have incorporated many of the workshop activities used in our programme into their inservice training for implementation of science in the revised curriculum. They have also encouraged teachers to work together as coteachers to support school implementation. Perhaps even more significant is the sustainability of a change in approach outlined in the previous section (Co-reflections). Gray and Bryce (2006, p. 173) critiqued existing models of CPD and argued that effective CPD changes ‘the ways in which teachers think about their subject and their teaching’. Some teachers compared their experience in this project with less favourable experiences of previous CPD ‘courses’. A shift in some teachers’ attitudes towards CPD also contributed to the sustainability of future coteaching/CPD approaches. The majority of teachers involved also expressed enthusiasm for future involvement in a coteaching project like the current one. Many of them also felt that other teachers throughout Northern Ireland could benefit from such a programme. I just think it would be great for all the teachers, you know, in Northern Ireland. It was just fantastic. It was really inspiring, great. [class teacher]

Implementation of the coteaching CPD programme led the author and programme designers to readdress and reflect upon the model of coteaching outlined in Murphy and Beggs’ chapter. Given the huge impact upon class teachers and student teachers as they planned, taught and learned together, we feel that the following extended model (Fig. 8.7) illustrates the colearning and coteaching demonstrated in the present study: In this model, the teacher and student teacher work together against the backdrop of workshops and coteaching as well as support. As a result of their areas of expertise and the workshops/in-class elements the children benefit and the teachers and student teachers learn from each other. Also, the teachers and student teachers develop professionally as they make sustainable changes to their teaching approaches and expand their agency by empower these changes.

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Fig. 8.7  ‘Learning and teaching together’ approach to coteaching

8.4 Implications and Suggestions The learning and teaching together model (Fig.  8.7), my survey of current CPD literature and implementation of the approach have resulted in some practical implications and suggestions for effective CPD. These are summarised below: • The core criteria (active participation, focusing on the needs of specific teachers and pupils, working together, reflection, presentation of work and a long term/ on-going element) outlined in the current CPD literature serves as an excellent base for planning effective CPD. • Coteaching in CPD is an innovative and successful way to facilitate teachers and student teachers working together to implement new approaches which will enhance their professional development (change in approach, confidence, and awareness of agency) and increase children’s interest and engagement with science. • A blended CPD approach of workshops and in-class support involving two teachers working together at every stage results in effective implementation of new approaches. • A coteaching/CPD approach addresses issues of sustainability as it effects longer term changes in teaching approaches and how teacher think about a given subject. • Coteaching with student teachers resulted in a change in agency, whereby both teachers and student teachers considered themselves as equal partners – this success paves the way to the future involvement of ITE in CPD programmes.

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Acknowledgements  The author and project team would like to thank all the teachers, student teachers and children who contributed to the current programme and the AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust who provided the funding. Thanks also to Karen Carlisle for her feedback on the initial draft of this chapter.

References Addis, J., Reid, F., McAlister, P., & Shine, J. (2007). Primary science: Beyond the borders. Education in Science, 222, 10–11. Bishop, K. & Feasey, R. (2006). Supporting in-school opportunities for professional development. Primary Science Review, 95, 37–38. Blatchford, P. (1992). Children’s attitudes to work at 11 years. Educational Studies, 18, 107–118. Buchanan, D. A. & McCalman, J. (1989). High performance work systems: The digital experience. London: Routledge. Campbell, A. (2003). Teachers’ Research and Professional Development in England: Some questions, issues and concerns. Journal of In-service Education, 29(3), 375–388. Carlisle, K. (2008). An examination of coteaching in initial teacher education. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, Queen’s University Belfast. Council for the Curriculum Examinations and Assessment (CCEA). (2007). The Northern Ireland curriculum primary. Northern Ireland: CCEA. Darling-Hammond, L. (1994). Professional Development Schools: Schools for developing a profession. London: Teachers College Press. Duncombe, R. & Armour, K. M. (2004). Collaborative professional learning: From theory to practice. Journal of In-service Education, 30(1), 141–166. Garet, M. S., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F., & Suk Yoon, K. (2001). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 915–945. Gray, D. S. & Bryce, T. (2006). Socio-scientific issues in science education: Implications for the professional development of teachers. Cambridge Journal of Education, 36(2), 171–192. Guskey, T. R. (2002). Professional development and teacher change. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 8, 381–391. Hanley, P., Maringe, F., & Ratcliffe, M. (2008). Evaluation of professional development: Deploying a process-focused model. International Journal of Science Education, 30(5), 711–725. Harlen, W., Holdroyd, C., & Byrne, M. (1995). Confidence and understanding in teaching science and technology in primary schools. Edinburgh: Scottish Council for Research in Education. Harrison, C., Hofstein, A., Eylon, B.-S., & Simon, S. (2008). Evidence-based professional development of science teachers in two countries. International Journal of Science Education, 30(5), 577–591. Holzman, L. (1997). Schools for growth: Radical alternatives to current educational models. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Johnston, K., Murchan, D., Loxley, A., Fitzgerald, H., & Quinn, M. (2007). The role and impact of the Regional Curriculum Support Service in Irish primary education. Irish Educational Studies, 26(3), 219–238. Kerr, K. (2008). “I don’t like splashing in the water”: Children’s voices in primary science. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. Belfast: Queen’s University Belfast. Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2003). Children’s perceptions of school science. School Science Review, 84(308), 109–116. Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2005). Coteaching as an approach to enhance science learning and teaching in primary schools. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 169–186). New York: Peter Lang.

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Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2006a). Co-teaching as an approach to enhance science learning and teaching in primary schools. The Science Education Review, 5(2), 63.1–63.10. Murphy, C., & Beggs, J. (2006b, September). Addressing ethical dilemmas in implementing coteaching. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 7(4), Article 20. Retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/4-06/06-4-20-e.htm Murphy, C., Beggs, J., Carlisle, K., & Greenwood, J. (2004). Students as ‘catalysts’ in the classroom: The impact of co-teaching between science student teachers and primary classroom teachers on children’s enjoyment and learning of science. International Journal of Science Education, 26(8), 1023–1036. Murphy, C., Neil, P., & Beggs, J. (2007). Primary science teacher confidence revisited: Ten years on. Educational Research, 49(4), 415–430. National Academy of Sciences (NAS). (1996). The role of scientists in the professional development of science teachers. Retrieved October 20, 2008, from http://www.nap.edu/openbook. php?isbn = 0309049997&page = 1 National Partnership for Excellence and Accountability in Teaching (NPEAT). (1998). Improving professional development: Eight research-based principles. Retrieved October 20, 2008, from http://www.nswsdpa.asn.au/files/june04/principles.pdf Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE). (2000). Nine design principles of effective professional development. Rigano, D., Ritchie, S., & Bell, T. (2005). Developing wisdom in practice through coteaching: A narrative account. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 169–186). New York: Peter Lang. Rodrigues, S., Marks, A., & Steel, P. (2003). Developing science and ICT pedagogical content knowledge: A model of continuing professional development. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 40(4), 386–394. Roth, W.-M. (1998). Science teaching as knowledgeability: A case study of knowing and learning during coteaching. Science Education, 82, 357–377. Roth, W.-M. & Boyd, N. (1999). Coteaching, as colearning, in practice. Research in Science Education, 29, 51–67. Solomon, J. & Tresman, S. (1999). A model for continued professional development: Knowledge, belief and action. Journal of In-service Education, 25(2), 307–319. Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Wellcome Trust. (2005). Primary horizons: Starting out in science (Summary Report). London: Wellcome Trust. Retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/ groups/corporatesite/@msh_peda/documents/web_document/wtx026628.pdf

Chapter 9

A Learning Space: Student Teachers’ Experience of Coteaching Science Neil Ó Conaill

9.1 Introduction Teaching practice placements are recognised as central components in all teacher education programmes by both student teachers and teacher educators (Zeichner 1990; McIntyre et  al. 1996). Yet, pre-service teachers approach these placements with considerable anxiety related to performance, supervision, pupil cooperation and communication with their class teacher which negatively impacts on their performance and diminishes the learning experience (Martinez 1998; Beck and Kosnik 2000). Cooperating class teachers are often overlooked as a source of advice and mentoring for these students. This chapter outlines how a primary science coteaching project was developed to provide additional non-assessed science teaching experience for final year pre-service teachers. While the reciprocal benefit of coteaching guided the project, this chapter focuses on the benefits accruing to the pre-service teachers. It is suggested that beginning teachers who have developed professional competence promoted by teacher education programmes are well placed to fully exploit the learning-to-teach opportunities, which is offered by subject-specific coteaching. The participants in this study were nine final semester student teachers in a 3-year B.Ed. programme in the Republic of Ireland and nine cooperating teachers. Together, they formed 10-week coteaching partnerships focused on science.

9.2 Context for the Study 9.2.1 The Local Context In the absence of a formal mentoring process, or indeed any prescribed formal role for the class teachers on teaching practice, this study sought to create partnerships between final year student teachers and class teachers. The purpose was to create partnerships for science teaching that acknowledged the class teachers’ expertise and their willingness to work with student teachers, both of which are features that the C. Murphy and K. Scantlebury (eds.), Coteaching in International Contexts: Research and Practice, Cultural Studies of Science Education, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3707-7_9, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

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current formal teaching practice as structured by the college does not accommodate. Apart from acknowledging their experience and their willingness to participate in lessons with the student teachers, the study sought to examine what benefits accrued to the teachers as studies of mentoring have indicated that the mentors, not just the mentees, can also be the beneficiaries of the process (Simpson et al. 2007; Hagger and McIntyre 2006). This project was based on the premise that coteaching initiatives create learning communities centred on the development of situational knowledge as understood and enacted by novice and experienced teachers. Such knowledge is clearly within the repetoire of beginning teachers, and several profiles or statutory competence lists include reference to this craft knowledge.1 The student teachers in this project had completed all of their scheduled teaching practice modules and were thus prepared to participate, if not quite as equals, but as significant and competent contributors. Their experience to date allows them tap into their coteacher’s ‘preexisting body of practical knowledge’ (Lortie 1975, p. 73) and the development of professional language from their cooperative enterprise (Proefriedt 1994). Paired placement is the norm for this college’s teaching practice modules. While large numbers of students necessitate this approach, it has a number of benefits. It promotes dialogue, facilitates joint reflection and opens the door towards collaborative learning and the development of a community of practice. Sorensen (2004) suggests it may also be the case that the students working as pairs develop more confidence in bringing new ideas to bear on the workplace, thus helping to avoid the risk of ‘having novices learning teaching practices that do not reflect quality teaching’ (Wang 2001). While these provide a theoretical justification for pairing student teachers, the collaborative learning opportunities they provide are infrequently exploited (Sorensen 2004). This study modelled this pairing process; on this occasion, however, each pair composed of a pre-service and experienced class teacher, with a deliberate emphasis on exploiting the learning opportunities it provided. If teaching practice is seen as an opportunity to learn to teach, this project aimed at teaching to learn.

9.2.2 The National Context An emerging debate on teacher education in Ireland has been stimulated by a number of factors. The establishment of the Teaching Council (2006), with a remit which includes review and accreditation of teacher education programmes, ­maintained

Each seeks to elaborate on professional competences which should be evident in a beginning teacher’s work. For example, the TTA Circular 4/98 Requirements for Courses of Initial teacher Training (DfEE, 1998); in Australia the Report of the National Standards and Guidelines for Initial Teacher Education Project (Preparing a Profession) NCATE; in Northern Ireland the General Teaching Council’s Reviews of Teacher Competences and Continuous Professional Development, in the Rep. of Ireland beginning teachers are advised of planning an professional competence in Guidelines for ProbationaryTeachers (DES 2005).

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the focus and aspirations of change in teacher education initially stimulated by the Review of Teacher Education (Kellaghan 2002). Pertinent to this chapter is the Review’s call for partnerships between schools and colleges and its recommendation for ‘greater involvement of schools and teachers in teaching practice’ (2002, p. 163). The establishment of the Teacher Education Section (2003) within the DES (Department of Education and Science) signalled an awareness of the need for a coherent policy on the continuum of teachers’ learning. The ongoing roll-out of an induction programme for beginning teachers, though still at pilot phase after 7 years, is an acknowledgement of the teachers’ learning continuum. More recently, the diversification of entry routes, the number of candidates with overseas qualifications seeking positions and the diversity of our school and college population have progressed the discussion. Persistent concern about teachers’ knowledge, particularly in Maths, Science and Gaeilge (DES 2005; 2006a; Harris et al. 2006; Forfás 2008; OECD 2005), provides a constant backdrop to the debate and tends to corral it within the confines of structural issues concerning teacher quality, demand and supply. In contrast to other knowledge-based economies, this limited framework sees teacher education in Ireland conceptualised without major controversy or debate about teaching and teacher education as a technical problem, a problem-solving problem or a policy problem (Deegan 2008). This is a feature not unique to Ireland, as the US discussion on teacher education is also structurally confined and deals less with what occurs ‘within the black box of the program – inside courses and clinical experiences that candidates encounter – and about how the experiences programs design for candidates cumulatively add up to a set of knowledge, skills, and dispositions that determine what teachers actually do in the classroom’ (Darling-Hammond 2006, p. 303). Wideen et al. claimed in their seminal review of teacher education programmes that ‘we can no longer regard courses, programs, and other participants and structures of teacher education as unchallengeable and operating in isolation’ (1998, p. 169). This challenge is just as relevant today. Discussion of the autonomy of colleges to tailor their programmes to respond to the country’s diverse student population, teacher characteristics and research findings is put forward to provide examples of how this debate can lead to teacher education which nurtures learned, reflective and resourceful professionals (Morgan 2008). Involving teachers in this debate can only enrich the vision created for teacher education. Creating worthwhile partnerships between colleges and schools is key to creating an understanding of each others’ needs and priorities and identifying areas of fruitful collaboration. Indeed, close partnerships and collaborative links between schools and initial teacher education providers is a key indicator of acclaimed programmes (Darling-Hammond 2006; Maandag et  al. 2007). Recent emphasis on involving schools, teachers more particularly, in initial teacher education has led to renewed interest in models of collaboration. Developing coteaching creates the space for critical engagement (Furlong 2002) and has the potential to create meaningful partnerships (Goodson 1995), which recognise teachers’ contribution to pre-service teacher education and in the process recognise the potential schools offer as the sites in which teachers professional knowledge can be regenerated (Edwards 1998).

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9.2.3 The Curriculum Context: Science in the Curriculum Though science had formed part of the primary school curriculum since 1971 (An Roinn Oideachas 1971), it is perceived by many, teachers, parents and others in the educational community, to be ‘new’ in the primary school curriculum. This misunderstanding arises partly from the relative prominence science has in the 1999 primary school curriculum in comparison with the 1971 curriculum and the increased public focus on the importance of science education at all levels. Science has been part of the curriculum for all primary pupils, aged 5–12, since 2003, with in-service training for classroom teachers having begun in 2000, initially on a pilot basis. In the school year 2002–2003, all teachers received 3 days professional development focussing on the science curriculum, two of which were workshops and the third a school-based planning day. Further support from the curriculum support service was available on a request basis. Up to 46% of teachers attended courses facilitated by the support service, with an additional 31% attending in-service courses offered by other providers (NCCA 2008). Teachers attended science courses more frequently than other curriculum areas (NCCA 2008) which indicates the level of interest in the subject but could also be interpreted as indicating the significant need for further professional development. The approach and content covered in these in-service sessions has a significant influence on teachers’ subsequent teaching as evidenced by the close link between the hands-on science activities pupils’ experience in school and the content areas of the science curriculum supported by in-service or special initiative science packs (Varley et al. 2008). The science curriculum places emphasis on enquiry science, recognising the benefit of child-centred discovery learning (NCCA 1999a). It is largely based on the constructivist paradigm, promoting collaborative discovery learning and balancing emphasis on development of procedural skills and conceptual understanding. International research indicates that teachers have concerns regarding their confidence, subject knowledge and expertise in primary science (Murphy and Beggs 2005; Goodrum et al. 2001). Weiss et al. (2001) report that fewer than three in ten elementary teachers in the USA feel qualified to teach science. Harlen and Holroyd (1997) report that science knowledge is a key determinant of primary teachers’ confidence in teaching science. Class size also inhibits engagement in investigations (QCA 2005). These concerns expressed by teachers appear to have an impact on practice, or curriculum delivery, as research illustrates the disparity between the official and the implemented curriculum, which is often characterised by minimal hands-on investigations and engagement in activities, restricted range of teaching approaches and an emphasis on the transmission of factual knowledge (OFSTED 1999, 2004; Varley et al. 2008; Lunn and Solomon 2000; Goodrum et al. 2001). The experience of teachers in Ireland has been similar – class size, curriculum overload and resources are key concerns teachers have around the implementation of the science curriculum (Varley et al. 2008). A coteaching project based on primary science is one method of addressing these issues while also supporting pupils’ engagement with science and continuing their recognised positive disposi-

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tion to primary science (Varley et al. 2008). The challenges of teaching primary science are recognised and the advantage of subject specialism is recognised. Bringing a science specialist to assist in the classroom responds to the growing unease at the expectations made of primary teachers faced with teaching a broad curriculum and ability and age range (Osler 2005). Advocates of science teaching partnerships involving collaboration between pre-service and in-service teachers take the perspective that ‘teachers are essential in assisting preservice teachers to become agents of science education reform’ (Hudson and Skamp 2002, p. 2) and several coteaching projects are premised on this deficit model, where students are the novice or peripheral participants (Eick et al. 2003). This project created content-specific school-based experiences which provide opportunities to focus on content and instructional strategies at a deeper level as advocated by Moseley et  al. (2004), though in this case exploiting the flexibility to negotiate coteaching roles with a view to improving the science practice of both teachers.

9.3 Theoretical Framework for Coteaching Such is the impact of teachers’ socialisation prior to their formal teacher preparation, the impact of this ‘avalanche of experience’ (Britzman 2007, p. 2) creates prior beliefs which are seen as problematic and deeply embedded by many teacher educators (Wideen et  al. 1998). Addressing these dispositions and prior ideas of teaching and the teacher’s role is a key challenge and conundrum for teacher educators. Understanding how context, site and impetus influence learning has led teacher educators to look at theories of learning to meet this challenge. Appropriate for the learning to teach process, situated cognition theories are premised on the belief that what is learned cannot be separated from how it is learned (Brown et al. 1989; Bruner 1990) and that knowledge is learned in the context in which it is to be applied. In coteaching social coparticipation in legitimate practice (Lave and Wenger 1991) brings about learning in teaching. In this mode, coteaching seeks to construct theory-in-practice (Roth 1998) through engagement in practice and thus develop situation-specific knowledge and perception, similar to Korthagen and Kessels’ phronesis (1999). This view does not seek to privilege classroom knowledge over theoretical knowledge but recognises the interplay between them. Sharpe (2004) contends that ‘professional knowledge is no longer viewed as just consisting of a standardised, explicit and fixed knowledge base. The distinctive nature of professional knowledge lies in the interplay between its construction and its use. When teachers use their knowledge, use changes what that knowledge is.’ In coteaching, both coteachers witness and create this knowledge. Learning in coteaching can be seen as a movement away from ‘acquisition’ to a ‘participation’ metaphor in which knowledge is considered situated in practice (Sfard 1998). It is aligned with cognitive theories that emphasise the social nature of cognition and meaning (Resnick 1987) rather than emphasis on individual thinkers.

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In applying situated cognition theory to teacher learning, the context of learning is of great importance. The central tenets of this perspective regarding knowing are: (a)  Knowing about refers to an activity – not a thing (b)  Knowing about is always contextualised – not abstract (c) Knowing about is reciprocally constructed within the individual–environment interaction – not objectively defined or subjectively created (d)  Knowing about is a functional stance on the interaction – not a ‘truth’ (Barab and Duffy 2000) With regard to teaching, this view considers participation in practice as the most appropriate forum for developing understanding and learning. Coteaching facilitates participation in knowing as an activity, in a specific context and for a specific purpose. Because the pre-service teacher is with another teacher, they are also coparticipating, learning with and learning from. This coparticipation is in line with call towards a new formulation of mentoring which moves away from ‘hierarchical dispensations of wisdom to shared inquiries into practice’ (Hargreaves and Fullan 2000, p. 56). Coteaching partnership, which casts both as learners, albeit at different levels, encourages this reconceptualisation towards shared inquiry and recognises the potential contribution of each coteacher. It is this emphasis on participation in learning that leads to the notion of a community in learning. This shift in the unit of analysis from the individual’s context to the community context leads to a shift in focus from the learning of skills or developing understandings to one in which, ‘developing an identity as a member of a community and becoming knowledgeably skillful are part of the same process, with the former motivating, shaping, and giving meaning to the latter, which it subsumes’ (Lave 1993, p. 65). Coteaching creates a culture to facilitate learning and simultaneously mould the learner as a participant in that culture. The emphasis of co-participation through planning, teaching and evaluation of the learning to teach process conveys greater agency for the student learner than is envisaged in Rogoff’s (1995) guided participation which conveys learning from rather than learning with. In terms of situated learning, Rogoff’s participatory appropriation more appropriately describes the roles and desired effects of coteaching. As opposed to an acquisition view of knowledge, appropriation ‘occurs in the process of participation, as the individual changes through involvement in the situation at hand, and this participation contributes both to the direction of the evolving event and to the individual’s preparation for involvement in other similar events’ (Rogoff 1995, p. 153). Roth and Tobin link this ‘silent pedagogy’ (2001, p. 758) of learning how to interpret and react in particular circumstances, the ineffable aspects of the craft of teaching (Roth et al. 1999) to Bourdieu’s (1980) notion of habitus which they describe as the dispositions or patterned responses which emerge ‘from the contingencies and temporal constraints of each situation’ (2001, p. 750). In creating situation-specific or contextually bound learning, coteaching offers student teachers a pedagogy of learning which embodies the opportunity of being-with and being-in a learning situation with an experienced teacher. However, participating in a community of learning or practice does not always allow for the development of the self as an active and reciprocating agent in the

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community (Barab and Duffy 2000). Edwards (2005) also questions the emphasis on community: ‘It is not clear how the community of practice metaphor deals with learning something new. It provides a compelling account of learning as socialisation into existing beliefs, values and practices, but does not offer an account of how new knowledge is produced’ (2005, p. 57). Participation does not necessarily imply meaningful contribution or that meaningful benefit accrues from this participation. To address this, an ecological theory of knowing which places the individual learner within affordance networks is suggested by Barab and Roth (2006). These are described as functionally bound networks which are ‘the collection of facts, concepts, tools, methods, practices, agendas, commitments, and even people, taken with respect to an individual, that are distributed across time and space and are viewed as necessary for the satisfaction of particular goal sets’ (Barab and Roth 2006, p. 5). The goal sets in coteaching concern the acquisition of teachers’ tacit and craft knowledge – the learning network is created, within a frame of contextualised participation. Coteaching adheres to the ecological learning perspective in as much as it recognises learning as a process of becoming prepared to effectively engage dynamic networks in the world in a goal-directed manner (Hoffmann and Roth 2005). Learning is participating within these affordance networks and can be equated with knowing as the process of successfully engaging an intentionally bound system such that particular goals can be accomplished (Barab and Roth 2006, p. 9). The intentionally bound system in coteaching comprises the participants, their networks and their shared goals. Learners are in authentic practice situations where, as Brown et al. (1989) argued, concepts are seen as tools that can only be understood through use. The cooperating and pre-service teachers, or however the partnerships are formed, create a community of practice which involves a collection of individuals sharing mutually defined practices, beliefs, and understandings over an extended time frame in the pursuit of a shared enterprise (Wenger 1998). If successfully designed, especially in terms of developing learner ownership, the practice field not only supports the development of specific skills, but offers the individual the opportunity to assess his or her competencies and motivation for that kind of work (Barab and Duffy 2000). Though Barab and Roth (2006) have in mind disaffected and unmotivated school pupils, their advocacy of an ecological view of learning and participation, one that allows content to live in its contextual richness has clear resonance with coteaching as it creates a meaningful site for its community of learners. A key distinction between this teaching experience and previous teaching practice experience is the focus on learning. In the absence of the pressure of supervision and assessment, performing across the curriculum and extensive preparation, this teaching experience was focused on science and improving both teachers science teaching. It reframes the school as a site of learning to teach rather than a teaching performance site. The student participants in this study had completed all of their teaching practice placements and building on their competence were now availing of an opportunity to ‘genuinely engage in the various aspects of teaching in an environment where (engagement in experience) is the focus, rather than in an environment where successful teaching and ‘controlling’ students is the dominant concern’

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(Korthagen et al. 2006, p. 1029). Not being subject to the formal organisational structures accompanying regular teaching practice, often seen as ‘artificial and unreal’ (Kellaghan 2002, p. 120) facilitated this unique focus and scope for each participant to benchmark and evaluate their own progress, this shift in focus from curriculum to learner (Korthagen et al. 2006). Their relative experience and accomplishment also ensured that they had the capacity to work with the class teacher with an agreed programme of work and the ‘bidding down’ (Doyle 1986) of tasks and pupil expectation to facilitate the student teachers would not occur.

9.4 Methods This small-scale action research involving nine class teachers and nine pre-service teachers reflects the collaborative, inclusive and participatory principles of action research as it seeks to develop the knowledge and skills relevant and particular to the participants’ particular situations. Coteaching partnerships were created and operated for a series of science lessons over a 10-week period. To ensure that potential existed for reciprocal benefit to both coteachers, the planned lessons were underpinned by three core themes. Firstly, an adherence to the learning principles of the Curriculum (NCCA,1999b), with particular reference to the principles of learning through language, active and discovery learning, collaborative learning and the fourth guiding principle which recognises the constructivist influence in the curriculum, creating leaning opportunities around children’s current level of understanding. These and other principles underpin children’s learning in the Curriculum (NCCA 1999b) and were selected for particular focus as they resonate with an approach to learning science, which is constructivist and enquiry-focused. All participants were familiar with these learning principles prior to the project but in this project they were central to planning and teaching. The promotion of particular talk learning strategies was another theme and linked to the principle of learning through language. This was motivated by the centrality of language in learning science (Gallas 1995) and the importance of discussion and questioning in science (OFSTED 1999; Newton 2002). The third guiding focus was the use of the Five Part Lesson structure. The fivepart lesson format (cf. Quinn in press, for elaboration) is a development of the 5E instructional cycle (Bybee 1997) and aligns a constructivist approach to enquiry science. Though the pre-service teachers may have been familiar with these approaches, their limited teaching experience prior to the project may not have been characterised by adherence to these guiding tenets. While all the class teachers were familiar with the learning principles, framing their science planning around the principles, using the five-part lesson format and integrating the talk strategies focused their planning and teaching, which was designed to give an impetus to their teaching of science.

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9.4.1 Participants Class teachers in schools within a reasonable proximity to the college were invited to participate. One aspect of the study focused on the level of interaction that typified the relationship between class teachers and student teachers, while the other focussed on their final teaching practice. That strand of the study sought to compare the interaction which characterised the relationship on teaching practice and the relationship developed on coteaching. To ensure that the comparison would be recent and with students of the same cohort, only teachers who acted as cooperating teachers in the months prior to the study were invited to participate. The proximity of the schools to the college was another factor. The project involved weekly visits to the schools by the students, which they had to accommodate within their lecture schedule; therefore, it was important that the participating schools were not located too far from the college. These two criteria limited the selection of teachers to those who had a student in their class on the most recent formal college teaching practice and those who were based in schools in reasonable proximity to the college. Of the 13 teachers identified as meeting these criteria, nine chose to participate. The teachers voluntarily participated, while for the pre-service teachers, participation in coteaching was a key component of their final-year elective module in primary science. At this point they had completed all their teaching practice modules and were in the final semester of their programme. The reciprocal element of this project sought to ensure that both coteachers benefited from this as a learning process, thus implying that each contributed to the other’s learning. Recognising that ‘the processes of learning to teach are highly complex and place heavy demands of a cognitive, affective and performance nature, upon the student teacher’ (Calderhead and Shorrock 1997, p. 18), selecting final-year students who had completed all of their teaching practice modules (totalling 13 weeks) ensured that these pre-service teachers were, in the context of this study, not entirely novice teachers and would be competent classroom performers, capable of interpreting classroom situations, pupils’ and teachers’ actions and capable of building on their repertoire of teaching skills. Data collection was by means of interviews with participants, at the beginning, during and at the end of the process. These semi-structured interviews allowed the researcher the latitude to pursue significant responses (Bryman 2004) and initially framed the context of the study for the participants. The initial interview addressed participants’ motivation to become involved, their experiences of teaching science and their expectations of coteaching and their experiences of similar shared teaching initiatives. These interviews and classroom visits assisted the researcher to create coteaching partnerships which matched coteachers according to their experiences and interests in science teaching, the class level they taught and their general dispositions. Three of the coteachers were male, two were class teachers and one was preservice teacher. The coteachers were based in six different class levels, ranging from Senior Infants (aged 6) to Sixth Class (aged 12). The schools were both mixed and single-sex, with three schools within the designated disadvantaged band. In addition to participating in interviews, participants jointly and separately wrote evaluative reflections on the teaching experience, initially in response to

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set questions and later in vignette format. The researcher also observed each coteaching partnership in operation to witness the process and observe the emerging coteaching dynamic. As this chapter focuses on the student experience, the data presented here are drawn exclusively from their written accounts of the process. To begin the process, coteachers attended a daylong seminar facilitated by the researcher at which the approach to coteaching was contextualised, the partnerships were created and the Five Part Lesson approach to science investigations was introduced (to the teachers). Exercises in creating shared understandings of coteaching, expressing motivations and expectations were undertaken to ensure that the participants created a shared and realistic understanding of the process. Models of coteaching and how it facilitates negotiation of roles and outcomes were presented and discussed (Friend and Cook 2003; Thousand et al. 2006; Murphy et al. 2004). The centrality of the learning principles and the integration of talk learning strategies were emphasised. At the seminar coteachers became familiar with the lesson planning and evaluation templates and began the process of selecting themes for the weeks ahead. Each partnership made arrangements for communication and scheduled preliminary observation visits and planned coteaching dates. For each teaching session a planning template was jointly completed. Key in this planning template was the delineation of teaching roles to be assumed by each partner in the lesson, highlighting that roles in coteaching can be negotiated and flexible. Planning these roles allowed each teacher identify his/her key strengths and incorporated the opportunity for each to take secondary or observatory roles at particular stages in the lesson. This model also promoted maximum participation by both coteachers, though they were at liberty to allocate the roles and divide participation as they saw fit. Deliberate emphasis was placed on coplanning and joint evaluation of lessons to ensure that the coteaching experience would facilitate all teachers’ learning. Research has found that student teachers have limited expectations of their cooperating teachers and experience rushed and limited evaluative conversations with them (Borko and Mayfield 1995). By incorporating planning and evaluation sessions into the experience it was hoped to avoid such an outcome. That the participants had a deliberate opt-in to this project in comparison to perfunctory (though generally well-meaning) accommodation of standard student placements also provided motivation and a sense of ownership of the process. At the end of each teaching session two evaluation sheets were completed, one jointly and one individually. The joint evaluations provided opportunities to reflect on practice ‘through others’ eyes’ (Loughran 2002, p. 33) and attempted to foster ‘authentic dialogue’ on the teaching just experienced by both coteachers. The shared responsibility for planning, teaching and evaluating the lessons ensured that through ‘collaborative networks’ (Angelides et al. 2007) the participants created communities of practice (Wenger 1998) defined by their common objectives and experiences. The structure of the Five Part Lesson allowed for the review of each part of the lesson and addressed the role of each coteacher. This format, in enabling the coteachers identify immediate concerns and possible changes, exemplifies coteaching as ‘learning in praxis’ (Roth 2001) providing specific learning and reflective opportunities to teachers at all levels of the experience spectrum.

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In addition to the joint evaluations the student teachers also addressed a number of reflective questions individually. These were developed to facilitate students’ ongoing reflection and to focus on coteaching as a learning to teach experience. Students were asked to reflect on classroom management strategies, science teaching strategies, what they enjoyed about the session, what advice they sought from their coteacher and what they felt they learned from their coteacher. The students wrote accounts of their experience on a weekly basis. Initially these took the form of response to set questions and prompts, designed by the researcher to focus their attention on particular aspects of their experience. To avoid this format becoming repetitive and narrative-bound, and in recognition of their critical reflective capacities, from the third week the concept of writing vignettes was introduced as an alternative. Similar to diaries in that they are ‘partial, and reflect the interests and perspectives of their authors’ (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995, p. 165), the vignettes empowered the students as action researchers to highlight their important issues. The approach taken allowed the participants to provide a brief overview of the lesson and then focus on one aspect, a critical incident (Tripp 1993), in which they invested particular relevance and meaning or significance (Angelides 2001). Recognising benefit of scaffolding the reflective process and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the project’s focus on teaching science informed by the learning principles of the curriculum, namely emphasising pupils’ collaborative learning, active learning and fostering dialogue, it was suggested that these principles, the five-part lesson and the development of the science process skills, learning through dialogue strategies and their experiences with their coteacher would stimulate relevant and meaningful reflection. Adopting vignettes as a means of highlighting key learning had the benefit of accommodating what each individual identified as significant without tying them into responding to prompts which may not have targeted the most noteworthy aspect of their experience. As a flexible yet appropriate tool, the vignette approach encouraged reflection on practice and enabled the creation of situational knowledge by the learners themselves as advocated by Freudenthal (1978). Students wrote informed and insightful vignettes, illustrating the necessity, and value, of incorporating reflective writing as part of each teaching practice to enable them become thoughtful and conscientious practitioners (Pultorak 1996). Both coteachers completed a summative final evaluation of the process which sought to highlight the benefits of working with another teacher as a learning-to-teach process.

9.5 Findings and Discussion 9.5.1 Students’ Motivations Prior to involving themselves in this research project, each participant had to be enabled to make an informed judgement about the purpose and structure of their participation and the demands it required of them (Cohen et al. 2000). Coteaching was presented as an initiative between pre-service and in-service teachers which

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was premised on collaborative planning, teaching and evaluating, both were learners and both were teachers. When asked about their motivation to become involved, it is not surprising that the opportunity to collaborate and to work with an experienced teacher featured in most responses. Each element in the process, the collaborative planning, the coteaching and the joint evaluation of lessons attracted the students. Graham, in his final evaluation sums up several motivating factors. My main motivation for involvement in the coteaching process was the opportunity to involve myself in the shared delivery of science lessons. Unlike science lessons during the teaching practice modules, the coteaching model offered opportunity for broader choice, more extensive preparation since it was a stand-alone subject and better opportunity for discussion and reflection. The coteaching model also provided an opportunity for sharing methodologies and ideas with a more experienced teacher.

Significant for Graham was the freedom to choose what topics to teach and to prepare in depth. In comparison to previous teaching practices, this was an opportunity to become a subject specialist. This motivated Graham not solely because he could decide what lessons to teach, but focusing on science ‘would enhance the teaching and learning process and promote valuable discussion and reflection’. The focus on science was welcomed by Rose, but for a different reason. Previous experience teaching was her motivation as she had the impression that ‘my teaching of science was weak in my past teaching practices’. She felt that teaching in this context would help her, as: ‘[it] allows me to ask questions that I may have been too scared or nervous to ask my supervisor during other teaching practices’. Clearly the absence of supervision and the attendant stress it brings was appreciated by students, had a positive motivating effect and opened channels of learning without diminishing their commitment or endeavour. A third element in the students’ motivation was their desire to promote a positive experience of science. I think that, if sufficient interest can be generated at primary level, by exposure to and involvement in a variety of suitable investigations, it would translate positively in second level participation. By selecting a number of topics carefully, I hoped to give the pupils a taste of the excitement and value of science. (Graham)

As this excerpt from Ciara’s vignette on her sixth lesson indicates, this enjoyment was achieved and was a source of satisfaction for her. Without a doubt, the children’s enthusiasm was evident. … This enthusiasm is great to see as it enables me to see that the children are interested in science, which will hopefully extend to the world all around them and help them realize that science is for everybody not just scientists in laboratories.

9.5.2 Focus on Language An advantage of confining this project to science teaching was the opportunity it gave the coteachers to prepare and reflect on this one area in depth. The key themes which underpinned the teaching also focussed the teaching and provided obvious

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structure for the vignettes, which often combined a number of themes. Here for example, Graham writes about the role of language in the science lesson and considers the tension between oral language development as an end in itself and as a learning in science tool. Commenting on the use of a short story in the engage stage of his lesson on levers and fulcrums, he concludes: While discussion of the text led to some further interesting experiences of the children, more advantage accrued to oral language development rather than conceptual or scientific knowledge. The children were ‘active agents’ in the oral language development rather than their science development.

The value of engaging in writing a focused vignette becomes apparent as he contributes a solution to this imbalance. I suggest that short factual summaries of scientific concepts could be used post five part lesson, possibly as a stimulant for oral language lessons. This lesson, perhaps, could take place a few days after a lesson where children were ‘active agents’ in their learning of science. A distinct lesson could serve to reinforce scientific knowledge while developing literacy and oral language skills. To continually use a literacy/story basis during the hour per week allotted to science in the curriculum, I believe, would seriously retard learning and implementation of the process skills.

At the end of the 10 weeks, Graham was very pleased with the use of language in the science lessons. The most rewarding part of the process was noting the children’s ability to justify their thinking. Even if their thinking was not scientifically accurate, the use of language, deeper thought level and confidence to propose their observations improved. The artificiality of the oral language lesson did not prevail.

He had noted earlier: While circulating I noticed from the groups a considerable amount of talk. While the children were experimenting and recording their findings I noticed how group members were giving various rationales for further enquiry. It was interesting to hear the language of persuasion as group members encouraged ideas for enquiry.

The facility of working with another teacher allowed Graham the opportunity to monitor and observe children’s activity and make real the links between theory and practice. This talk (pupils’ talk) echoed a reading from earlier in the semester where it was suggested that ‘talk helps children to construct their understanding of science’ and also Douglas Barnes idea that ‘the readiest way of making an understanding is often through talk, because the flexibility of speech makes it easy for us to try out new ways of arranging what we know’. Furthering Douglas Barnes point I would suggest that speech makes it easy for us or at least helps us to articulate what we would like to know and what procedures we must engage with to further our knowledge and satisfy our enquiry.

The question that arises from these excerpts from Graham is the extent to which coteaching facilitated these insights. It may well be the case that sustained reflection on the teaching of a specific curriculum subject adhering to key approaches would lead to similar reflections. It is not clear from his writing whether he discussed the language issue with his coteacher or the extent to which coteaching impacted on his experience.

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9.5.3 The Five-Part Lesson The five-part lesson structure was chosen not only as it prioritises inquiry in science lessons, moving from lower order to higher order thinking skills and allows discreet time for the development of the process skills, it also facilitates the interchange between the coteachers. In the planning template the coteachers elaborated on each stage of the lesson and indicated who took responsibility for each section. A number of models of the distribution of involvement and responsibility were outlined and discussed at the seminar. This was considered important as this sharing of responsibility – for planning, teaching and evaluating – was a new way of working for both coteachers. While there was inevitable authority for the class teacher – borne of familiarity with the pupils, experience and location of the teaching – this was duly recognised and respected by the both. It was addressed as an issue which could easily lead to the assumption of novice and master roles unless the partnership was created and sustained by a commitment to promote joint responsibility and coteaching was seen as learning for both. Most followed a linear allocation of roles though some considered ‘the share-out of the delivery could be based on a skills audit rather than an equitable distribution’. It emerged that the coteachers developed sufficient cueing and flexibility to recognise opportunities where either teacher would interject with an elaboration or clarification during their partner’s part of the lesson. Though, for example, Helen and her coteacher planned clear roles, ‘[W]hen we taught the lessons, sometimes our roles overlapped where one teacher offered suggestions and asked questions while the other teacher was teaching.’ This interjection, welcomed and deployed by both teachers reflected for students the value of having two teachers attentive to the pupils’ learning and, according to Helen, ‘contributed to its (the lesson’s) success on most occasions’. Laura saw the potential offered by the five-part lesson structure to integrate the learning tenets of activity and dialogue. I felt that having 5 stages to the lesson is effective as it gave ample time or a mixture of discussion and explanation, prediction and actual investigative, hands-on work by the children. This in turns gives the children a better chance to get the most benefit from the lesson and to broaden their knowledge about the topic being explored as much as possible and be involved in interactive learning.

However, the five-part lesson structure and the presence of two teachers did not always work to the pupils’ advantage. In one of her lessons Sharon considered the format and two teachers to be a hindrance. Overall I feel this lesson left a lot to be desired, and it was not from our lack of trying or enthusiasm. I generally feel that because there were two of us trying to teach the lesson we were so concerned with our different roles that the role of the children was almost forgotten. In the same way that we were caught up in what and we were doing individually and when we were doing it, somewhere along the way the information and scientific knowledge we had wanted to pass on to the pupils was lost. Because there were two of us, I feel our strength in numbers diluted the importance of the teaching and the lesson suffered.

Clearly disappointed with the lesson outcome, Sharon identifies a weakness of coteaching the five-part lesson. Each section becomes a separate unit rather than a constituent part. Teachers’ eagerness to fulfil their respective roles detracts

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from the unity of purpose necessary to enable the pupils make connections. The challenge is in ensuring that the planning process recognises the contribution of each component rather than its disparate potential. In this vignette Sharon also underlines the importance of clear communication between the coteachers and facilitating the time for reflective and evaluative communication. The necessity of planning each section of the lesson thoroughly and appropriate pacing of the lesson to cover all aspects of it concerned Helen after her first lesson. I didn’t like the conclusion of the lesson as I felt we ended too quickly and didn’t have enough time to question the children to their understanding of the results. This would have contributed to our assessment of the lesson. It was unclear about what each child had actually understood by doing the experiment. For future experiments, the conclusion is a vital element that we need to include and develop efficiently as it aids understanding and our assessment of learning.

Just as Sharon was able to identify lack of clarity in children’s learning as a consequence of the over-elaboration of each stage of the lesson, Helen’s reflection also illustrates a concern for the consequence of the perceived inadequacy in the lesson. This issue of maximising pupils’ learning opportunities for the pupils also emerges during Ciara’s joint reflection with her class teacher. With regards the consolidation of the lesson after the investigation stage, while I did what we had planned, namely, revision and reinforcement of what they had learnt through the use of questions and a written exercise, and drawing a labeled diagram, both Jessica and I agreed during our evaluation of the lesson that a more innovative approach might have been more beneficial, as a change for the children.

These excerpts illustrate pre-service teachers’ moving beyond a concern for themselves and their performance but concern for the children’s learning. There is evidence here of transcending concerns of classroom management and Furlong and Maynard’s stage of ‘personal survival’ (1995) and embracing a critical awareness of challenges and a capacity for critical reflection. In Ciara’s case, the joint evaluation encourages consideration of ‘innovation’, perhaps an approach she would not have considered on her own. Also illustrated here is the participants’ honesty regarding the value of coteaching the five-part lesson; for example, when Helen and Sharon felt it detracted from pupils’ learning, their experience to date enabled them realise that and be frank in their assessment.

9.5.4 Experiencing Collaboration Prior to coteaching, the student coteachers experienced partnered teaching practice, they taught with another student but divided the curriculum between them. Coteaching allowed them to teach with another teacher, but for the first time allowed them work collaboratively with the class teacher. As Graham points out this is new territory, particularly for the class teacher: The current teaching practice model appears to have no role for the class teacher. The class is ‘handed over’ and the class teacher adopts the role of observer. However, he/she has no formal role in advice, mentoring or feed-back to adjudicating authorities. Total withdrawal from duties, especially for the 5-week stint is very long and totally unrewarding for the teacher.

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Most mentioned the issue of collaboration with a class teacher as a motivating factor. Previously they had experienced a partnered teaching practice but this did not involve collaboration, as Jean puts it – Even though we have been on teaching practice with partners we never got involved with any of their lessons. The culture of benign cooperation limits students’ interaction to issues of timetabling, reward strategies and sharing resources, being on a partnered teaching practice was a curiously singular experience. Coteaching offered more substantial cooperation summed up by Laura as working with a teacher rather than in her case getting advice. Co-teaching is different from teaching practice in that in teaching practice the teacher just gives you advice whereas in co-teaching you get to see first hand how a qualified experienced teacher teaches a lesson, while working with them.

While this coteaching project enabled student teachers exploit opportunities to teach with experienced teachers, it was also needed to be a learning experience for the teachers. While there is an inevitable authority divide between the coteachers, perhaps in getting ‘to see at first hand how a qualified experienced teacher teaches a lesson’ Laura invests too much expectation in Munby and Russell’s ‘authority of experience’ (1994, p. 92). Being realistic about the contribution of both coteachers is an important step in keeping the avenues of learning open for both and not further exacerbating the partnership’s imbalance of authority. Sharon describes the involvement of the class teacher as a ‘safety net’, one which can be called upon at the moment of need. If, for example, there was a classroom management problem or if I didn’t know the answer to a question I knew I could rely on Alison as the class teacher to control the undesired situation or help me find the answer to the question. This is sense of having a safety net and support system in operation is something that we rarely experience on teaching practice as we are being supervised and observed and there is little opportunity for our teaching practice partners and even the host teacher to engage in the lessons.

The sense of teaching as a lone pursuit, teaching practice as a sink or swim situation is implied here, and clearly refuted as undesirable. Jean also refers to this support as the biggest benefit of ‘coteaching’. The biggest benefit to co-teaching is having the teacher in the classroom as another support to you. I felt very at ease when teaching and not under pressure as I have done on previous occasions. I realise that the setting is quite different from teaching practice but I think it was the fact that I had another teacher in the classroom working on teaching the same lesson as myself that made me feel this way. Having two pairs of hands and eyes in the classroom is a real difference and also gives the pupils a lot more teacher time.

Ciara illustrates the benefit of this ‘extra pair of hands’ in ensuring that all the pupils remained cognitively as well as physically on-task. I found that while circling the room and observing different pairs/groups in the process of investigating conductors and insulators, certain groups/pairs needed constant questioning and reinforcement of what they were doing to ensure that they knew why they were carrying out investigation, and not just doing it for the sake of doing it or because the teacher said to.

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Writing about their lesson on melting, Laura identified her coteacher’s response to pupils’ questions as a strength which she needed to develop. She recognised her need to become more ‘analytical and comtemplative’ but was not daunted by this. There is a sense of optimism in her vignette borne of the confidence developed from observing her coteacher. Even though, I was not sure how to answer some of the children’s questions, listening to my co-teacher’s explanations have helped me. … This learning would not be seen as much during teaching practice because it’s through observing and listening yourself that you learn the most, in other words observing practical application. Next time I need to be more analytical and more contemplative when giving answers. But perhaps with time and more experience this will become easier.

Questioning, attending to pupils’ needs and classroom management were identified in the vignettes as examples of how the student teachers benefitted from working with the coteacher. Here they were witnessing the ‘professional reasoning’ (Kellaghan 2004, p. 23) of their experienced coteacher. This was further elaborated upon in the joint evaluations at the end of each session. Ciara gives an example of how she found this form of assisted reflection worthwhile: After the lesson, I found that the evaluation of the lesson with my co-teacher Susan was very informative, as it pinpointed to us that I should have given a demonstration of how to make the torch after the steps in making the torches had been thoroughly planned and devised with the class. This should have been done rather than leaving the class to their own devices totally in constructing the torches, as visual aid would have helped their comprehension of what had to be done rather than just verbal explanation. After attempting to make certain parts of the torches certain groups needed a bit more help and scaffolding. This wouldn’t have undermined the core principle of discovery based learning.

The value of assisted reflection is evident here, and perhaps a clear indication of how coteaching can exploit Roth and Tobin’s being in the classroom. Being with or observing the teacher does not automatically yield benefits for the teacher learner. Familiarity with the teachers work is helpful and necessary but ‘it is not a direct line to insight’ (Britzman 2003, p. 4). Engaging in collaborative reflection is one way of developing this insight. However, the opportunity to engage in this reflection did not always present itself, or was often hastily done. I found it difficult to find time with the class teacher to sit down and discuss the various parts of the lesson and evaluate the lesson. I found that we rushed each evaluation as the class were still in the room with us. I feel that if we had more time to evaluate we would have been able to give an in-depth critique to one another on our performances. Rose

All of the participants worked outside of school time to plan and evaluate sessions but lack of time for both these aspects was a constant theme in the project evaluation. Ensuring that reflection time is built into the process is difficult, particularly as in this project the teaching sessions were built around the students’ lecture schedules. However, without it planning and teaching become routine stand-alone non-cyclical events, the value of which goes unchecked and coteaching as a learning experience is undermined.

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The researcher observation was designed to view the coteaching dynamic in operation and was not assessment related in the manner which the students normally experienced supervision. For Laura this made the teaching: a more realistic classroom situation than TP. It is more natural and not as formal as TP, therefore I feel that it has helped me to gain more experience of the ‘real world’ of teaching.

Ciara enjoyed coteaching in comparison to being ‘too stressed and too caught up in work and thinking about my next supervision visit to enjoy teaching practice’. Removing supervision encouraged flexibility for Ciara, who welcomes the spontaneity facilitated by coteaching. I felt no pressure to stick exactly to the lesson plan and I felt the same during the past few weeks of co-teaching with my co-teacher Jessica. This is on the contrary to teaching practice, where deviations from the planned lesson note are not always welcomed by the supervisor.

This mention of deviation from lesson notes while on teaching practice does raise the issue of student teachers as responsive risk takers. Ciara’s comments illustrate the concern to balance response (to pupils) with a supervisor’s perceived reaction. This is a feature of highly regulated student teaching – emphasis on lesson delivery minimising responsive interactions with pupils and the avoidance of risky pedagogic interactions (Edwards 1998). The absence of concern about supervision allowed Rose develop a relationship of trust and openness. [T]his experience allows me to ask questions that I may have been too scared or nervous to ask my supervisor during other teaching practices.

9.6 Concerns Expressed Some of the benefits accruing to the students are outlined above. However, they also highlighted some drawbacks. All coteachers were concerned about the time commitment required to make it effective. Finding time for planning and evaluating posed difficulties. Coteachers arranged to meet and e-mailed to conduct their planning and evaluations. School and college timetables also restricted their opportunities to meet. Despite these difficulties Jean pointed out the lessons: … showed me the importance of planning co-operatively and how this can be achieved even though it is difficult. This will no doubt prove useful in the coming years when working as part of a school team.

Coteaching is useful as an introduction to sharing responsibility for planning which is standard in most schools. However, as this project found out, ensuring that coteachers on different sites can liaise effectively is a difficult task. Release days halfway through the process devoted to planning or running all the coteaching in a block week were suggested by the students as alternatives. Prior to the coteaching getting underway, the student coteachers spent part of a day in their coteacher’s class familiarising themselves with the classroom environment and the routines established

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by the class teacher and were introduced to the pupils. Further, opportunities to build up a rapport with the class and develop prior knowledge of the pupils are two additional aspects of the process to be addressed.

9.7 Research Challenges Teacher education is already a crowded and contested arena. Where programme flexibility exists to pilot alternative approaches to students’ learning, either on experiential or theoretical components, the incorporation of such initiatives, if it is an objective, is not easily achieved. Such research initiatives need to find their value in the educational exchange in the currency of what works. The values in this exchange may not reflect the motivations of teacher education researchers, a concern echoed by Imig and Imig (2006) who lament that ‘neoconservatives or essentialists have captured the policy discourse and insist on a single measure to judge both student success and teacher performance – the ability to show measurable gains on tests of student achievement’ (p. 175). In this context, to make a sustained impact on teacher education, coteaching needs to be theoretically sound and able to produce robust research findings and be validated by exposure to comprehensive measures of teacher effectiveness. On a small scale, coteaching provides the opportunity for pre-service teachers to engage in classroom-based action research and contribute to the gradual reconceptualisation of teacher education. Coteaching draws teachers and pre-service teachers into aspects of self-study, and like all such initiatives promoting understanding and improvement of practice being mindful of the ‘ongoing need for such work to demonstrate a scholarship central to research more generally’ (Loughran 2007, p. 18) is pertinent. In this regard the concern expressed by Anfara et al. (2002) regarding the privatisation of data collection and analysis in qualitative research is relevant. Echoing calls to make ‘data and explanatory schemes as public and replicable as possible’ (Denzin 1978, p. 7) they are concerned with the integrity of qualitative research – this is pertinent to coteaching studies which rely primarily on case-study as a form of inquiry.

9.8 Conclusion This project allowed the science teaching needs of pre-service and in-service teachers to be addressed in a specific and bound context and exemplified that there is merit in further investigating what can be achieved in terms of teacher learning if coteaching becomes a coordinated and structured element of a teacher education programme. A subject- and methodology-specific approach addresses the ‘disjointed, fragmented and confusing’ nature of teacher education programmes (Bullough and Gitlin 2001, p. 1) in which little connection is made between curriculum courses and teaching practice. Coteaching bridges the gap between monitored teaching

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practice and daily classroom experience with the class teacher at hand as mentor to explain, guide and direct. It provides meaningful and focused field experience to counter their experience of disconnected coursework and inadequate field experience (Wideen et al. 1998). While Irish teachers are cooperative and generous in their guidance of student teachers, ‘there is significant scope for improving the linkages between schools and education departments in the interests of improved teacher education in Ireland’ (Coolahan 2001, p. 354). Extending collaborations to involve pre-service teachers and class teachers would promote another dimension in this dialogue. Teaching practice is an obvious starting point for collaboration between pre-service and in-service teachers and coteaching networks designed to address particular curricular or socio-curricular issues make this collaboration feasible. It can be tailored to involve class teachers in initial teacher education in a manner which echoes recent calls for the ‘sharing expertise, experience and insights’ of class teachers within teacher education programmes in Ireland (DES 2006b). Creating direct classroom collaboration as appropriate to the participants’ needs, inducts pre-service teachers into ‘networked professionalism’ (Furlong 2005, p. 120) thereby constituting communities of teacher learning whose discourse informs a shared vision for teaching and teacher education. Coteaching capitalises on the strengths of both teachers, positions both as learners and in this project offers an enhanced science learning experience for pupils and teachers. Howey considered that the ‘curriculum in teacher education is ultimately a very personal, idiosyncratic one’ (Howey 1995, p. 30). That teacher educators have the flexibility to initiate coteaching models within their programmes indicates that for better or worse this may still be the case. In the same piece Howey concluded that: [b]old, coordinated action is largely lacking in teacher preparation and there is little in the way of policy, funding patterns, or changes in institutional culture to suggest that we will soon move beyond the creative, and not-so-creative, initiatives of individuals and small groups as the primary means of improving teacher preparation. (Howey 1995, p. 32)

That coteaching is one of these creative initiatives working within a slow-to-change monolith should not detract from its value and merit. Change need not occur as a large-scale reforming school collaboration of ‘unfocussed grandiosity’ (Proefriedt 1994, p. 135); rather as intervention negotiated by both teachers and teacher educators, focused on a specific issue. Enabling cooperating teachers find their voice as teacher educators (Borko and Mayfield 1995, p. 517) can be achieved through coteaching, though it has to be carefully structured to avoid undermining or diminishing the role of college base teacher educators. The coteaching classroom should be construed as a more effective rather than alternative site for teachers’ learning. Students clearly value the opportunity to collaborate with experienced teachers and these final-year students were sufficiently competent to interpret the class teachers’ actions and also to contribute to them. There is evidence of both expertise and goodwill on part of teachers and receptiveness from students to merit examination of how and to what extent such collaboration can be incorporated into formal

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teaching practice structures. Due to time constraints it emerged that most collaboration focused on planning, with time restricting the experience of collaborative review of lessons, but this nonetheless was seen as valuable for the students. There are levels of collaboration which can be flexibly incorporated into a teaching practice module to reflect and accommodate where the students are on the learning-to-teach spectrum. Planning and reflection can be constant reference points for assistance while classroom management, diversity of methodologies, attention to individual learners’ needs and assessment for learning could be included as students become more competent. Coteaching, in this case as a subject-specific collaboration, provides teachers with the opportunity to counter the increasing dominance of performativity discourse in primary education (Ball 2003) as the purpose and outcome of each lesson is publicly negotiated. This contributes to the ownership of the teaching process and as opposed to an agenda of delivery and deliverance Hamilton (2002) enables risk-taking, responsive teaching beneficial to all as teachers and learners.

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Chapter 10

Coteaching in the Penn STI: Evolution of Fluent Praxis Cristobal Carambo and Constance Blasie

10.1 Introduction The University of Pennsylvania Science Teacher Institute (Penn STI hereafter) is a science partnership between the university’s department of arts and sciences and school districts in southeastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. The primary goal of the program is the improvement of science education by providing graduate-level coursework to middle grades and high-school teachers in a university setting. Unique aspects of the program are the teaching collaborations between university faculty and high-school teachers that have developed as the program’s main instructional strategy. These collaborations were established in 2005 as a response to faculty concerns that traditional professor-centered lectures might not be an effective pedagogy for the diverse life experiences and educational biographies of the program’s participants. Collaborations with practicing high-school educators would provide university faculty with insights on the professional realities and learning needs of in-service teachers. It was hoped that the collaborating teachers would help develop relevant curricula and effective instructional strategies for the program’s diverse student population. In the ensuing years, teaching collaborations were established in eight of the program’s 20 courses. Although the relationships have provided for some degree of collaborative teaching, the majority resemble traditional teaching-assistant relationships that segregate each teacher into mutually exclusive roles. As a result, these collaborations have not developed practices indicating the presence of a coteaching relationship. Coteaching as defined in this chapter differs from traditional models of team teaching where pairs of teachers take responsibility for specific instructional tasks but remain philosophically and pedagogically isolated from each other. We theorize coteaching as a dynamic contemporaneous collaboration wherein multiple teachers coparticipate fully in all aspects of the enacted curriculum and take full responsibility for the learning of every student (Roth et al. 1999).

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This chapter will explore the collaboration between educators in the Penn STI Physics 590 Course as it has evolved practices indicative of exemplary coteaching praxis. We present a brief vignette from the August 6, 20081 physics class on Hooke’s Law as an introduction to the theoretical constructs that describe coteaching practice.

10.2 Lesson Context August 6, 2008 The vignette takes place at 40:45 min in the class. Phillip2 (the high-school teacher) is nearing the end of a demonstration of the laboratory setup for the upcoming laboratory on the determination of spring constants. He is teaching from the front of the room, while Robert (the faculty member) is to his right near the middle of the room, leaning against a board. At the start of the vignette, Paul (a student) makes a particularly cogent summary of the demonstration apparatus and how it will be used in the upcoming laboratory. Phillip responds with an emphatic “Bingo.” The student, however, has another question.

10.2.1 Event 1: Bingo Shared Focus Time: 40:48 Paul: Wait! Before we bingo, I have another question…I can’t bingo unless I really know what I’m talking about.

Ripples of laughter fill the room. Robert and Phillip share the laughter, but both remain focused on the student asking the question, for although the student seems to understand the laboratory demonstration, he does not fully grasp why all the steps are necessary. Their focus on the student demonstrates the shared responsibility each has for the learning environment. Paul continues speaking:

 The complete analysis of the August 6, 2008 class, and other representative classes are found later in this chapter. 2  Pseudonyms are used throughout the text. 1

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10.2.2 Event 2: A Deeper Question Time: 41:18 Paul: Why do we have to calculate the spring constant in this manner? Why can’t we just measure it directly? Time: 41:20 Phillip: You have to measure :“k” because, we don’t know it…

Phillip begins to review the rationale of the laboratory procedure, referencing the laboratory setup as he begins his explanation. Although Phillip has started to answer the student, Robert maintains a fixed gaze on Paul’s reactions to the explanation. Robert begins to shake his head slightly as he senses that the student’s question demands a more conceptual perspective. He listens for a few more seconds, then interrupts Phillip by raising his hands and moving slightly away from the wall toward the student.

Time: 41:25 Robert: He’s asking a deeper question.

Phillip stops speaking, and looks briefly at Robert. He folds his arms ceding the focus of the discussion to Robert and facilitating a seamless entrance into the teaching space. Robert moves forward toward the front of the teaching space.

10.2.3 Event 3: A Seamless Transfer of Focus Robert proceeds into the teaching space, reaching for chalk as he approaches the blackboard. As he reaches the board, Phillip lowers his head ceding the physical space of the front of the room and allowing for Robert to become frontal. Robert accesses the front board and begins to write new equations (new learning resources) to support his explanation. As he does so, Phillip turns left and leaves the center area thus completing the switch in teacher focus. Robert’s decision to enter the teaching space provides further evidence of coresponsibility for student learning. The rapport that exists between the teachers is evidenced by Phillip’s gestures that communicate his understanding of Robert’s intention to become frontal and his willingness to cede the teaching space. As Robert enters the teaching space in Event 3, he creates new learning resources,

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which complement Phillips work and re-structure the learning environment, thus enhancing the collective agency of everyone in the classroom.

10.2.4 Event 4: Coparticipation and Appropriating Shared Resources Phillip has ceded the space but he remains in close physical proximity to Robert as he writes the conceptual rationale for the laboratory procedure. Robert accesses the equations Phillip has already written and uses them as a common resource in his explanation. As Robert teaches, he refers to the equations Phillip has already written on the board. In so doing, he provides a cue for Phillip’s re-entrance into the teaching space. Robert remains at the front with Phillip as they both answer student questions. It is a moment of exemplary coteaching, as both teachers are engaged in a dynamic contemporaneous collaboration.

The interchange with Paul highlights the vital role of a second teacher who is free to reflect on the unfolding curriculum and gage student learning in real time. This cannot occur unless each teacher is cognizant of all events in the classroom and is able to seamlessly respond to all student needs. Fluent coteaching facilitates this because it fosters a hybrid praxis that helps coteachers anticipate each other’s needs and restructure the learning environment with timely, appropriate actions that enhance the agency of all participants. Robert’s ability to sense the learning needs of an individual

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student and to fluidly respond in real time is the central pedagogical benefit of fluent coteaching. He notes this as an important component of his work with Phillip: Co-teaching with Phillip greatly expands what we can do since it makes it possible for me to assume a more observant role – i.e. see how students are actually learning as individuals. It’s next to impossible to do this while teaching, as you cannot view each student unless they are working directly on an assignment. Being able to gauge body language in real time as students see a demonstration or even just someone else at the blackboard has given me a lot of insight into how students from different populations learn. (Interview data: 11.15.08)

The events in this brief vignette are presented as examples of exemplary coteaching because they evidence a shared responsibility for student learning and highlight social practices that enable each teacher to coparticipate fully in the enacted curriculum. The interactions and social practices (bold text) outlined throughout the analysis are not isolated occurrences; on the contrary, they are representative of an exemplary collaboration that has altered the curricular focus and instructional strategies of this course and fostered an exemplary coteaching relationship. The analysis of classes taught during the summer 2008 session provides evidence of fluent coteaching praxis. Internal evaluation data (RTOP [Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol]3 observations, evaluator’s technical reports, and end of year course evaluations) evidence a marked shift from traditional quantitative-problem-based explanations of phenomena to a more conceptual investigation of physics subject matter. Instructional strategies also show a marked emphasis on student-centered small group inquiry projects and a significantly smaller amount of teacher-centered lecture. Recent research has shown that exemplary collaborations develop over extended periods of time as educators “work closely at the elbows of one another” and experience the implicit understandings that inform each other’s praxis (Roth and Tobin 2002). The alignment of practices and beliefs occurs fluidly when no substantive contradictions preclude collegiality and cooperation between coteachers. In these circumstances, the evolution of fluent coteaching occurs as a function of time spent teaching together as teachers become familiar with each other’s praxis (Roth et al. 2005). We propose that the 3-year collaboration has facilitated dramatic changes in the course’s curricular focus and fostered a hybrid praxis informed by each teacher’s unique perspectives on physics education. This chapter seeks to document classroom and program events that have influenced the evolution of fluent coteaching collaboration in the Physics 590 Class of the Penn STI.

10.3 Overview We begin the chapter with an exploration of the Rationale of Coteaching in Penn STI program goals and provide evidence from the literature on science education reform that supports the program’s decision to initiate coteaching collaborations.

 Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol Instrument (Swada et al. 2002) used by program evaluators to assess classroom instruction in all STI courses.

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The Theoretical Perspectives that inform our model of coteaching suggest that not all collaborations develop practices indicative of fluent praxis. The constructs detailed in the introduction of this chapter serve to assess the quality of coparticipation and coresponsibility between coteachers. Teaching collaborations that do not develop such practices cannot evolve fluent coteaching praxis. Our analysis of the Physics 590 Course has shown evidence of social practices consistent with exemplary coteaching. We provide further analysis of the August 6, 2008 class in our exploration Coteaching in the MISEP Physics 590 as proof our claim. Representative classes from 2006 and 2007 summer sessions along with internal evaluation documents are included to provide a historical perspective to our narrative of this coteaching relationship. It is hoped that this writing will present other professional development programs with a model for the inclusion of the perspectives of practicing educators in their teaching of in-service teachers.

10.4 Rationale of Coteaching in the Penn STI The Penn STI offers a series of ten graduate-level courses in chemistry (the Master’s of Chemistry Education program: MCEP) and integrated science (Master’s of Integrated Science Education program: MISEP) to practicing educators in our partnership school districts. The primary goal of the program is: To improve the academic science content preparation of the current grade 5–12 science teacher workforce in the Philadelphia School District in particular and the mid-Atlantic region in general (Dai and Blasie 2005).

The improvement of science education does not however rely solely on a command of content knowledge. The improvement of science education also depends on the teacher’s use of a pedagogy that makes science accessible to diverse student populations in our nation’s schools (Adamson et al. 2003). This understanding is reflected in the second goal of the Penn STI. To improve the knowledge base of the current grade 5–12 science teacher workforce in using instructional strategies, practices, and materials consistent with a research-based approach to teaching and learning: Penn STI participants will demonstrate they have adopted a classroom model of research-based teaching and learning for their own school setting (Dai and Blasie 2005).

The national standards on science education suggest that the reform must entail substantive change in science education at all levels. NSES (1996) states that “implicit in this reform [effort] is an equally substantive change in professional development practices at all levels” (p. 56). The report specifies the following: If reform is to be accomplished, professional development must include experiences that engage prospective and practicing teachers in active learning that builds their knowledge, understanding, and ability (ibid.).

Providing such experiences is very difficult at large research institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania because the faculty and student populations are

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accustomed to didactic teacher-centered lecture as the principal instructional strategy (Seymour 2001). The National Research council has found that only a small percentage of research one institutions “provide opportunities for active learning or real-world problem solving for their students” (NRC 2003, p. 7). The council suggests that university faculty: be prepared to use a combination of inquiry-based, problem solving, and didactic forms of instruction under appropriate classroom circumstances that promote conceptual understanding and student’s ability to apply knowledge in new situations (p. 27).

As noted in the introduction, program faculty from the physics department (Robert was an early advocate) and the biology faculty approached program administrators and suggested collaborations with area high-school teachers as a way to complement their traditional pedagogical methods with research-based instructional strategies. The program administrator remembers that: We started the coteaching because the university faculty was not sure they knew how to teach the teachers in that first cohort. Two professors came to me with suggestions, and I accepted the idea of pairing them with non-faculty educators in their respective departments. Our hope was that the coteaching model would help promote pedagogy based on the research on best teaching practices, as that is one of the goals of the strategic plan we submitted to National Science Foundation in January of 2005. (Connie Blasie: Interview: 10.28.08)

The collaborations would help achieve the two main goals of the Penn STI by combining the content expertise of university faculty with the pedagogical content knowledge of practicing high-school teachers. The combined knowledge would help create the kinds of learning environments suggested by the national reform documents. In so doing, the coteaching collaborations would be the essential components of the program’s efforts to improve the quality of science education.

10.5 Theoretical Perspectives 10.5.1 Sociocultural Theory The coteaching model is framed by a sociocultural perspective, which views learning and teaching as social activity mediated through coparticipation with expert others in communities of practice (Lave 1996). Coteaching, originally theorized as a field wherein novice teachers could gain knowledgeability of competent praxis by working closely with experienced teachers, has evolved to become a viable collaborative model for educators with radically different life histories and differing levels of scientific and pedagogical expertise (Carambo and Stickney 2009). Coteaching is premised on the theory that it is through coexistence and coparticipation in the lived moments of the enacted curriculum (Being-with) that teachers can experience each other’s implicit understandings and forge a hybrid praxis

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informed by their unique pedagogical perspectives (Roth and Boyd 1999). Praxis is central to the conceptualization of coteaching because it is: the knowledge that is enacted, often without conscious awareness in accordance with a dynamic structure that unfolds as participants enact practices. (Tobin and Roth 2005, p. 313)

Coparticipation and coexistence are central to the development of fluent praxis because the salient understandings that emerge from the coteaching experience are not explicit representation of events discussed in after class conferences. They are rather, “an implicit form of knowledgeability” (Tobin and Roth 2006), which only reveals itself: when persons are acting in praxis, as it is only here that their participative thinking deals with the once-occurrent nature of every act. (p. vii)

Our interview data supports this as neither teacher states explicit conversations or events that have contributed to their exemplary praxis. When asked about their communication, Robert states: Neither of us places a premium on face time either so he’s pretty familiar with what I’m trying to do if I’m in front of the class and I’m familiar with which approach he is using. The understanding comes from seeing the frequency with which we use a particular method and in watching how each of us deals with/relates to/handles students one-on-one. (Robert: Interview data)

When asked, the same question Phillip states: Robert and I feel the same way about a lot of things because we’ve both been teaching physics for a long time. But also because coteaching lets each one of us see what the other person is presenting and what works is obvious to us. When something works we say “OK this is the way we are moving”, and we watch how well it works and we say “OK we probably want to do this again: this really went well…” (Phillip: Interview data).

10.6 Social Practices The practices used in the brief analysis of the vignette that opens this chapter are part of a larger set of constructs that are necessary components of fluent coteaching. These practices provide a framework for the examination of the quality of coparticipation and degree of fluency in the coteaching field. They are the means through which coteachers access, appropriate, and produce the resources that help structure the learning environment to enhance the collective agency of all participants. The following list (adapted from Roth and Tobin 2002) will serve to assess the degree of fluency in the coteaching collaborations of the Penn STI. • Creating and Using Space (Stepping forward/Stepping back) • Creating and Using Resources: (Providing needed material resources, appropriating resources, and sharing resources) • Anticipating unspoken needs (Restructuring the learning environment to enhance another’s agency before the need arises) • Seamlessness of interactions (Lack of territoriality; fluid entry/exit from teaching space)

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• Reciprocal coparticipation (Playing off one another: Overlapping talk) • Complementarity of Actions (Coordinated oral, spatial, or physical gestures; completing each other’s statements or completing unfinished actions) • Respect (Acknowledging contributions to the learning environment) • Rapport (Nonverbal connectivity and communication) Fluent coteaching praxis occurs when the enactment of these practices by collaborating teachers becomes so coordinated in real time that a “synergistic effect is created wherein the two coteachers effectively function as one teaching presence” (Roth and Tobin 2002). This is evident in the classroom where both teachers can simultaneously engage students in a dynamic contemporaneous activity.

10.7 Structure|Agency Dialectic The structure|agency dialectic (Sewell 1992) is a central construct of the coteaching collaboration as it provides the necessary cultural frameworks to articulate the activity of coteaching. The actions of individual teachers as they work together necessarily alter the structure of the learning environment. Structures can be defined as the resources (material, and human, as well as the physical and social spaces) that affect participants’ ability to engage in meaningful activity that promotes their personal goals (their agency). Structures also include the schema (social rules) that determine how actors can access the resources in any given field. Coteachers can greatly enhance the agency of others in the room by selflessly creating and sharing all needed resources in an anticipatory and/or timely manner. The actions of one coteacher can also truncate the agency of the other teacher by engaging in actions that impede the successful appropriation of needed resources by students or fellow coteachers (Tobin et al. 2003). Creating and providing needed resources in a timely manner becomes one of the central indicators of fluent coteaching as it is indicative of a high degree of coparticipation and coresponsibility for the learning of all participants in the field.

10.8 Data Sources Internal evaluators for the Penn STI collect a wide array of observation data on all program participants. These documents form the basis of the database used in the writing of this chapter. Program classes are regularly observed and videotaped by program evaluators. Classroom videotapes are analyzed using the RTOP (Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol) (Piburn and Sawada 2000) to determine the degree of reformed practice in STI courses. RTOP scores as well as videotape of relevant classes were used in the investigation of reformed teaching practice. Videotapes were also analyzed for evidence of social practices consistent with fluent coteaching. All courses are evaluated using traditional end-of-year student surveys. Evaluations contain a series of multiple choice scaled and open-ended questions.

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The responses along with written comments are summarized in technical reports for faculty and administrative staff. Pertinent comments from course evaluations are included so as to include the voice of students and program evaluators. Structured interviews were conducted with both coteachers to include their voices in this writing. One teacher supplied written responses to a set of questions, while the other chose to sit for an informal interview.

10.9 Coteaching in the MISEP Physics 590 To begin the analysis of this class, I invited Phillip to an interview regarding the events of the summer 2008 session. We began the discussion by viewing a tape of the August 6, 2008 class, which opens this chapter. As we watched the video, Phillip reflected on the quality of the current learning environment and how it differs from the first months of the collaboration in the summer of 2005. The teaching that’s going on in the class these days is probably closer to the way I teach physics. I had a lot of trouble during that first summer because I tend to be far more conceptual and he (Robert) was much more mathematically rigorous. But my ideas changed that summer because I got to see the value in what he was trying to do. I didn’t agree with what we were doing at the beginning, but I did at the end because I could really see that he had brought the students a tremendous distance. I told him that I thought we had done “a good thing” (Phillip; Interview data 10.15.08).

Phillip’s statement provides an important insight into the nature of the relationship between the two educators as it highlights an initial pedagogical difference, but more importantly expresses a genuine (and continuing) appreciation for Robert’s praxis. Although he believes that “one should lead with content” and that “students “should be involved” and “fiddle with stuff”, he also expresses an understanding of the need for a degree of teacher-centered lecture. To some extent you just have to have a teacher based lecture situation, because physics is a content-based course that builds on prior knowledge, but we also know you have to keep students engaged… so I really enjoy how Robert mixes student engagement with content presentation. I mean I really feel I’m in the classroom when I’m coteaching with him. I’m really learning a lot (Phillip; Interview data 10.15.08).

When asked how the collaboration has affected his teaching beliefs, Robert expresses a similar appreciation and valuation of the difference between them: I’ve become much more aware of the limitations of my own teaching style which is grounded in theoretical approaches to thinking about physics. The conceptual approach is greatly aided by having [Phillip’s] “practical” approach grounded in demonstrations (which I personally do not like to perform) and real-life applications and analogies. It is a great help to have someone thoroughly grounded in physics education best practices as we can exercise these approaches for various student populations (Robert: Interview 10:22.08)

He suggests that the collaboration is of such worth that: I can safely say that I could not give the MISE course without Phillip. Adult learners require far more interaction and a more varied approach to teaching styles than university undergraduates do. Phillip brings these to the classroom, whereas I’m simply not good at practical approaches and I have no natural showmanship – (Robert: Interview 10:22.08)

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It is important to note the value these educators express for each other’s pedagogy as it establishes the professional respect and collegial rapport that characterizes their collaboration. A mutual respect for the others is critical to the coteaching relationship as it allows each teacher to fully coparticipate in the unfolding curriculum and in so doing, genuinely experience the other’s praxis. Being fully immersed in the coteaching moment is important for the development of hybrid praxis because as Roth and Boyd (1999) has noted: Every instant that the Other asks an unexpected question, deals with a situation differently than he would have done, becomes an opportunity to embody new ways, for reflecting-in action on possible consequences, and reflecting on possible means for organizing lessons in a different way (Roth and Boyd 1999, p. 64).

Robert and Phillip’s comments suggest that their collaboration has provided them with the opportunity to experience the other’s praxis and in so doing critically reassess their own pedagogy. Comments by both teachers in the September 2005 faculty meeting suggest that the initial months of collaboration provided such opportunities to reassess their curricular approaches and introduce substantive changes to their pedagogical approach. Phillip recalls their sentiments of the first summer’s teaching. Minutes from the faculty meeting (Jacobs and Otieno 2005) document a mutual acceptance of the importance of a quantitative problem-solving approach, a continued (albeit less) focus on mastery of physics content and a commitment to structured collaborative group work on conceptual questions. What is salient in the events of this meeting is that both teachers approbated essential aspects of each other’s praxis that differed from their initial positions. Phillip stated the importance of a content “intensive” quantitative approach, and Robert initiated conceptual, collaborative group work. Their mutual acceptance of each other’s praxis initiated the curricular changes that have continued to this day, but more importantly established the mutual professional respect that has supported the evolution of their fluent coteaching praxis. The instructional strategies that were introduced into the summer 2006 courses improved the nature of student–teacher interaction and began the shift from teacher-centered to student-centered learning environment. The RTOP observations of the classes during the summer of 2006 reflect a change in all subsections of the protocol.

10.10 Faculty RTOP Observation Data: MISEP Physics 590 Year 2005 2006 2007 2008

LDI 10.5 14.3 11.5 16

Prop-K 15 17.3 16 18

Proc-K 11.5 15.0 14 17

Comm 12.5 15.2 16 17.5

STR 14.5 18.8 14 16.5

Total 63.4 80.7 71.5 85

Key: LDI = Lesson Design and Implementation; Prop-K = Propositional Knowledge; Proc-K = Procedural Knowledge; Comm = Communicative Interactions; STR = Student–Teacher Relationship.

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The improvement in all subsections of the instrument indicates an improvement in the overall quality of reformed instructional strategies. The increase in the scores of Lesson Design, Communicative Interactions, and Student–Teacher Interactions suggest a marked shift toward a student-centered process-oriented learning environment that promotes student inquiry and collaborative learning. Lesson Design describes the respect for student prior knowledge, and its importance in the direction of classroom discourse: the rise implies an increased respect for student contributions to the curriculum. Communicative Interactions relate to the level of control students have over classroom discourse, this change suggests that students talked more and controlled the classroom agenda to a greater degree. Student–Teacher Interactions reflect student’s level of activity in their own learning: an increase here suggests that students have more control and are more active in their own learning. The overall increase of 17 points on the 2006 observation is evidence of the marked shift toward conceptually based curriculum and student-centered instructional strategies (Mac Isaac and Falconer 2002). Although there is a slight decline in the scores for 2007, the decline does not suggest a serious shift away from reformed practices. The benefits of the approach are also reflected in written comments in the endof-year course evaluation. These comments provide a sense of the effect of the course modifications: The teaching style allowed me to figure it out on my own without giving me the answer. The instructors challenged us to demonstrate conceptual understanding on a daily basis. Concept questions were valuable. Problem sets with challenge questions stretched my brain. Very helpful at all times. Robert’s teaching style that involves asking challenging questions and facilitating discussions was most helpful to my learning.

The evaluators concluded their summary with the following recommendation: We strongly support open-ended and process oriented approach as more representative of the inquiry-oriented teaching that the program promotes. We encourage the instructors to continue working on this approach to their course. (STI Technical Report: Course Evaluation Summary, Summer 2006, and Jacobs 2006).

The changes instituted during the summer of 2006 have continued as stable components of the course, which has continued to focus on a conceptual understanding of a small set of “enduring understandings explored primarily through collaborative group work.” Robert comments on this continued modification of the course: For the MISE courses I have made substantial changes from the first incarnation of the course. We “cover” significantly less content and focus class time much more on interactive call-and-response, demonstrations, or laboratory work. These changes were done by mutual agreement near the beginning of each summer. The change to less content is a conscious decision made before the course starts and every year of Physics 590 has seen less content than the year before. (Robert Interview: 11.18. 09)

There are two distinct areas of planning that affect this class. One is the curricular focus that pertains to the amount of content the course covers, the other relates to instructional strategies. The amount of content is particularly important in a

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physics course because as Phillip has noted, “Physics is content intensive course.” However as Robert notes, the amount of content has decreased each year as the course has focused on a smaller set of “enduring understandings” that orient the conceptual focus of the coursework. When asked how planning occurs, both Robert and Phillip state that it occurs in a relatively informal nonstructured manner. Their understanding of the course’s changing direction is informed by their common understanding of physics education and “trust in each other’s knowledge of physics content.” Although Robert states that the decision to reduce the content is done by mutual agreement, the overall planning of the class has retained the original separation of roles. Robert is responsible for the “content,” grading structure, examinations, etc., and Phillip organizes all laboratories and demonstrations. Robert suggests that the separation is efficient because they are fairly comfortable with each other’s area of expertise and they never disagree about anything. The changes introduced into the learning environment, though promising, did not affect the nature of the teaching collaboration. Classroom interactions, though collegial and respectful, remained separate during the summer of 2006. The separation of roles that defined the differential planning responsibilities was reproduced in the classroom. Analysis of the interactions during a July 25, 2006 class finds no evidence of the relevant constructs used to define coteaching praxis. A brief vignette of the class on forces follows:

10.11 Lesson Context: July 25, 2006 Robert teaches the class alone for the first 34 min of the class, at which time Phillip takes over for a brief demonstration on the equipment for the next day’s laboratory. During an hour and 22 min of the class, the two coteachers never cohabit the same teaching space. They do not share any of the physical resources in the room, and they do not exhibit any of the rapport and collegial respect evident in later classes. The entrances and exits into the teaching space are controlled and each teacher’s role is clearly demarcated. Phillip fulfills his function as the “practical demonstration person” in a single 32-min mini lesson midway through the class on force pairs. While teaching, he accesses only the resources he brought with him into the classroom. At one point, he experiences a bit of technological problems that he is forced to resolve by himself. When he completes his “part,” he returns to his seat and contributes but one interaction with the class. The brief interchange is presented here. Time: 1:08:50 Anne: (referring to a drawing on the board) I don’t understand how come there are only three forces acting on mass one? 1:08:56 Robert: (gesturing towards the drawing): There is another force on mass one. It is the force acting on the table, which we didn’t draw. Remember when we say that forces come in pairs, we have to be careful to remember they act on different objects. So they don’t always appear in the same picture. 1:09:19 Phillip: (turning to address the student). So each of the forces you see there has a pair, that’s not shown cuz we’re interested in mass one.

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1:09:25 Robert: (correcting Phillip) well one of them is showing this and this are a pair. Robert steps away from the board. Looking at the drawing, not engaging Phillip. 1:09:28

Phillip: (turning back to the front) oh ok yes you’re right

(Pauses then continues) 1:09:30 Phillip: (turning back to the student and continuing) but if we’re just looking at mass one we’re just looking at one half of each force pair. The other half 1:09:36

Robert: (overlapping: louder than Phillip) for example there’s…

1:09:37

Phillip: (voice trailing down) is affecting something else.

1:09:38 Robert: (continuing). A force on the earth due to the gravity of mass one, but it’s very small … he then repeats the explanation reiterating what Phillip has said about force pairs. He continues for 22 seconds without acknowledging Phillip’s contribution to the discourse. 1:10:10 Robert: finishes speaking steps back from the board. He gestures to the class signaling the end of discussion 1:10:12

Phillip: (continues to add further clarification). The force pairs are.

As Phillip speaks Robert moves off left away from the board. As he moves across the space he checks his watch for time remaining in the class and moves completely out of the teaching space. 1:10:14

Phillip: (continues to speak to class from his seat).

1:10:32:

As Phillip finishes speaking Robert returns to teaching space.

1:10:34:

Robert: OK let’s move quickly through number 2.

The class continues the problem set. Phillip offers no further contributions to the class discussion. He remains silent in the left front seat until the class is over. The analysis of this vignette is not meant to imply any type of animosity or lack of collegiality between Robert and Phillip. The general atmosphere in all of the physics classes in this study is congenial and easy going. There are many light moments and at times jokes are made that everyone shares. However, during this class neither educator participated in the other’s teaching, neither did they share any common learning resources or reference each other during their teaching. Thus, there was no complementarity of actions, no coparticipation, and most importantly, no shared responsibility for student learning. The brief interchange regarding force pairs is the only time the two spoke simultaneously, and even in this instance there was no attempt to coparticipate in the response to the student’s questions. The interchange reinforced their separate positions and Phillip’s singular role as a demonstration assistant. Although the collaboration had provided the impetus for a more conceptually oriented curriculum and the introduction of structured collaborative group work, the teachers had yet to forge an authentic coteaching relationship. This separation of responsibilities based on assumed roles characterized the coteaching relationship for the remainder of the 2006 session. A similar demarcation is evident in the summer 2007 classes. Phillip continues his responsibility for demonstrations and laboratories, while Robert presides over the teaching of the

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physics content. A close analysis of the classes reveals subtle increase in complementarity of actions, and a willingness to enter and cede the teaching space. We present a vignette from the July 27, 2007 class on vectors as an example of the emerging coteaching relationship.

10.12 Lesson Context: July 27, 2007 The focus of the class is on vectors, vector addition, and relevant trigonometric functions. Robert has given a brief recap of the week’s work, and now Phillip is leading a demonstration of the equipment for the upcoming laboratory. Robert has moved to the left midway toward the rear of the room. Phillip begins the demonstration of the laboratory equipment. He uses a PowerPoint presentation and a force table as teaching resources. His teaching differs from his work in the summer of 2006 as this day he is teaching more of the physics content as part of his introduction to the laboratory. He begins with an explanation of the principles of forces acting at angles to each other and how to set and balance opposing forces on the force table. He then uses a picture of a force table in the PowerPoint presentation as a reference. As he nears the end of the description of the force table, a student asks a question on the calculation of resultant vectors. He wants to know how to calculate the angle. Phillip accepts the question, moves to get chalk, and proceeds to draw two vectors at 90° to each other on the board. Time: 12:42 Phillip: So let’s set this up (He moves slightly to the left to look at the computer, and as he moves he asks Robert. 12:45:

Phillip (to Robert): Have we done… the combination??

12:47 Robert: (moving towards the front, taking a piece of chalk). Yeah we’ve done the theory ...

Phillip is about to re-enter the teaching space, but he stops as Robert is taking the lead. He hesitates for a few seconds, then folds his arms, and cedes the space to Robert. Robert draws a resultant vector onto the sketch Phillips has drawn. He continues speaking. Time 12:48:   Robert: What Phillip is saying is that this (referring to his addition to Phillip’s drawing) is the “invisible force” you will oppose with the weight on the force table (he turns and references the picture of the force table on the PowerPoint slide).

He then continues reviewing the theory of the laboratory, often referring to Phillip’s teaching by saying, “What Phillip has shown you this morning.” Phillip is copresent at the front left of the board and coparticipates in the explanation by maintaining a fixed focus on the student and Robert. Once finished, Robert cedes the focus back to Phillip and the demonstration continues. In this brief interchange, we see both teachers cohabiting the teaching space and attempting to coparticipate in coteaching. Robert’s explanation is timely and complements Phillip’s answer effectively. He appropriates the resources Phillip has

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created on the board and adds to them, thus expanding their utility. His references to Phillip during his explanation indicate respect for his contributions to the classroom discourse. These are positive signs of an evolving relationship; however, the events are isolated and do not occur again during this lesson.

10.13 Analysis of Summer 2008 Up to this point, the collaboration has fostered many important changes in curriculum and instructional strategies, yet the teachers have remained separate in their duties. Analysis of the summer 2008 classes finds the teachers engaged in dynamic fluent coteaching during all classes. There are no clear events that mark the onset of this fluent praxis; however, statements by Robert and Phillip offer some insight into how this change occurred: The separation that existed between us in the previous years was partly my conscious decision because I didn’t have the same credentials in the department as others (after all I’m a high school teacher). I realized that things would eventually change, but I wanted to see where Robert wanted me. The change you see in the class and the way I interact with Robert is partly because we’ve both been teaching for many years and we’ve become comfortable with each other

Similarly Robert finds that: I have a good feel for what motivates Phillip and how he is likely to respond to a suggestion or likely to handle a particular classroom situation. We don’t disagree about anything. Instead we early on developed an easy approach to letting the other “try” what we want. This comes about primarily because physics training up until the last 20 years was remarkably uniform and our experiences with learning to teach were formed during those years. Neither of us places a premium on face time either so he’s pretty familiar with what I’m trying to do if I’m in front of the class and I’m familiar with which approach he is using. The understanding comes from seeing the frequency with which we use a particular method and in watching how each of us deals with/relates to/handles students one-on-one.

The events documented in the introduction of this chapter along with the following representative vignettes evidence the fluent coteaching praxis that has evolved in this class. The critical difference in the relationship at this time is that both teachers are consistently copresent in each other’s teaching moment. Prior classes have maintained their traditional separation of roles and responsibilities; thus, they seldom cohabited the same teaching space or engaged in dynamic coteaching. The events we document prove that each teacher is intimately aware of the needs of all participants in the class and works actively to restructure the environment so as to significantly enhance the agency of classroom participants. The importance of anticipating and providing a needed resource (pulling down a screen, writing new equations on the board) is that it lets a teacher continue to teach and communicate a deep respect for the other’s praxis. Complementary of actions (completing sentences, adding additional explanations) adds resources and viewpoints that might otherwise be lost. This is critically important when teaching diverse student

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p­ opulations, as often individual needs go unmet because they remain unrecognized. This is illustrated in the vignettes with Paul (described earlier in this chapter) and Ayana (analyzed later in this section) where Robert coteaches on the sideboard as Phillip teaches at the front. The fluent practice we document here is a fitting conclusion to the 4-year evolution because it has provided the students in this course the benefit of both teacher’s expertise in a manner that lets them access them at any point during instruction.

10.14 Analysis of the August 6, 2008 (Hooke’s Law) Class Time: 9:24 A.M. The class begins with a review of the relationship between kinetic and potential energy for an upcoming quiz. Robert is teaching from the side of the room, midway to the rear on the left side facing the board. Students work in small groups to answer a series of concept questions that relate the conversion of potential and kinetic energy to the motion of skiers on ski slopes. Some students ask clarifying questions, others offer explanations to their partners. The atmosphere is lively and animated as many simultaneous discussions fill the room. One student gives a very cogent and complete response to the first question. Robert: That’s correct. I guess you don’t have to take the quiz.

Small bits of laughter ripple through the room. He moves on to the next question as Phillip enters the room with a bag full of equipment and a laptop. Phillip proceeds to an area at the front of the room and begins to prepare for a demonstration on the oscillation of springs. He is quite absorbed in his task as the setup is fairly complicated. Robert and the class continue to work on the second concept question. The class is now discussing how the height of ski slopes affects the acceleration of skiers’ experience, and this information is used to determine the degree of difficulty of given ski trails. Philip completes his set up. He looks it over for a few minutes and once satisfied takes a seat at the front of the room a few feet in front of Robert. He sits angled toward the class following the flow of the discussion and monitoring student engagement and understanding. The discussion now turns to a discussion of springs and the concepts associated with their motion. As Robert begins to explain Hooke’s law and the meaning of the spring constant, a student poses a question,

10.15 Event 4 Complementarity of Actions/a Seamless Entry Time: 21:36

Pam So the k is basically the spring at rest before you use it?

21:37 Robert: The k is always there… if x is zero the k doesn’t matter”. 21:42 Phillip: (overlapping the end of Robert’s response: a seamlessly entrance). “I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do to measure it … the best way to define k is with an operational definition …

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22:05 Pam: But does that define k before or after I stretch the spring? 22:08 Robert: (complementing Phillip’s explanation) … so what K tells you is …

Robert goes on to explain the variables used to determine the spring constant, and how they affect its calculation. During the explanation, Phillip maintains eye contact with Pam, nodding his head and rocking his body in agreement with Robert’s explanation. The nonverbal rapport between the two educators is evident in their physical proximity and ongoing visual cues. When he finishes this explanation, he provides Phillip a verbal cue to become frontal. Time: 25:24

OK. Let’s go on.

He gestures toward Phillip as a cue for him to take the lead. It is an explicit moment of transition as he creates the space for Phillip to become frontal. Phillip begins his explanation of the air track and the equipment students will use in the upcoming laboratory. Robert remains to this left midway toward the rear of the room. Phillip is frontal for 11 min as he demonstrates the oscillating carts and how their motion will be used to calculate spring constants. He accesses the PowerPoint slide on the screen to explain the use of the spring constant equation in the laboratory.

10.16 Ceding Space: Accessing Shared Resources During Phillip’s explanation of the spring constant equation, Robert contributes a clarification of the minus sign used in the calculation. Time: 35:46 Robert: There’s one other thing I’d like to point out. Looking at Phillip’s minus sign here … (Referring to the equations written on the board ….) He seamlessly enters the space during a pause in Phillip’s teaching. He moves forward and enters the teaching space. As Robert enters, Phillip moves off to the right and remains at the left side board his gaze fixed on the class. Students ask clarifying questions. Robert moves left leaving the front of the room open so that they can both field student questions from opposite sides of the room. The questions and answers overlap as student near Robert ask him questions, while students near Phillip engage him.

10.17 Anticipatory Action 10.17.1 Anticipating Unspoken Needs and Creating Needed Resource Time: 37:49 A student near Phillip asks a question relating to the equation. He moves toward the board to write, but finds no clear space so he raises the screen up. As he does so, the projected image can be seen on the board obscuring his writing. As he writes Robert moves from the left of the room across to the projector controls and turns off the projector. He remains at the right side near the

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controls, while Phillip continues to explain the process of determining spring constants. When he finishes writing on the board, Phillip returns to the laboratory demonstration equipment.

Understanding that Phillip will need the screen for the continuation of the PowerPoint presentation, Robert moves to pull the screen down and then returns to his position near the control panel. There is no communication between the two during these moves. In each instance, Robert anticipates the need for a given resource and provides them in a timely manner. This will occur two more times that Phillip needs to use the board space that is obscured by the projector screen. Each time this occurs, Robert will anticipate Phillip’s needs by turning the lights on or off, as conditions demand.

10.18 Dynamic Coteaching At this point in the class, many equations fill the board. Robert has remained at the front right side of the classroom. Ayana raises her hands and gestures to him. He moves toward her and leans in to hear her.

Time: 49:31

Ayana: Can you put all that on paper?

49:38 Robert: All what? 49:41 Ayana: (Gesturing to the equations on the board):All that!

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Robert moves to the side blackboard nearest Ayana and begins to write a summary of the day’s teaching. Students take note of the additional resources: some write down the clarifications in their notebooks while others maintain a focus on Phillip. Robert remains at the sideboard, answering questions from students and providing further clarifications as Phillip continues to teach at the front screen. They maintain this dynamic coteaching from the two teaching spaces until the class ends.

We have characterized the coteaching in this class as exemplary because each teacher seamlessly takes and relinquishes the teaching space in response to the unfolding action in the class. They can then create and appropriate the physical resources in the room (the blackboard, PowerPoint presentation, demonstration artifacts, the lights, etc.) so as to maximize the agency of every participant in the room. The coteacher who is not in the frontal position can provide additional resources that restructure the classroom field (by interrupting the lesson and stepping forward to supply a correction, writing additional notes on a side board, getting needed materials, or rearranging the physical space) and thus maximize the collective agency of all. The overall structure of the class exemplifies the curricular focus and instructional strategies instituted in the summer of 2005. The opening 20 min of the class was devoted to the investigation of conceptual questions in collaborative groups. It is also interesting to note Phillip’s extended time working on the quantitative aspects of this topic, while Phillip contributed the more conceptual perspective on the topic. While it remains clear that each educator has their distinct area of expertise, each one is able to complement the other’s words and action in such a timely and anticipatory manner that at times it seems as if there is but one teaching presence in the classroom.

10.19 Discussion The events detailed in this chapter evidence the exemplary nature of the coteaching relationship between a tenured university faculty member and a high-school educator. The hybrid praxis that evolved over the 4 years of their collaboration modified

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the curriculum of the Physics 590 Course and fostered a student-centered conceptually based pedagogy that addressed the learning needs of a diverse student population. The richness of the learning environment is detailed in this student commentary from the end-of-year course evaluation: All that was possible for effective teaching was done. Every type of learning style (audio, visual, kinesthetic) … differentiated learning permeated throughout the course -- They used direct instruction, guided practice, independent practice, group work, whole class discussion. It was a fantastically enriching course and a great model for us teachers. (2008 Penn STI Physics 590 course evaluation)

The instructional strategies were complemented by a dynamic contemporaneous collaboration that allowed each educator to effortlessly enter every teaching moment and contribute to the unfolding curriculum. As a result, students benefited from the presence of multiple learning resources that they could access throughout the entire lesson. They have a wonderful relationship and they “play off of each other” in a way that creates a very effective learning environment: if one doesn’t get an idea across, the other will, and vice versa. It was great to have the two explanations or more importantly the two different perspectives of these two gifted teachers. They complement each other as both are extremely knowledgeable and their styles provide many different ways of learning. I also appreciate the obvious respect they have for each other as scientists and people. (2008 Penn STI Physics 590 Course evaluation)

Student comments such as these provide further evidence of the effectiveness of the coteaching collaboration in providing learning experiences that met the needs of our students and modeled effective instructional strategies. In speaking of the benefits to our program, the program administrator notes: This particular example of co-teaching exemplifies the ideal I had hoped would come about in all of the courses where we have paired a faculty member and a high school teacher. (Connie Blasie, email communication 12.27.2008)

The success of the coteaching collaboration has had a profound effect on other courses in the Penn STI as we now have an understanding of the kinds of curricular organization and instructional strategies that best meet the learning needs of our students. This is an invaluable asset to our faculty as we strive to create a program that is at once rigorous, relevant, and accessible to our diverse student population. These successes also illustrate the utility of the coteaching model to university faculty in other professional development programs for in-service and pre-service educators. The literature on education reform (NSES, 1996; NRC 1999, 2003) suggests that the professional development of in-service and pre-service teachers is a central component of our national agenda to reform science education. Noting that “improving the education of pre-service and in-service teachers” is one of the most important challenges facing university and college faculties (NRC 1999, p. 41), the National Research Council proposes that: Scientists, mathematicians, engineers and teacher educators all need to share responsibility for teacher preparation [and] provide integrated pre-service and in-service ­experiences

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that blend scientific knowledge with pedagogical methods and effective teaching ­practices (ibid). The coteaching model is an optimal strategy for this effort, as it provides the sociocultural structures that facilitate the melding of the research faculty expert knowledge and the educator’s pedagogical expertise. It should be noted that coteaching collaborations, while successful in some instances, are often problematic and dysfunctional (Tobin et al. 2003).

We present the following metalog between the contributors to this chapter as an open discussion on the some of the difficulties presented by the model. Connie:

The National Science Foundation is aggressively pushing university SMT&E [Science Mathematics Technology and Engineering] research faculty to become actively engaged in the professional development of pre-service and in-service teachers (NRC 1999). MSPs (Math and Science Partnerships) such as ours are one of the NSF projects that require the direct involvement of research-active faculty. The goal of such partnerships is the improvement of the content knowledge of the teachers, and also to effect change in college science instructional practices. Cristobal: The National Science Foundation report that Connie cites Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology (NRC 1999) suggests that post secondary institutions need to promote reformbased instruction strategies and place “greater emphasis in their courses on inquirybased projects through laboratory and field experiences and small discussion groups” (p. 39). Including reform-based teaching strategies into the curriculum will be difficult for most university research faculty given the institutional and cultural norms that constrain their praxis (Henderson et al. 2006). Connie: What NSF doesn’t fully appreciate is how difficult it can be to successfully bridge the disconnect between the view of teaching held by most research faculty and the view of teaching and learning held by pre-college teachers. While our MSP project has made inroads into changing the views and practice of the research faculty involved with us, I believe the successful pairing of a pre-college teacher with a research faculty in both the codevelopment and coteaching of the science content would make all of our projects better able to address both the needs of the pre-college teacher audience and to effect change in the thinking of the science faculty. Robert: I agree with Connie’s statement – those research-active faculty who are willing to coteach (and as you describe, really coteach and codevelop the course) are more apt to have their teaching practice change for their “regular” courses as well. Those that are not willing to suppress their egos will probably not yield very much and that, in essence, is what has to develop as a habit of classroom behavior for successful partnering in coteaching. Establishing credentials for content mastery and teaching skill with a research-active faculty member in science is difficult – we are

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trained from early career to doubt “expertise” and promote our own view of “how things ought to be done.” Phillip: I think that having a secondary education perspective in the university classroom is essential because most tenured Ivy League professors with a PhD in physics represent a tiny fraction of society and so they have virtually no experience comparable with that of the students in front of them. I think they really cannot draw on any of their learning situations and expect that students would have any parallel circumstances. As a result, I think that there is an absence of teaching intuition in the tenured faculty responsible for the introductory physics courses. I see a number of reasons for this, starting with a prescribed curriculum and course-wide final exam. But central to the problem is an absence of an awareness of the need to have a conceptual foundation established before attempting a rigorous quantitative treatment. This oversight certainly occurs in secondary education as well. But with more class time and a lot less pressure for rigor, the secondary teacher is much more likely to have found a way to lead with concepts than the college professor. Having a person with that intuition in front of a science education class is critical for two reasons. First, that is probably how the science education students need to learn. Second, it is probably how the science education students will need to teach if they are to be effective. The contributors to this chapter propose coteaching collaborations as an effective method of introducing reformed instructional strategies into teacher professional development programs and creating curricula that are responsive to the learning needs of diverse student populations. Although the model is not free from controversy, we feel that the successes documented in this chapter provide a strong argument for the inclusion of coteaching collaborations in math–science partnerships throughout our country.

References Adamson, S. L., Banks, D., Burtch, M., Cox, F., Judson, E., Turley, J. T., et al. (2003). Reformed undergraduate instruction and its subsequent impact on secondary school teaching practice and student achievement. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 40(10), 939–957. Carambo, C., & Stickney, C. (2009). Coteaching praxis and professional service: facilitating the transition of beliefs and practices, Cultural Studies of Science Education, DOI: 10.1007/ s11422-008-9148-3 Dai, H., & Blasie, C. (2005). NSF – E.H.R. 0412404 Five-year strategic plan. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania, Science Teacher Institute. Henderson, C., Beach, A., & Famiano, M. (2006). Diffusion of educational innovations via coteaching. Proceedings of the 2006 Physics Education Research Conference, 883. Melville, NY: AIP Press. Jacobs, C. (2006, Summer). Penn STI technical report. Physics 590 Course Evaluation Summary. Jacobs, C., & Otieno, T. (2005, Summer). Penn STI technical report institute courses Unpublished technical report. Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA. Lave, J. (1996). Teaching, as learning, in practice. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 3, 149–164.

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Mac Isaac, D. & Falconer, K. (2002). Reforming physics instruction via RTOP. The Physics Teacher, 40, 479–485. National Research Council. (1996). The national science education standards. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. National Research Council. (1999). Transforming undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Committee on Undergraduate Science Education, Center for Science Mathematics and Engineering Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Retrieved December 21, 2008 from http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php? record_id = 6453&page = R1 National Research Council. (2003). Improving undergraduate instruction in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics: Report of a workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Piburn, M., & Sawada, D. (2000). Reformed teaching observation protocol (RTOP): Reference manual (ACEPT Technical Report no INOO‑3). Tempe: Arizona State University, Arizona Collaborative for Excellence in the Preparation of Teachers. Retrieved at: http://physicsed. buffalostate.edu/AZTEC/RTOP/RTOP_full/index.htm. Roth, W.-M. & Boyd, N. (1999). Coteaching, as colearning, is praxis. Research in Science Education, 29(1), 51–67. Roth, W.-M., Masciotra, D., & Boyd, N. (1999). Becoming-in-the classroom: A case study of teacher development through coteaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15, 771–784. Roth, W.-M. & Tobin, K. G. (2002). At the elbow of another: Learning to teach by coteaching. New York: Peter Lang. Roth, W.-M., Tobin, K., Carambo, C., & Dalland, C. (2005). Coordination in coteaching: Producing alignment in real time. Science Education, 89, 675–702. Sawada, D., Piburn, M., Judson, E., Turley, J., Falconer, K., Russell, B., & Bloom, I. (2002). Measuring reform practices in science and mathematics classrooms: The reformed teaching observation protocol. School Science and Mathematics, 102(6), 245–253. Sewell, W. H. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. American Journal of Sociology, 98, 1–29. Seymour, E. (2001). Tracking the process of change in US undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Science Education, 86, 79–105. Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2005). Implementing coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing in urban science education. School Science and Mathematics, 105(6), 314–322. Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam: Sense Publishing. Tobin, K., Zurbano, R., Ford, A., & Carambo, C. (2003). Learning to teach through coteaching and cogenerative dialogue. Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 10(2), 51–73.

Chapter 11

From Theoretical Explanation to Practical Application: Coteaching in a Pre-service Primary Physics Course Pernilla Nilsson

11.1 Introduction This chapter focuses on the use of coteaching between a physics specialist and a primary science teacher to promote more practical and [for primary teaching] more relevant pre-service teaching. It reports on a project based on an 8-week pre-service physics course in which a university physics teacher (associate professor) and a primary science teacher cotaught a group of primary science student teachers as they worked on practical experiments and problem-solving skills in physics. The student teachers were video recorded during experimental workshops to follow their activities and discussions during the experiments. All the experimental workshops were followed up with a seminar, where the physics teacher and the primary science teacher watched the video recording with the student teachers to reflect on how concepts were communicated. During these seminars, the main role of the physics teacher was to explain difficult concepts and phenomena for the student teachers, and the primary teacher connected those explanations to a context of primary school teaching. The interaction between the physics teacher and the primary teacher at the seminars was tape recorded for further analysis. After the 8 weeks of coursework, the physicist and the primary teacher were interviewed to study what they learned from the coteaching during the seminars. Five of the student teachers were interviewed to examine how they perceived the coteaching and how it influenced (or not) their attitudes toward and learning of physics. The results provide insight into the effectiveness of coteaching in a university pre-service physics course as a way to enhance a more applicable science teaching and learning. Over the past two decades, findings from several studies have shown that many pre-service science teachers have difficulties in transforming their subject matter knowledge (SMK) to a relevant school context (Abell 2007; Appleton 1995, 2006; Harlen 1997; Nilsson 2008a, b). Further to this, a common problem in pre-service teacher education is that student teachers often find physics courses difficult and abstract with limited connection to the [primary] school context in which they are going to teach. During physics courses, student teachers learn to use laws and formulas, but they do not manage to link these formulas to the everyday phenomena

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that they are supposed to teach in primary school. Another principal problem in primary science is that beginning teachers often have poor science knowledge and a negative attitude toward science resulting in low confidence in teaching. As teaching involves many complex activities, which depend on the specific situations, it might well be argued that for beginning teachers, learning “how to do the right things at the right time” is a major challenge. Furthermore, as noted by Kagan (1992), university courses often fail to provide student teachers with adequate procedural knowledge of classrooms, adequate knowledge of pupils, or a realistic view of teaching in its full classroom/school context. Although there is a belief that knowledge of teaching is best gained in the classroom, it is more likely acquired through a process arising from a complex interrelationship between school practicum and theoretical discussions (Asoko 2000). With this background, the “gap” that exists between the theory taught at the university and the practical work that teachers do in the classrooms has become an important issue in educational discussions. Teaching science requires a diverse knowledge of resources such as materials, methods, and strategies, most of which are acquired over several years. To reduce the “reality shock” (Veenman 1984) of student teachers, they should have the opportunity to become familiar with those tools already in pre-service teacher education. Thus, student teachers need to develop knowledge of science teaching, pupils, pupils’ learning, and the curriculum that can be translated into meaningful teaching practice. Further to this, if pre-service teacher programs are to facilitate the professional development of student teachers, teacher educators must develop an insight into the future teaching context for their student teachers. However, it might be suggested that one reason for the limited connection between physics courses at the university and the physics that is actually taught in primary school is that university [physics] teachers, in general, have a limited experience of primary [physics] teaching. Therefore, involving teacher educators in coteaching with experienced school teachers can be viewed as a way to enhance a more practical and [for primary teaching] more relevant pre-service teaching. This study sought to directly address one of the principal problems in primary science teacher education: the gap between what is taught in university physics courses and how that knowledge might be meaningful in a primary school context. The study indirectly addressed a second problem: the lack of studentteacher confidence and SMK in physics. In this chapter, I discuss how a primary science teacher and a physicist perceived the process of coteaching in a pre-service primary physics course at the university. Roth, Tobin, and Zimmerman (2002) described coteaching not only as a form of teaching but also as a way of learning to teach, doing research, supervising new teachers, and evaluating teaching in classrooms. They further stressed that coteaching is based on the fundamental idea that practices could be understood only from the perspective of the participating subject. Therefore, through coteaching, teacher educators might increase their learning about teaching science in different ways. Simultaneously, student– teachers’ opportunities to learn science as well as to learn to teach science might be enhanced.

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The project was conducted in an 8-week pre-service physics course with a group of primary science student-teachers as they worked on practical experiments and problem-solving skills. The specific physics course aimed to make physics more comprehensible for primary student-teachers and to further make the knowledge useful for teaching in a primary school context. Hence, the student-teachers were required to develop not only SMK but also knowledge of how it could be transformed to stimulate primary pupils’ scientific learning. As such, not only the product of teaching (i.e., physics content) but also the process of teaching (how to teach in a primary school context) was emphasized in the course. The aim of this chapter is to analyze the interaction between a physicist and a primary science teacher when coteaching to understand how the process of coteaching may be utilized to develop a more practical and [for primary teaching] more relevant pre-service teaching. The project was guided by the following question: In what way might the process of coteaching become a resource in a university pre-service physics course as a way to enhance a more applicable science teaching and learning?

This knowledge is crucial to the pedagogy of teacher education (Loughran 2006), and the practices and processes highlighted in this chapter help to inform how to involve student teachers in developing a knowledge base for primary science teaching.

11.2 Primary Science Teaching Several studies have shown the connection between teachers’ science knowledge and confidence in teaching science (Harlen 1997; Harlen and Holroyd 1997; Murphy, Neil, and Beggs, 2007). Many primary teachers have had little or no success in their own study of science, which influences their attitudes toward and selfconfidence in teaching science (Palmer 2001). Further to this, research on primary student-teachers’ learning to teach (Appleton 2006; Nilsson 2008a, b) has emphasized the importance of primary science student-teachers’ framing and reframing of their practice to gain new insights into what and how they perform teaching. However, an important task of the primary science teacher is not only to help pupils to acquire content knowledge but also to stimulate their interest. Murphy and Beggs (2005) emphasized that the main problems in preparing primary science teachers for primary schools arise from the situation that the majority of student teachers do not have a genuine interest for science. Olson and Appleton (2006) highlighted that method courses that provided science inquiry activities and stimulated student teachers to discuss how science content could be explained to children influenced student teachers’ attitudes and skills to successfully begin teaching primary science. However, although the findings of a number of studies have indicated that science method courses can be very successful in developing positive attitudes toward teaching science, increased science knowledge by itself will not consistently result in improved self-confidence (Palmer 2001). As new teachers often feel anxious about conducting science experiments with pupils,

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there is a need for student-teachers not only to develop their SMK but also to see how the knowledge is meaningful in a primary school context. In 1986, Shulman focused attention on SMK by emphasizing that a teacher cannot explain the principles underlying physical phenomena to his/her pupils if he/she does not explicitly understand them. Shulman (1986, 1987) argued further that SMK alone was not enough for teaching. This was confirmed by Abell (2007) who in her review of science teaching posed the question: “Do teachers who know more science make better science teachers?” If this was true then surely the best science teaching would take place at the university level by teachers who possess a Ph.D. in their science field. Yet we know that this is not necessarily so; university science students cite poor teaching as one of the main reasons for dropping out of science majors (Abell 2007, p. 1105).

Abell (2007) goes on to pose a question about what science teachers should know in addition to science knowledge and how they come to know it. As preservice teacher education is often the teachers’ first opportunity to reflect on the actual use of their SMK, the importance of such opportunities cannot be overemphasized (Lederman and Gress-Newsome 1999). Teachers need to understand the structure and nature of their discipline, have skills in selecting and translating essential content into learning activities, and recognize and highlight the applications of the field to the lives of their pupils (Gess-Newsome 1999). An important issue for pre-service teacher education is then to consider how to increase studentteachers’ interest for and engagement with teaching and learning science. It might well be argued that the process of coteaching as explored in this chapter is one way of doing so.

11.3 Coteaching in the Context of Teacher Education During the past two decades of coteaching, teaching at another teacher’s elbow and taking shared responsibility for all parts of lessons has become a central issue in research on teachers and teaching. The essence of coteaching is the interaction of teachers in the classroom including coplanning, classroom interaction, and evaluation. However, there is a need to understand more clearly if, why, and how two people in a classroom can be more effective than when teaching alone. Roth and Tobin (2005) and Brody (1994) stressed that coteaching involved two or more teachers planning, teaching, and assessing the same students to increase what they can offer to the students as well as providing opportunities for participants’ learning to teach. Coteaching therefore means both optimizing learning opportunities for students and optimizing the learning opportunities for the teachers themselves. As such, coteaching provides the conditions in which expansive and collective learning can occur as well as new possibilities for concrete action and change (Roth and Tobin 2005). Therefore, as highlighted by Tobin and Roth (2006), coteaching provides more opportunities for students to learn but in the same way it provides opportunities to the participating teachers to grow professionally.

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Anderson and Speck (1998) discussed the “sharing of power” between teachers in coteaching and emphasized that disagreement and alternative perspectives in their dialogs are not only possible but are in fact an essential part of the knowledge construction. Coteaching usually includes the regular classroom teacher paired with new teachers, visiting teachers, researchers, or (university, school) supervisors. In the context of pre-service teacher education, Roth, Masciotra, and Boyd (1999) reported on how coteaching provided a context in which a novice teacher could come to embody the dimension of teaching. They reported on how a student teacher experienced the wide gap between the discourse about teaching at the university and the experience of actually teaching in a classroom. Despite being successful in her university courses, that is, in appropriating a discourse about teaching, the student teacher found it hard to put the discourse into action (Roth et al. 1999). As highlighted by Tobin and Roth (2006), it is often one of the coteachers who takes the lead in a lesson, frequently involving explanations of subject matter and procedures. When this happens, the other coteacher provides support through monitoring and attending. Hence, a key feature is the preparedness of all coteachers to step forward and step back as it becomes appropriate or necessary. What exactly makes the stepping forward or backward appropriate depends on the present moment and on the demands that are experienced in concrete praxis (Tobin and Roth 2006). Teacher education can be viewed as involving student teachers in meaningful practices and providing access to resources that enhance meaningful interactions within those practices. Such interactions could well be described with a sociocultural perspective of learning. Murphy and Carlisle (2008) highlighted that the theoretical framework for coteaching was embedded mainly within sociocultural approaches providing an ideal context for learning through a “zone of proximal development” in which the collective achieved more than any individual alone (e.g., Wertsch 1984). This zone arises from the relation between social and individual development where the individual member could make a contribution to the development of the community, and thus indirectly to her own development and learning process (Murphy and Carlisle 2008). Lave and Wenger (1991) and Wenger (1998) noted that most of the learning associated with professions comes through the practice situation and that learning, thinking, and knowing take place when people are engaged in activities within communities of practices. Using this framework in the area of coteaching, we can begin to think about how teacher education can support student-teachers’ transition into the community of practice of primary teaching.

11.4 Research Design 11.4.1 Context of the Study During an 8-week university-based physics course, a primary science teacher and a physicist cotaught 30 primary science student-teachers to promote more practical

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and more relevant pre-service teaching. The course took place in the second term of a three-and-a-half-year pre-service primary teacher program; 1 year was given to maths and science. The entire program qualified the student teachers to teach in pre-school and primary school. Before entering the course, the student teachers attended a term of general pedagogy and a 10-week course in elementary mathematics. In the course, the student teachers had four experimental workshops (see Appendix) of 3 h each, in which they discussed everyday phenomena based on the practical experiments. Each workshop consisted of four different experiments, which were coplanned by the physicist and the primary science teacher. However, as the workshops were designed to stimulate the student teachers’ reasoning, problem-solving skills, and active learning processes, the student teachers worked independently and the physicist was present only to supervise and assist the student-teachers with different materials. All the experiments had a very open design, from which the student-teachers were encouraged to discuss their hypotheses and together in the group come up with proposals of how to conduct the experiments. The first workshop dealt with the concepts of density, heat, and energy. The aim of the workshop was to help the student-teachers to develop their knowledge of different concepts (e.g., Archimedes’ principle, density, and specific heat capacity), and also to give practical examples of the principle of energy connected with melting and freezing, and energy and changes of phases. The second workshop dealt with the concepts of forces and motion. The aim of the workshop was to help the student-teachers develop their knowledge about the connections between forces and movement. The experiments covered concepts such as gravity, inertia, mass, velocity, the universal gravitational constant, and acceleration. One experiment was carried out in an elevator of a 22-storey building at the university; the studentteachers used a scale to discuss how their weight changed while they went up to the 22nd floor and down again to the ground floor. The third workshop dealt with experiments on light and optics. The aim of the workshop was to help the studentteachers develop knowledge about how light is spread out and reflected. The student-teachers were also expected to gain insight into the functions of the eye, the functions of contact lenses and glasses, and the functions of different optical instruments. The final workshop dealt with experiments on electricity, and was aimed at stimulating knowledge development about principles of the electric circuit. Concepts such as electric current, voltage, and electrical energy were covered, as were Ohm’s law, magnetic fields, electromagnetic induction, and generators. As the group of 30 student-teachers was divided into two groups (15 student-teachers in each group), each workshop was conducted twice. During the experimental workshops, the student-teachers were then divided into groups of three, which means that it was five groups of student-teachers doing the different experiments at the same time. During the four experimental workshops, all the groups of student-teachers were video recorded to follow their activities and discussions during the experiments. In connection with every experimental workshop, the student-teachers participated in a 3-h evaluation seminar to watch the video recordings together with the physicist and the primary science teacher to reflect on their activities and how they communicated

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their conceptions (and sometimes misconceptions) in the group. During the seminar, the student-teachers had the opportunity to express their knowledge and also to reflect on how this knowledge was communicated and shared with their peers. Hence, the aims of the group discussions on the video-recorded workshops were to contribute to student-teachers’ understanding of the specific physical phenomena brought up in the experiments and, through the coteaching between the physicist and the primary science teacher, to transform those phenomena to teaching in a primary school context. Two groups (of three student-teachers each) participated in the seminar in which the video recordings from both groups were discussed. The student-teachers were invited to stop the tape and comment on any situation during the workshops that caused them to reflect, such as an event connected with their activities or their interactions with each other during the experiments. The tape could also be stopped by the physicist and/or the primary teacher if they noticed situations that they wanted to discuss with the student-teachers (e.g. to probe for more expansive details on how the student teachers interacted to solve the different problems). The video seminars were presented to the student-teachers as occasions for learning. They were not examined during the sessions, but the grades were set by the physicist only after the course was finished; this might otherwise have had an impact on the student-teachers’ discussions during the seminars. In addition, the studentteachers, the physicist, and the primary science teacher were comfortable talking with each other, and the discussions flowed freely, allowing participants to explore their own ideas. Every workshop and the following video seminar were followed up with a lecture for the whole group of 30 conducted by the physicist. To prepare for the lecture, the student teachers were requested to formulate questions concerning phenomena and concepts that they found difficult during the workshops.

11.4.2 Participants A qualitative case-study approach (Cohen et al. 2007) was used to examine how the physicist, the primary teachers, and the student-teachers experienced the process of coteaching during the video seminars in the course. Cohen et al. (2007) described the purpose of a case study as to portray, analyze, and interpret situations through accessible accounts; it may be described as interpretive or subjective. As such, it provides a systematic way of looking at events, collecting data, and analyzing and reporting the results. In the present study, the physicist (mentioned as John) was a 60-year-old male associated professor in physics with his research interest in nanophysics. He had been working at the faculty of physics, with research and teaching (mostly electrical engineering), for about 20 years and had no experiences of teaching in a primary school context. The primary science teacher (mentioned as Fred) was a 35-year-old male with 4.5 years of primary teacher education in which approximately

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1 year was dedicated to science. In addition to that, he also had 9 years of teaching experience in primary school. Both participants agreed voluntarily to participate in the project.

11.4.3 Coteaching Procedure and Collection of Data Underpinning the design of the course is the assumption that the construction of knowledge does not happen in a social or a cultural vacuum. Social contexts influence the ideas that individuals construct as they communicate with others in meaningful practices and provide access to resources that enhance meaningful interactions within those practices. Research on teacher learning has often demonstrated the importance of interactions with peers. As further highlighted by Murphy and Carlisle (2008), the individual member can also make a contribution to the development of the community and indirectly to his/her own development and learning processes. In line with the ideas of “the zone of proximal development” (Wertsch 1984), the reasoning with a more knowledgeable person (e.g. a peer or a teacher) makes an important contribution to the individual’s learning process. Therefore, it might well be argued that if student-teachers are encouraged to discuss practical experiments with peers and teachers to reflect on and make explicit how the SMK can be used in a primary school context, they might better conceptualize aspects related to the knowledge base for primary teaching. Further to this, if teachers are encouraged to reflect on their teaching with colleagues, aspects related to their teaching and learning about teaching might be mapped. The coteaching in the course involved joint planning of the four practical workshops and the evaluation seminars of the video-recorded experimental workshops. The coteaching did not include the experimental workshops. The reason for that was because the experiments were not “teacher led” but built on the idea that the student-teachers should work in an independent way. Another reason that proved to be important was that if the primary science teacher was not present during the workshop, he had a natural opportunity to ask the student teachers to explore in more detail their actions and discussions during the different experimental workshops. In the evaluation seminars, both the physicist and the primary science teacher jointly led discussions of the video-recorded workshops and both contributed to examples and explanations. The role of the physicist was mostly to focus on the physical explanations, to explain phenomena, and to build on the experiments from a subject matter point of view. The role of the primary science teacher was to stimulate the student-teachers to reflect on and discuss how the experiments and the content could be used in a primary school context and hence to “link” the SMK (i.e., physics experiments) to a primary teaching situation. However, the responsibility for the sessions was, as far as possible, equally shared. To collect data with the aim of understanding how the process of coteaching may be utilised to develop a more practical and [for primary teaching] more relevant pre-service teaching, a multi-methods design was used. During the seminars,

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the interaction between the physicist, the primary science teacher, and the student teachers was tape-recorded for further analysis. After the 8 weeks of coursework, the physicist and the primary science teacher participated in a semi-structured interview (Cohen et al. 2007) to provide information of how they perceived their experiences of the coteaching process in the evaluation seminars. Finally, to examine how the student-teachers perceived the coteaching, five student-teachers out of the 30 were randomly selected and invited to participate in a semi-structured interview. All five agreed to participate. In the interviews, the five student-teachers were first questioned about their experiences of the course. They were then asked to carefully reflect on how they experienced the coteaching process between the physicist and the primary science teacher and in what way it influenced (or not) their learning of physics and physics teaching.

11.5 Analysis Data obtained from the tape-recordings from seminars, the physicist’s and the primary science teachers’ interviews, and the five student-teachers’ interviews were analyzed using a multistep iterative process involving myself as a researcher and a research assistant. The tape-recordings from the evaluation seminars became the basis for a descriptive analysis of the interaction between the physicist, the primary science teacher, and the student-teachers. Next, data from the interviews with the physicist and the primary teacher were analyzed in greater depth to identify factors concerning their perceptions of the coteaching process (i.e. their interaction with each other as well as with the student-teachers). Finally, the five interviews with the student-teachers were analyzed. All interviews were transcribed in full. The transcripts were read repeatedly to get an overview. Next, I went through the interviews, and coded for categories and subcategories and how these were related. Quotations representative of the categories that emerged from the data were selected. To establish the validity of the coding, the research assistant applied the categories to the transcripts. The interpretations and categorizations made both by me and the research assistant were compared, and similarities between the categories were discussed until consensus was reached. Finally, to embrace the professionalism of the physicist and the primary science teacher, they were asked to proofread and validate the entire results section.

11.6 Results The results from the interviews indicated that the physicist, the primary science teacher, and the student-teachers were positive to the coteaching process during the seminars. The result section will be presented in three parts: (1) participants’ interactions during the seminars; (2) physicist’s and primary science teacher’s

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experiences; and finally (3) student-teachers’ experiences. Then all aspects emphasized by the different participants will be carefully discussed to consider implications for coteaching in a primary science pre-service course. To guarantee the anonymity of the participants, the names have all been changed.

11.6.1 Descriptive Data from Participants’ Interactions during the Seminars In this section, some of the evaluation seminars of the video-recorded workshops are outlined to give an impression of what the coteaching looked and felt like. The interaction between the participants during the evaluation seminars is illustrated through transcripts from the discussions in the classroom. In the seminars, the participants discussed physical concepts that were brought up in the workshops and how those concepts could be used in a primary school context. Both the physicist (John) and the primary teacher (Fred) stopped the tape to ask the student-teachers to explore their discussions and actions during the workshops. However, their different roles during the video seminars also mirrored the character of their questions. John mostly asked the student-teachers to explain the different concepts they used during the workshops and also aspects within the experimental workshops that they experienced as difficult. During the evaluation seminars, John answered the student–teachers’ questions concerning the physical phenomena and spent a lot of time to explain formulas and calculations on the blackboard. In such a way, he tried to improve the student-teachers’ understanding of the specific concepts that were brought up in the different experimental workshops. However, John and Fred shared the responsibility for the seminars and Fred often, in a natural way, built on John’s explanations and described how the different experiments could be transferred to a primary school context. Also, the student-teachers asked for stopping the video several times to discuss the experiments and probe for explanations. Concerning optics, for example, the student-teachers had difficulties in connecting the experiment on lenses with how light was reflected in the eye. They discussed the relation between the lenses in the workshop and the lens in the eye, and asked the physicist for clarification. The physicist and the primary science teacher commented on how they had different expectations on how the student-teachers would conduct and further explain the experiments. In one situation during the workshop, the student teachers should build a camera but the video showed how they had built a model of the eye. During the seminar, John stopped the tape and expressed his surprise as he had expected the student-teachers to solve the problem in another way. This situation gave Fred the opportunity to initiate a discussion about how to prepare a task for school pupils. Fred further compared the student-teachers’ misunderstandings of the experiments with how primary school pupils easily can misunderstand instructions if they are not enough clear. For John, it was a valuable insight as he came to recognize how the student-teachers did not always interpret the experiments in the way he had expected.

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John: When I said this to you I thought you understood it directly, but when I see you in the video recording and now during our discussion, I realize that you didn’t. It is like if I went to the shop to buy a digital camera. I would not know all the terms the salesman used, but I would guess that he thought I understood everything. Only after I had brought my new camera home would I realize that I had not understood how it worked. I now realize that it can be the same with physics.

The electricity workshop was also the subject of much discussion. For example, the student-teachers asked about magnetic fields and electric fields, and how they were related, leading John to provide explanations and make drawings on the blackboard. During the discussions in the seminars, the student-teachers often mentioned having “aha experiences” as they, with the help of John and Fred, finally understood things that they did not understand while doing the experiments. Several times in the video recordings, the student-teachers could be seen searching their books for the “right formula.” This was discussed during the seminar; one student teacher observed herself in the video and said: ST: We are looking for something, but we do not know what. I think that is because we are so used to looking for the right formula.

During this occasion, Fred initiated a discussion about, to teach primary pupils, we cannot only build physics knowledge on formulas. This discussion further stimulated John to reflect on the nature of physics and to express that there is a reality, we construct a model of that reality and then from the model we can make a mathematical calculation. During this session, Fred continued the discussion and explained how he used modeling of scientific phenomena, for example how to use metaphors and models to help the pupils to explore their ideas. One example that was emphasized by Fred was the importance to show a model of the eye before starting to talk about how the light is scattered in a lens and hence build on the pupils’ preconceptions. John continued the reasoning and mentions that it is the same way with formulas. John: You often learn to use the formulas but you do not always know what reality the formula actually stands for. Just as Fred mentions … it is very important first to know about the reality and then use models or formulas.

It was also documented in the video-recordings how the student-teachers tested and evaluated the different ways of figuring out the volumes of different bodies and how things floated or sank in the water. In the seminar, together with John and Fred, they elaborated on the discussions and said that if a book was put with the thin side in the water, it would sink faster than if it was put in horizontally. ST: Yes, we must go to the swimming pool and test how much of the body is above the surface, and how much below. It is like lying or standing on ice … the pressure is different.

This reasoning initiated a discussion led by Fred on how to work with forces in primary school using a swimming pool and then to let pupils swim and to teach them physics at the same time. One student-teacher commented that the concept of density was abstract, and that they were looking for a formula to calculate density, which led John to explain the connections. There were also discussions about the scale in the elevator, pressure, acceleration, and velocity as well as about the feeling

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in the body when accelerating in the elevator. These discussions stimulated John to explain Newton’s three laws on the blackboard and Fred to further discuss how experiments in mechanics could be conducted with a group of pupils.

11.6.2 The Physicist’s and the Primary Teacher’s Experiences of the Process of Coteaching 11.6.2.1 Making Physics Teaching Meaningful Both John and Fred claimed that they found several advantages with the coteaching during the evaluation seminars. John highlighted how he experienced that the coteaching made the physics teaching more important and meaningful for the student-teachers. Normally, when he taught physics to student–teachers, he got the impression that they did not always see the content as useful. In the process of coteaching with a primary science teacher, he felt that the student-teachers got a much better connection between the physics phenomena used in the experimental workshops and the knowledge they would need when teaching in the primary school context. John further stressed that he, as a physicist, did not manage to do this connection on his own; hence, working with Fred gave him the opportunity to stimulate the student-teachers in a better way. He also found it helpful to learn about how primary pupils became engaged when doing experiments and to learn about pupils’ inquiries and what questions primary students normally asked: John: I think it is very good as Fred tells about how he teaches physics to his ten years old pupils. It makes the student-teachers realize that the physics knowledge is actually useful and that it is really possible to apply the content within their own primary school teaching. I have often experienced the problem that student-teachers do not know why they must learn all the physics content and they do not see the usefulness. But when we do the experimental workshops here at the university and when Fred and I are discussing the experiments with the student teachers afterwards while watching the video, the student teachers seem to realize that what we do here is actually useful in a primary school context. And when Fred tells about his work out of his experiences of teaching primary physics the student teachers get even more ideas of what to do. I think that it also makes it easier for them to initiate practical experiments in physics once they get out at school. It is at least my belief that they would not have seen these possibilities and connections if they had studied a traditional course in physics, yes like the courses I use to run. I have actually not thought about it in this way before even though I very often have realized that the student teachers are not always following me.

Fred confirmed that his role during the seminars while coteaching with John was to help the student-teachers to connect the experiments to a primary school context to make it meaningful for their future teaching. He further stressed that the process of coteaching then helped the student-teachers to get not only an understanding of the physics content but also an insight into different pedagogical strategies to use while teaching physics in a primary school context. Fred also emphasized that he experienced that the student-teachers often seemed to have difficulties to reflect on

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not only what physics they needed but also how they acquired the knowledge needed for teaching in a primary school context. Hence, he highlighted that his role was also to help the student-teachers reflect on why and how they developed their knowledge of physics and to think a little bit further than only on the university physics course. To make the teaching meaningful for the student teachers, he also talked about pupils’ common conceptions and misconceptions and how to be prepared for different situations that could occur during physics teaching in a primary school context. Fred further highlighted how he had come to see that, in general, university physics courses are not always well connected to the reality of primary school teaching. The physicists might be good at connecting the content to everyday situations, but these everyday situations are not always the same as primary teachers’ everyday situations. He referred to the school curricula, which stated that the goals in school should be connected to the pupils’ everyday context. To be meaningful for student–teachers, university course curricula should do the same and connect to the reality of the student-teachers as future teachers. One way of such a connection, he claimed, was through the process of coteaching. John emphasized that when he was teaching alone, the focus was more on the physics content than on teaching the physics content. Just as Fred highlighted, when he tried to connect physics to an everyday practice, it was not to the school practice. However, coteaching with Fred gave him a possibility to build on pupils’ ideas and conceptions as a way to promote student-teachers’ understanding. John: When Fred and I are teaching together he can give totally different examples connected to the student teachers’ teaching in a way that I cannot. I do not have any experience of primary school so it is not very easy for me to be trustworthy when I talk about teaching physics to young pupils. I think that when you have been in the academic world too long you are able to tell almost everything about the physics content…but perhaps not how it is used in the school context. I am probably more used to applying the formulas and not explaining it in a way that a young pupil might understand. I am not familiar with all the metaphors that Fred spoke about.

11.6.2.2 Building on Each Other’s Ideas and Questioning Both John and Fred articulated the different roles that they had to come to enact in relation to the student-teachers’ learning needs and both of them stressed that they felt comfortable as facilitators of the group discussions. However, Fred commented that during the course, his questions and John’s questions became more and more similar to each other. Teaching together with Fred allowed John to build on ideas of primary teaching and to consciously ask questions of the same type as Fred (i.e., how would you then teach this content in primary school?). Fred further emphasized how he used John’s comments to explore his own thinking and questioning. In such a way, both of them built on each other’s comments as well of each others’ questioning. That is, together they managed to ask the kinds of questions that stimulated the student-teachers to reflect not only on the physics content and how

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it was acquired but also on how that knowledge could be used in a primary school context. For example, Fred’s questions about how the student-teachers could connect the experiments to primary teaching also provided learning opportunities for John. That is why the coteaching provided both the physicist and the primary science teacher with opportunities to experience discussions that were not part of their own expertise. Further to this, when Fred saw something specific during the video, he asked probing questions and when John’s questions pushed the student-teachers hard on the subject matter, Fred built on those questions to explore the studentteachers’ ideas. As such, building on each other’s ideas also forced the physicist and the primary science teacher to reflect, as teacher educators, on the most effective ways of pre-service physics teaching. 11.6.2.3 Shared Responsibility, Respect, and Trust John and Fred shared the responsibility for the student-teachers’ learning even though each had different roles in that learning process. The hierarchical relations, which often characterize academia, between an associated professor and a primary school teacher did not become a hindrance to their coteaching. Both of them stressed that they respected each other and trusted each other’s different competencies. Fred’s rich experience of teaching primary science became an additional resource for the student-teachers’ learning of physics as well as John’s learning of primary teaching. As such, both Fred and John claimed that the coteaching provided them with opportunities to support the student-teachers [and each other] with respect to SMK and the more practical aspects of teaching physics in a primary school context. Fred highlighted the importance of feeling confident in the process of coteaching. He further stressed that his knowledge of physics was sometimes limited but that John supported him in his discussions with the student–teachers, which also influenced his self-confidence in asking questions concerning the physics content. Even though both of them stressed that they had a shared responsibility during the coteaching sessions, Fred emphasized that the student-teachers gave them different roles. When they had questions concerning the physics content they asked John, and questions to Fred normally concerned how to handle situations in the classroom. Fred stressed that he felt confident during coteaching as he knew that John would help him out if they come to difficult concepts: Fred: That is why I can say that I talk much more when coteaching with John than when I am alone in the classroom. I can say that now I dare to explore the student teachers’ questions in a better way. Well, normally I think it is boring to try to explain something deeply but then only come up with very brief explanation. I mean the student teachers ask a lot of questions and I would have had difficulties to explain them all. But now in the seminars we are able to discuss very deeply and it is good for everyone. When John is there he can connect directly to our discussions and we manage the explanations together. Also the fact that I know John quite well also makes me feel confident teaching with him and I am convinced that respect and trust are important factors for a successful coteaching. There is no competition between us but instead we accept each other and trust each other’s expertise. And actually, if John seems to feel too theoretic and notices that he almost loses the student

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teachers he very often “throws” a question to me such as “how do you then do with the pupils in school?” In such a way we try to link the subject matter and the teaching in a natural way.

The discussions between John, Fred, and the student-teachers developed throughout the sessions and enhanced the sense that the student-teachers and the teachers were part of a collaborative learning. As such, John stressed that it had been very good to coteach and to sometimes “give Fred the ball.” He further emphasized that they complemented each other in a very good way and even though they were experts on different things, they had an open relation to each other: John: I have been able to say to the student-teachers that I have no ideas about how the content can be used in primary school, and Fred has been honest to say when he does not grip the content.

11.6.2.4 Learning of Science and Science Teaching Fred claimed that he learned a lot of physics content when he discussed the studentteachers’ questions and inquiries and further when he listened to John’s explanations. John also stressed that he got new ideas for his own lecturing when listening to how Fred described how he used to teach physics experiments to the pupils. Those ideas, he emphasized, would also have implications for his teaching in other physics courses. He further claimed that for physics to be interesting for student-teachers and for them to develop SMK as well as a positive attitude the demands on him as a teacher were high. The way he normally taught physics in pre-service courses was in a more traditional way without much connection to a school context. However, coteaching with a primary teacher like in this project had helped him on his own journey as a primary teacher educator, from only teaching content knowledge to reflecting on how the content could actually be used in a primary school context: John: What I believe is that physics on a university -grade level is quite easy. We use formulas and theories that we then apply and calculate and we do not need to reflect very much on what we do and why we do it. When you teach primary science student teachers you must realize that it is not the physics that counts for them … it is the teaching of physics to young pupils in school. That is why I have realized that it is so important to adjust the content and connect it to their practice (i.e., primary school teaching). I have come to understand that it is very much about the process of teaching and that it is meaningful and useful for teaching in a primary school context.

Fred also stressed that when he went into “deep water” concerning the subject John supported him. He stressed that he felt safe having John in the classroom and that through the process of coteaching, John could fill out when he did not actually master the content. In such a way, John contributed to the student-teachers’ as well as to Fred’s development of SMK. He further stressed that he also had the possibility to get answers to the questions that his pupils previously had asked in primary school. Fred: When I brought up those questions in the seminars it had a double value. Both that the student teachers should learn about what questions the pupils might actually ask in

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primary school, but for me it was very valuable because then John could help me with the content and the next time I get such questions I will know how to reply. For example recently it was a ten year old boy who asked me how an induction stove functioned and I was not very sure about how to answer him. During the video seminar I could refer to that occasion and John could support me in how to explain it more deeply. We created a very good discussion with the student teachers, both on pupils’ questioning and also about electricity and magnetism. This was good as it really put the need for a good content knowledge into the spotlight. The student teachers came to see that pupils actually ask tough questions.

Fred further stressed that he developed his own thinking of physics when coteaching with John, which was also mirrored in his own teaching. For example, he mentioned how the coteaching with John helped him to reflect on his own use of metaphors and models in the classroom. As such, he referred to an example when they were discussing the workshop on electricity. During the evaluation seminar, Fred explained different ways of how to illustrate to pupils how a battery functions. On the blackboard, he drew two water tanks with a hole in between, of which one was full and the other was empty. Then, he explained how the water went from the full one to the empty one until it reached equilibrium. However, when he drew on the blackboard, John highlighted that it could be problematic to use the water metaphor, as electricity and water did not function in the same way. If you cut a water tube, the water pours out but if you cut an electricity cable, the electricity does not “pour” out. Through the process of coteaching, Fred became aware of the weaknesses of metaphors that he often used in school context to make it easier for the pupils: Fred: Those simplifying examples are not always correct and if you are not very good at physics you may not recognize weaknesses and in the worst case you can mislead the pupils. It is good to bring the weaknesses into light but you must not forget the benefits with simplifying examples but also to reflect on their relation to the reality.

In summary, within the process of coteaching, both the physicist and the primary science teacher acted as resources for each other, exchanging information, sharing new ideas, and giving each other feedback. Further to this, both of them also emphasized the importance of inviting the student-teachers to the discussions and in such a way create new knowledge together.

11.6.3 The Student-Teachers’ Experiences of the Process of Coteaching The student-teachers stressed that the interaction between John and Fred was influential in a number of ways. One student-teacher mentioned that she was not used to discussing physics, but during the evaluation seminars, Fred and John asked questions that also helped her in her own thinking. The discussions that took place between John and Fred during the sessions seemed to act as a stimulus to studentteachers’ participation and active involvement in making sense of the SMK

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presented at the workshops. As the experiments were of an open character, there were often student-teachers who had difficulties in interpreting exactly what to do. However, during the video seminars, those failures created constructive discussions, both concerning the student-teachers’ misunderstandings and similar situations that could happen in primary school. One student-teacher stressed that in the beginning, she thought that the experiments were not suitable for primary school pupils. But when listening to how Fred had conducted the different experiments with his primary school pupils and further what questions the pupils asked made her feel more motivated to learn about the physics content. All five student-teachers in the interviews mentioned the different roles of the physicist and the primary science teacher which also influenced the way the student-teachers responded to their questions. With John, they were into the physics content and he often explained the experiments with a formula or a calculation. Fred referred to how he explained to the pupils, how the pupils reacted, and which questions they asked. The student-teachers further claimed that Fred had helped them to see the physics content in a different way but that John’s explanations were also needed. They stressed that John was very good at physics but that they did not expect him to know everything about primary teaching. ST2: For John it becomes more like “guessing.” But the fact that Fred has really done the experiments with his pupils and knows what was good (or not) to do makes an important contribution for us. I mean it must not be too difficult or too easy because then it is not good for the pupils either. If we have only had John there I am afraid that we would have experienced the workshops as too difficult and abstract and not connected to what we actually will do in primary school. But only with Fred I am afraid that we would come into difficulty with concepts that he might not be able to explain in such a deep way as John.

The student-teachers all mentioned that the video-recordings were good because they could observe how the others in the group had conducted their experiments, which also created a lot of interesting discussions. They further claimed that some of the issues in traditional university courses are quite abstract and that the studentteachers did not always see the meaningfulness with the SMK. However, they stressed that the coteaching between the physicist and the primary science teacher in this course made the physics content more concrete. For example, when they worked with electricity and magnetism, Fred told them about how he had built a car with an engine and a house with lamps. Another concrete example that was mentioned was when they worked with the experiments on density, they had difficulties both in understanding it themselves and knowing if density was an appropriate concept to bring into a group of 7-year-old pupils: ST4: Then it was so good when Fred told us about how he used to introduce the concept of density to his pupils through having two similar balls of different materials. Then he stimulated his pupils to discuss bout the similarities and differences between the two balls and to weigh them. I think we all thought that it was a very good way to illustrate density and I think for most of us, at least for me, I “grasped” the concept of density and our experiment much better.

In general, the student-teachers all mentioned that they had developed their knowledge about phenomena that happen in everyday life. One student-teacher

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explained how she had always thought that physics was difficult, but during the course she had discovered how it was possible to do something with primary pupils, which made her more motivated to learn. However, as all of them confirmed, both the ideas of how to teach to primary pupils and the deep explanations of the physics content were needed to get a good understanding not only for what to do but also for why.

11.7 Discussion In the research literature, collaboration between teachers is widely acknowledged as a means of enhancing both teaching and learning. This chapter has paid close attention to a primary science teacher’s and a physicist’s personal experiences of coteaching and how coteaching as a collaborative endeavor in itself could be a powerful strategy for [primary science] teacher education. As such, it is reasonable to suggest that the process of coteaching as described in this chapter became a catalyst for a new way of considering what knowledge that is actually needed in a pre-service physics course. The student-teachers reported significantly higher interest and enjoyment of the course and highlighted that they saw how the physics knowledge became useful. However, it might well be assumed that this double dimension could have been absent if the physicist (with no experience of primary teaching) or the primary teacher (with a limited knowledge of physics) had been alone. In addition, the coteaching allowed both the physicist and the primary teacher to meaningfully reflect on their shared experiences. As highlighted by Fred, the coteaching with John provided the opportunity for him to fill in the gap with regard to his content knowledge. John, on the other hand, reported on how Fred provided him with the more practical aspects of primary teaching. Anderson and Speck (1998) reported that coteaching has been practiced between experienced teachers usually from different disciplines for the purpose of bringing together, for the students, two different bodies of knowledge. Whatever be the form of coteaching that is discussed in the literature, its benefits to staff and students have been noted. Yet, university courses in teacher education programs rarely focus on this aspect of teaching. As SMK alone is not enough for teaching (Shulman 1986, 1987), teacher educators must also understand not only what knowledge (the content) might be useful for student-teachers but also how (pedagogy) it might be used and further developed in a teaching practice. Therefore, as the results suggest, coteaching in the way it was presented in this chapter is a promising way toward developing a more practical and (for primary teaching) more relevant pre-service teaching. Another aspect that this chapter brings into light is that, as highlighted by Asoko (2000), primary teachers need to understand science in ways that are appropriate to teaching (e.g., closely linked to everyday science). However, some of the main challenges in primary science teaching are student-teachers’ low levels of confidence as well as of SMK. As stressed by Murphy and Beggs (2005), many student-teachers

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even have a fear for dealing with pupils’ difficult science questions. This might be because primary teachers are generally more interested in teaching young pupils than in subject matter itself. This primary science teaching further requires teaching without formulas, with a stronger focus on everyday phenomena. To acquire SMK as well as self-confidence in teaching science, student-teachers must perceive science knowledge as meaningful and usable for themselves (Nilsson 2008b). For this purpose, they do not only need a deep content knowledge but also knowledge about what sort of questions and conceptions young pupils might have with respect to science. In the context of science teacher education (as it is presented in this chapter), the physics knowledge comes from science disciplinary fields, while the understanding of primary teaching comes from the field of pedagogy or education. Hence, it is reasonable to suggest that this separation reinforces a model of science that is different from models of teaching and learning science. In the science discipline, scientists tend to be concerned with relationships among phenomena that are systematic and controlled. In humanistic and social science (e.g., pedagogy), researchers understand individuals’ behavior by sharing their frames of reference. Therefore, humanistic and social sciences deal with the direct experience of people in specific contexts (Cohen et al. 2007). Myrdal (2007) discussed the differences between the cultures of natural science and human/social science and stressed that natural science and human science must have insight into each other’s theoretical perspectives to respond to “big questions” in the life of humans. However, it might be well argued that questions about “teaching and learning” are considered as such big questions. This might in turn influence the attention to what, why, and how science is taught in science teacher education to prepare student-teachers for teaching in a primary school context. University physics is characterized by its own culture, which is different from the culture of primary school physics. The separation between the science content and pedagogy (i.e., understanding of teaching and learning) might lead student-teachers to struggle in adjusting their understanding and practices of science per se to understandings and practices of science teaching. Hence, a challenge that science teacher education faces is to “bridge the gap” between university learning of physics and primary school teaching. The coteaching as it has been presented in this chapter has proved to be a successful way of doing so. This chapter illustrates a “golden story” of what Tobin and Roth (2006) described as a central motto for coteaching: “coteaching is colearning in praxis” (p. 17). As Fred and John enacted their teaching, both of them served as a resource for the other to learn. As such, there lies an enormous potential for academic staff (i.e., teacher educators) to invite experienced primary teachers into their classrooms. On the other hand, for primary school teachers to teach at the elbow of a science expert also offers a fantastic opportunity to explore pupils’ ideas and conceptions as well as stimulate their interest in science. The process of coteaching as described in this chapter might therefore be a way to enhance science learning for primary pupils, increase the SMK, and self-confidence in science for student teachers and/or experienced primary teachers, and finally, provide teacher educators (i.e., scientists) with a better insight into the context of primary teaching.

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11.8  Appendix: Course Design Weeks 1–21. Heat and temperature

Workshop 1 in two groups of 15 studentteachers lasting 3 h (physics teacher)

Weeks 3–4 2. Mechanics

Workshop 2 in two groups of 15 student-teachers, lasting 3 h (physicist)

Weeks 5–6 3. Optics

Workshop 3 in two groups of 15 student-teachers, lasting 3 h (physicist)

Weeks 7–8 4. Electricity

Workshop 4 in two groups of 15 student-teachers, lasting 3 h (physicist)

Video seminar on workshop 1, two groups of 6 to 9 student teachers in each, lasting 3 h (physicist and primary science teacher) Video seminar on workshop 2, two groups of 6 to 9 student-teachers in each, lasting 3 h (physicist and primary science teacher) Video seminar on workshop 3, two groups of 6 to 9 student-teachers in each, lasting 3 h (physicist and primary science teacher) Video seminar on workshop 4, two groups of 6 to 9 student-teachers in each, lasting 3 h (physicist and primary science teacher)

3-h lecture for all student-teachers based on studentteachers’ questions on workshop 1 (physicist) 3-h lecture for all student-teachers based on studentteachers’ questions on workshop 2 (physicist) 3-h lecture for all student-teachers based on studentteachers’ questions on workshop 3 (physicist) 3-h lecture for all student-teachers based on studentteachers’ questions on workshop 4 (physics teacher)

References Abell, S. (2007). Research on science teachers’ knowledge. In S. K. Abell & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Handbook of research on science education (pp. 1105–1149). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Anderson, R. S. & Speck, B. W. (1998). Oh what a difference a team makes”: Why team teaching makes a difference. Teaching and Teacher Education, 14(7), 671–686. Appleton, K. (1995). Student teachers’ confidence to teach science: Is more science knowledge necessary to improve self-confidence? International Journal of Science Education, 19, 357–369. Appleton, K. (2006). Science pedagogical content knowledge and elementary school teachers. In K. Appleton (Ed.), Elementary science teacher education (pp. 31–54). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Asoko, H. (2000). Learning to teach science in the primary school. In R. Millar, J. Leach & J. Osborne (Eds.), Improving science education: The contribution of research (pp. 79–93). Buckingham, UK: Open University. Brody, C. M. (1994). Using co-teaching to promote reflective practice. Journal of Staff Development, 15(3), 32–36. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2007). Research methods in education (6th ed.). London: Routledge Falmer. Gess-Newsome, J. (1999). Knowledge and beliefs about subject matter. In J. Gess-Newsome & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Examining pedagogical content knowledge (pp. 51–94). Dordrecht: Kluwer.

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Harlen, W. (1997). Primary teachers’ understanding in science and its impact in the classroom. Research in Science Education, 27, 323–337. Harlen, W. & Holroyd, C. (1997). Primary teachers’ understanding of concepts of science: Impact on confidence and teaching. International Journal of Science Education, 19, 93–105. Kagan, D. M. (1992). Professional growth among preservice and beginning teachers. Review of Educational Research, 62(2), 129–169. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press. Lederman, N. G. & Gress-Newsome, J. (1999). Reconceptualizing secondary science teacher education. In J. Gess-Newsome & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Examining pedagogical content knowledge (pp. 199–214). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Loughran, J. (2006). Developing a pedagogy of teacher education. London: Routledge. Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2005). Coteaching to enhance an approach to science learning and teaching in primary schools. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together learning together (pp. 207–231). New York: Peter Lang. Murphy, C. & Carlisle, K. (2008). Situating relational ontology and transformative activist stance within the ‘everyday’ practice of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 3, 493–506. Murphy, C., Neil, P., & Beggs, J. (2007). Primary science teacher confidence revisited: 10 years on. Educational Research, 49(4), 415–430. Myrdal, J. (2007). Kampen mellan naturvetenskap och humanvetenskap. In I. S. Rider, & A. Jörnesten (Eds.), Reclaim the science! Om vetenskapens avakademisering. Hedemora: Gidlunds Förlag AB. Nilsson, P. (2008a). Recognizing the needs – Student teachers’ learning to teach from teaching. Nordic Studies in Science Education (NordiNa), 4(1), 92–107. Nilsson, P. (2008b). Teaching for understanding – The complex nature of PCK in pre-service teacher education. International Journal of Science Education, 30(10), 1281–1299. Olson, J. & Appleton, K. (2006). Considering curriculum for elementary science methods courses. In K. Appleton (Ed.), Elementary science teacher education (pp. 127–151). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Palmer, D. H. (2001). Factors contributing to exchange amongst preservice elementary teachers. Science Education, 86, 122–138. Roth, W.-M., Masciotra, D., & Boyd, N. (1999). Becoming-in-the-classroom: A case study of teacher development through coteaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15, 771–784. Roth, W.-M. & Tobin, K. (2005). Coteaching: From praxis to theory. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together learning together (pp. 5–26). New York: Peter Lang. Roth, W.-M., Tobin, K., & Zimmerman, A. (2002). Coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing: Learning environments research as classroom praxis. Learning Environments Research, 5, 1–28. Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4–14. Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1–22. Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn. A view from the field. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Veenman, S. (1984). Perceived problems of beginning teachers. Review of Educational Research, 54(2), 143–178. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1984). The zone of proximal development: Some conceptual issues. In B. Rogoff & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.), Children’s learning in the ‘zone of proximal development’ (pp. 7–18). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Chapter 12

Now It’s Time to Go Solo Matthew Juck, Kathryn Scantlebury, and Jennifer Gallo-Fox

For over 6 years, the University of Delaware’s Secondary Science Education program has employed coteaching as the model for student teaching. This chapter examines how the first-year teachers adjusted to teaching after engaging in coteaching during their student-teaching experience. Using the follow-up interviews and video data, the first-year teachers discussed what they had learnt through coteaching and how they utilized that knowledge in their first teaching positions. Many of the teachers were expected to engage in collaborative planning and professional dialogues with peers and colleagues. When these professional communities were unavailable or non-existent through formal channels, the first-year teachers established their own networks and support systems.

12.1 Introduction Teacher educators are constantly reviewing and improving the preparation of pre-service teachers for the first year of teaching. Various models have strengthened the learning experiences of pre-service teachers; however, sustained research is needed to fully understand the impact of different programs on pre-service teachers within both teacher education programs and the transition to their own classrooms as beginning teachers (Clift and Brady 2005). There are few longitudinal studies that explore how beginning teachers apply and adapt the knowledge gained from their pre-service teaching experiences to their beginning teaching environments (Grossman et  al. 2000; Luft 2007). The beginning teachers and their transition to in-service teachers is an understudied area in science teacher education (Luft 2007). This chapter discusses the impact of coteaching experience during student teaching on three beginning science teachers. Coteaching encourages student teachers and cooperating teachers to examine the relationships between theory and practice by critically analyzing their teaching and learning as they teach alongside one another (Roth and Tobin 2002; Tobin and Roth 2006). One coteaching study followed a pre-service teacher from student teaching into his first year in the classroom (Wassell and Stith 2007). However, our study represents the first work that has followed C. Murphy and K. Scantlebury (eds.), Coteaching in International Contexts, Research and Practice, Cultural Studies of Science Education, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3707-7_12, © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2010

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the experiences of multiple members of a pre-service secondary science teacher cohort, as they transitioned into their first year. This study uses socio-cultural theory to gain insight into how these beginning teachers got engaged in their teaching practice.

12.2 Coteaching as Student Teaching Beginning teachers report difficulties in classroom and time management, procedural knowledge of their classroom, addressing the individual needs of their students, and communication with their students’ parents (Adams and Krockover 1997; Kagan 1992; Meister and Jenks 2000; Veenman 1984). Student teaching provides an environment for pre-service teachers to explore these issues and develop strategies for their immediate and future teaching endeavors. During this transition period, pre-service teachers often struggle to balance discrepancies between their conceptions of teachers developed during their K-12 scholastic experiences and their present perceptions of themselves as educators. If student teachers are to “become” educators, they must be reflective of their present teaching practices and their tacit pedagogical notions and also be receptive of advice and feedback from their cooperating teachers, university supervisors, and peers (Guyton and McIntyre 1990; Roth and Tobin 2005). Through self-analysis of one’s teaching practice, student teachers gain insight into their actual teaching practice and their unconscious conceptions of themselves as educators. Regardless of the pre-service teachers’ choice to modify their teaching beliefs and practices, the choice to self-reflect on one’s teaching is a crucial step in student teachers’ journey to becoming classroom teachers. Coteaching provides a reflective field for both pre-service and in-service teachers to examine their teaching praxis through dialoguing about their teaching practices, notions of what it means to teach science, and how educators know what they come to know (Roth and Tobin 2002; Tobin and Roth 2005). Building a coteaching community is critical in collectively generating teaching knowledge among student teachers and cooperating teachers. The process of cogenerative dialoguing has been identified as a crucial component of the coteaching model (Tobin and Roth 2005; Scantlebury et al. 2008). Cogenerative dialogues (cogens) have multiple uses in education settings (Baynes 2009; Martin 2006). Initially, urban science teachers used cogens with their students to examine issues of teaching and learning science. However, researchers have expanded the use of cogens to include undergraduate science students (Gilmer and Cirillo 2007) as an evaluation tool in professional development programs (Martin and Scantlebury 2008) and as a form of reflective practice between coteachers engaged in coplanning (Scantlebury et al. 2008). Cogens and coteaching emphasize creating opportunities for teachers to share teaching knowledge, to generate local theory regarding successful science teaching and learning, and to develop their teaching practice and extend these practices into

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the beginning and subsequent years of teaching, respectively. However, none of these practices is successful unless coteachers assume co-responsibility for students learning and teaching the curriculum. Another critical aspect of coteaching is the evidence of co-respect between the teachers (Scantlebury 2005). When teachers lose respect for each other, co-planning and a shared responsibility for enacting the curriculum decline. Cogens can assist coteachers to foreground the issues preventing successful coteaching and to co-generate solutions. Coteaching and cogens are also sites for the cultural reproduction of teaching. The student teachers’ experiences provided opportunities to develop different types of capital, particularly, social, cultural, and symbolic (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). Social capital represents the collective sharing of information and entities among members of a field. Within social settings, individuals hold various positions that enable action with others from this specific culture. One’s cultural capital enables an individual to impart his/her point of view regarding certain topics within the cultural group (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). Ultimately, an individual’s knowledge ofand actions within a culture affects his/her cultural status. In this study, cultural capital is defined as the knowledge, ability, and expertise in teaching science. Symbolic capital represents the status, allowing one to embody particular positions that are recognizable by other members of the culture and affects his/her interactions within the social grouping, e.g., attaining a degree and a teaching certification to teach science. Thus, within the various coteaching and cogen settings, the student and the beginning teachers had various status levels associated with the different types of capital. We used Sewell’s (1992) definition of culture composing of a structure or agency dialectic to examine an individual’s agency, or the ability to act, in relation to their knowledge of their surrounding cultural structures (schemas and resources). Schemas encompass socially held norms that impact how one may choose to act within a particular cultural field or social space (Bourdieu 1986). The dialectic nature of this theoretical framework identifies that no action is regarded as chance or nonsensical, but rather an individual’s actions are the result of their knowledge and appropriation of schemas and resources. Individual agency can thus be enacted to address and consequently be constrained by the structural components of a social setting. The transposable nature of schemas allows for their activation in other social settings (fields). The similarity of fields, or their incongruity, directly impacts the sets of schemas that an individual may utilize. In conjunction, resources, both human and material, function as a means to provide an individual with the ability to enact a particular schema (Sewell 1992). Thus, it is the interaction of resources and schemas that directly impacts an individual’s agency. For the purpose of this study, the cultural schemas and resources (human and material) present within the beginning teachers’ school settings and their coteaching experiences were examined to explore the beginning teachers’ agency. The three case studies of Jaime, Pat, and Lisa1 use interview data from their final year of undergraduate study to their first year of teaching. Our purpose was to

 These are self-chosen pseudonyms for the first-year teachers.

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examine whether there was a detrimental impact of using coteaching as a model for student teaching when they transitioned to student teaching. In particular, we were cognizant of previous research that reports how the first-year teachers struggle with the feelings of isolation, developing time-management skills and a procedural knowledge of their classroom, addressing the individual needs of their students, and communication with their students’ parents.

12.3 Methodology 12.3.1 Research Participants We selected three participants (Jaime, Pat, and Lisa) because (1) they had experienced coteaching during student teaching, (2) they were first-year teachers, and (3) they agreed to videotape and reflect on their teaching practices. Jaime, Pat, and Lisa had participated in a secondary science methods course in the fall semester, which introduced the theoretical and practical foundations of coteaching. In the following semester, they cotaught during their 16-week student teaching at Biden High School. During student teaching, they taught five out of seven periods a day, with one period designated as a ‘solo’ teaching. That is, the solo class was structured as a ‘traditional’ student-teaching experience, with no other coteachers taking responsibility for planning and enacting the curriculum or classroom management. The solo class provided student teachers with the opportunity to experience the multiplicity of teacher responsibilities and to build confidence in their teaching ability (for further discussion of the model see Scantlebury et al. 2008). Jaime, Pat, and Lisa were white teachers in their mid-1920s. Jaime and Lisa majored in biology and Pat in chemistry. During their first year of teaching, all taught in US public schools; Jaime taught science and reading to seventh and eighth graders at a suburban middle school; Pat taught Advanced Placement (AP),2 chemistry (12th grade), and college preparation chemistry (11th grade) at a suburban high school; and Lisa moved to a school district located near one of the United States’ top-ranked universities. Parents moved their families into Lisa’s district so that their children could attend the highly ranked schools that focused on preparing students for a college education. Lisa taught 11th and 12th grade biology and environmental science.

12.3.2 Data Collection and Analysis We followed the teachers across two academic years in 2003–2005, from the fall of their  final year in the undergraduate teacher education program through the first  The curriculum in Advanced Placement courses is equivalent to that of a first-year college/ university course.

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year of teaching. In addition to interview and video data collected during student teaching, the participants were interviewed thrice during the first year of teaching. These instances included one focus-group interview and two individual interviews approximately 1–2 h duration. The focus-group interview occurred approximately 2 months after the beginning of the school year and was a semi-structured conversation. During the group conversation, each of the participants responded to interview questions, asked each other questions, and shared their experiences in conjunction with their peers’ first-year teaching experiences. The subsequent semi-structured interviews (second- and third-round interviews) were conducted in the winter and spring. The interviews occurred at the participants’ schools, at the end of a school day or during a planning period in their individual classrooms. Interview protocol construction was developed as an iterative process, building on previous interviews with each individual. All the focus-group and interview transcriptions were sent to the participants for member checking and were modified according to the participants’ feedback. Additionally, Pat and Lisa were observed for a minimum of two classes, once during the winter and again during the spring months. The observed classes were videotaped. Because of scheduling difficulties, we observed Jaime twice in the spring. The participants reflected on two videotaped lessons of their choice, and responded to a series of questions examining the relationships between their planning and instructional methods. The analysis of the interview data began after the completion of the interviews at each stage. We used HyperResearch© (2005) to produce initial codes, which were subsequently synthesized and condensed into themes within the interview data. The beginning teachers’ reflections of their self-taped video observations were also collected and coded using HyperResearch© (2005). Positioned within the post-modern perspective, this longitudinal study is aligned with the perspective that individuals create multiple realities from their social interactions. Multiple realities display how knowledge is socially constructed within various learning environments. To view these beginning teachers’ teaching realities, their experiences are presented as case studies, allowing for a more intimate view of their teaching experiences within their educational environments (Stake 2000). This approach enabled the beginning teachers’ teaching experiences (i.e., pre-service and in-service) to be examined in the contexts of their teaching environments. The data were analyzed by case, and subsequently, a cross-case analysis was conducted to identify commonalities, differences, and themes across the cases. Drawing on the grounded theory analysis by themes, one strong/clear theme centered around the use of collaboration and coplanning in both the coteaching and first-year teachers’ classrooms. Using a grounded theoretical framework, emergent themes were analyzed from the data for the theory to “resemble the ‘reality’” of the beginning teachers’ experiences (Strauss and Corbin 1998). Using grounded theory to frame the study, we used Sewell’s (1992) structure/agency dialectic and Bourdieu’s (1986) capital to examine the relationships between the first-year teachers and their teaching environments. As agency can also reshape structure, the beginning teachers’ practices were examined

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to determine if the surrounding school structures were impacted by these individuals’ agencies. Utilizing this theoretical lens allowed for an exploration of patterns of coherence and/or contradiction with regard to the current research findings of the beginning teachers’ pedagogical concerns as well as the impact of their pre-service teacher preparation program on their first year of teaching practices.

12.4 Three Case Studies 12.4.1 Jaime During her fall science methods course, Jaime began forming professional and social relationships with two other biology interns and three chemistry interns. The science methods course was an environment that encouraged the interns and course administrators to share the knowledge of teaching, past, and current classroom experiences. Student teachers’ initial experiences with group collaboration began with coplanning the content units for courses that they would teach during their spring student teaching placement. Towards the end of the science methods course, Jaime identified the practical use of these coplanning sessions, stating that: We are able to bounce ideas off of each other. Each of us has our own strengths and we have a lot of different ideas about the different types of activities we can do and different ways to present the material. (Jaime Interview)

The presence of corespect and coresponsibility amongst Jaime and her fellow coteachers during the methods course set the stage for future coteaching practices to flourish during her student-teaching practicum. As Jaime transitioned into her first year of teaching, she found herself in a middle school that was going through major staff changes. Two primary structures impacted Jaime’s first-year teaching practices, namely, her coteaching experiences and the school’s teaching environment. Jaime’s school administration emphasized on the use of differentiated instruction as a primary focus of the staff’s teaching practice, but did not provide adequate support for teachers to integrate the practice. This lack of support was combined with the fact that almost a quarter of the school’s teaching staff had less than 3 years of teaching experience. It’s not a great environment. They’re [administrators] disorganized. A lot of the teachers are unsatisfied. New teachers feel unsupported and kind of thrown into things.… The biggest thing with my science department is [that] we’re very new.… We have one veteran seventh grade teacher that’s been there for ten years. We [have] one veteran eighth grade teacher who has been there for two years. [He] is our department chair [and] this is his second year. Our department chair still needs to be mentored himself because second year teachers are still required to be mentored. He’s very capable as a department chair, but I mean he’s only in his second year of teaching. The teacher who’s been there for ten years [is a] very good teacher but doesn’t have the time to do all the department chair activities. So, of the other new teachers they pretty much treat me like a veteran because I’m the one with the most experience. (Jaime, Group Interview)

Often, Jaime’s department chair (Jake) was unavailable for her and the other beginning science teachers, owing to his commitments as the department chairperson.

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He was typically available during school hours, particularly during her planning period, but left the building immediately after the school ended. This resulted in Jaime enacting her teaching agency by coplanning with Rose and Greg, two alternative route3 seventh grade science teachers. Jaime explained that the emergence of coplanning resulted from the general lack of resources to address the incorporation of differentiated instruction into the teachers’ teaching practices. The after-school absence of Jake as well as Rose’s and Greg’s self-acknowledged need for help in planning their course curricula and modes of assessment further supported the coplanning structures. In the following passage, Jaime explains that her assessments were adopted by two of her fellow science teachers, namely, their associated seventh grade TAM4 (teaching assistant manager) teacher and her mentor: I pretty much do the seventh grade planning. Every test that the alternative route teachers have given has been one that I’ve made. The TAM teacher had passed [the tests] out to them saying, “this is what Jaime did, you can do something similar.” The veteran teacher [Jake] has decided he likes a lot of my tests and activities better than his own, so he’s replacing the activities in his binder with mine. (Jaime Interview)

Jaime’s choice to share her course assessments with the other teachers endorsed her role as a “veteran” teacher, and also laid the ground work for future collaborative planning meetings between her and the two other seventh grade science teachers. She recalled the nature of her rapport with Rose and Greg in the following passage: I feel like I have more of a sharing back and forth with the two alternative route teachers because they are new at this. They’re struggling as much as I, more so probably because I’ve got experience. You know we’ll stop by each other’s rooms and say, “Hey, I came up with this lesson. It worked really well for me, here try it if you want.” There’s not [that] much support, we had close to thirty new teachers in the building. That’s a lot. The two alternate route people and I and the inclusion teacher we all go to the [professional development] trainings together…. Rose, she’s one of the alternate route people; [we] usually drop by each other’s rooms. We take turns at least three times a week after school, we’ll stop by, talk about what we’re planning on doing, what problems we’re having, stuff like that. A lot of the times Greg, the other alternate route, will stop by [also]. (Jaime Interview)

The coplanning meetings initially occurred as informal meetings for a few days after the school, each week. During these time periods, Jaime, Rose, and Greg would discuss their various teaching experiences of the week and converse about the different activities and teaching methods that they were implementing in their courses. Over the course of the school year, these interactions became more regular, allowing Jaime, Rose, and Greg to collaboratively develop their teaching repertoires. The combination of Rose’s and Greg’s inexperience in the classroom and Jaime’s coteaching experiences enabled Jaime to appropriate material resources, as well as verbal feedback to Rose’s and Greg’s ideas concerning ideas about lessons and class activities. Jaime applied her knowledge of a collaborative schema within this

 In areas of ‘high need’, such as science, school district can hire new teachers without a teaching certification or any education coursework. The teacher agrees to an alternative route to teaching certification, which requires them to take education courses while teaching full-time. They do not complete a student-teaching experience. 4  TAM teachers typically work with students’ who have special learning needs. 3

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teaching setting and address the teaching needs of her fellow teachers, as well as her own. However, as Rose and Greg gained confidence in their teaching abilities, all the three teachers began interacting at a mutual level, sharing resources, reflecting on their teaching practices, and offering teaching advice. Ultimately, their coplanning meetings functioned to generate resources that enabled Jaime and her fellow seventh grade teachers to collectively address one another’s pedagogical needs, and the school administration’s encouraged use of differentiated instruction. In the following excerpt, Jaime describes her central role in planning a unit that she had never taught before. She stated that, “it was funny because everybody started coming to me on the watersheds unit. [asking], ‘What should we do Jaime?’” (Jaime Interview). Thus, despite her lack of experience in teaching the watersheds unit, Jaime coplanned with the group, constructing their curriculum for the unit. She further identified that: The other new teachers they pretty much treat me like a veteran because I’m the one with the most experience because most of the others are alternative route. I’m like a veteran pretty much...they treat me like a veteran. I’m supposed to have one of the TAM teachers in my [classroom], but the department head moved it to another teacher because they were like, “Well, we don’t think you really need an extra hand in here” (Jaime, Interview).

Jaime showed corespect to her colleagues and a willingness to collaborate through the coplanning sessions. Jaime aided in sustaining this practice by her prior knowledge and experience with coplanning from her coteaching experiences, thus embodying the role of a veteran teacher within this social setting. As she had more teaching experience than her peers, this garnered Jaime the symbolic capital that also generated social capital that allowed Jaime to become a leader in her first year of teaching. However, the resources that this collaborative grouping generated were the primary factor in its sustainability. Through group discussion of their teaching experiences, these beginning teachers generated resources that they applied to their individual teaching practices; thus, they developed and expanded their cultural capital. Coplanning established a reflective teaching community by allowing participants to mutually engage in a practice to improve their individual teaching practices. Within the coplanning environment, Jaime further enacted her teaching agency through her corespect and coresponsibility towards her colleagues. Regardless of their inexperience in teaching science, Jaime afforded Rose’s and Greg’s respect by sharing the responsibility for coplanning lessons and generating new knowledge on how to teach their content. Their shared co-responsibility for the science curriculum enabled the coplanning teachers to share their planning ideas and maintain a sense of ownership over their planning practices.

12.4.2 Contradiction Contradictions are often examined to gain further insight into the learning process and how changes within the social settings occur (Roth and Tobin 2005). In Jaime’s case, we identified a contradiction to her coplanning interactions in her choice not to collaborate with her associated TAM teacher. Jaime identified the TAM teacher’s

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lack of coresponsibility and corespect regarding lesson planning, and being attuned to each lesson impacted her choice to plan activities and other aspects of the course curricula by herself. The contradiction to Jaime’s engagement in collaboration displays how difficulties associated with maintaining collaborative interactions may arise among the educators.

12.4.3 Pat The coteaching experience positioned Pat as a member of a teaching community that provided him with a variety of teaching resources applicable to his content area. Pat describes the teaching benefits that he gained as a result of his membership within his coteaching group as follows: I definitely pulled a lot from other people, but I was so ready. I mean with planning with somebody the else the entire time [pre-service coteaching experience], as far as the coplanning goes you got three different point[s] of view, three different ways to do it. I felt like I came in with three times the amount, the amount of stuff that I needed, which was awesome. I had three different ways of teaching it. All these different perspectives and different strengths of each person, you try and rope them all together. That’s the thing I loved about the coteaching because my explanation might get ten kids. Tim’s explanation might get ten. Sam’s or Chris’ might get ten. You know, so that’s forty kids right there. And that’s the whole class. Whereas if I just used mine [I’d only reach] one fourth. (Pat Interview)

Experiences in teaching with a diverse set of teachers equipped Pat with both a vast array of resources and a schema of collaboration that he transferred to his first year of teaching. Pat identified the value of coteaching and its effects on his teaching philosophy and first-year teaching practices: Actually coteaching made me more open to asking other people for ideas. I had a better sense of how somebody else would shoot [down, or] not shoot down an idea, help me construct [the idea], or be open to having two people build a lab as opposed to one. It just made me more open to asking people for advice and taking the advice. (Pat Interview)

Pat’s coteaching experiences provided him with an understanding of the value of reflecting on and discussing his first-year teaching practices with other teachers. Pat described his practice of self-reflection of his teaching practices as follows: Everyday. You look from period to period. You look back and you say, “Well, that sucked.” And then you might change it for second period and be like, “Wow, what I said first period would probably be the better thing.” You[‘re] always, constantly evaluate[ing] what the kids really picked up on. What kids dozed off during [class]. What opened their eyes. Even when [students] take a test, they’ll come up to you and ask you a question. When they ask me questions sometimes, they’ll [ask,] “Is this when we did this thing?” And if, “it’s like when we did this lab.” And [while they are asking these questions] I’m making a mental note to do that lab next year. (Pat Interview)

Pat shifted into solo teaching within a school culture focused on providing students with a supportive learning environment. Pat identified this emphasis of attending to student’s educational and personal needs at the onset of the school year as follows:

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There’s no [stress], it’s more of an open teaching style. [The science department]... is the most student-centered environment I’ve ever seen. Everybody here has the notion that the kids are inherently good. The kids are good; it’s just sometimes they get on the wrong track. (Pat Interview)

While Pat’s science department did not identify precise teaching methods that he should employ in his chemistry courses, the departmental climate encouraged the use of teaching methods that would engage students in learning. This perspective on teaching provided Pat with the opportunity to utilize teaching practices that were innovative and interesting to him and his students. Moreover, the science department’s community-like environment enabled Pat to utilize his fellow science teachers to develop his teaching repertoire. Reflecting on his interactions with the science department: It’s always nice. Everybody’s just so laid back. They’re always willing to help you out. I mean it’s one of those things where everybody’s so approachable. [It is easy to] find help or to ask questions and you know it’s one of those things where if you’re friends with somebody it’s that much easier to talk to. We’re the only department that actually hangs out outside school. We had a wine tasting [get together.] We [also] all eat lunch together. And it’s one of those if you don’t show up [at lunch] somebody’s asking, you know, “Where were you?” It’s always nice. (Pat Interview)

The sense of community shared among these departmental teachers was solidified by their focus on attending to students’ academic and personal needs. Pat further described the science department’s commitment to a student-centered learning environment by stating that …the science department’s probably the most successful department in the school because we’re all firm but at the same time we all go out of our way to make sure the kids know that they’re cared for. (Pat Interview)

Pat’s participation within his school community was primarily evident in his description of the discussion regarding the reflection on his teaching practices, seeking feedback regarding these practices, and desire to access resources present amongst the other teachers. Pat was the only chemistry teacher in his school, and did not have other chemistry teachers to talk to about his teaching practice. Throughout the school year, Pat continually met the science department teachers, mentors, and fellow chemistry teachers throughout the county to address both his school’s student-centered focus and his individual teaching needs. During these interactions, he shared his teaching experiences and simultaneously obtained various strategies for teaching chemistry (i.e. laboratory activities) attuned to teaching at his high school. I kind of went from coplanning and coteaching to now I’m the only chemistry teacher in the school, so the only person to talk to is up at Finch High School. We just bounce ideas off of each other...Oh yeah, cause we’re the two big lab guys. It’s like talking with Tim [cooperating teacher from student teaching]. (Pat Interview)

Pat initially gained access to these teachers through a required professional development workshop. He recalled his professional development experience as: We’ll all talk. We’ll all throw ideas back and forth. They’ve all been around for a while [teaching in Grant County]. One of our professional developments was sharing different

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strategies used for teaching. [One example given during the professional development workshop was having students write a story from keywords.] You tell a story; you just give [the students] the key words [and tell them,] “Okay write a story about this stuff.” …. So, a lot of stuff comes from other places. (Pat Interview)

Despite the pre-existing professional development structure in place, Pat chose to initiate additional instances of communication with various county chemistry teachers. Through his communication with these fellow chemistry professionals, Pat shared his activities and laboratories and expanded his teaching repertoire. The feedback and conversations that Pat had with the chemistry teachers and his fellow science department members highlighted his use of collaboration to develop his teaching repertoire. As he continued these interactions, Pat modified his teaching practices in ways that addressed his students’ specific learning needs. Pat chose to engage his students both at academic and personal levels, designing his course curricula to incorporate laboratory activities and demonstrations that displayed the applicability of chemical concepts to everyday situations, as well as their value in various scientific realms. In addition, he encouraged his students to express their conceptions and explanations of chemical concepts, allowing each student to have a voice within the class. Pat noted that he had developed a rapport with his students. In the following passage, Pat describes his interactions with the students in his chemistry classes and their effects on his teaching identity: I definitely have a different rapport with the students than I did at Biden [High School]. There’s more of a father figure role there than anywhere else, they know I care for them.… A lot of the kids don’t have both parents. Their parents are in prison until they’re about fifteen, it’s a different demographic than I’m used to. (Pat Interview)

The students’ personal needs were issues that Pat took into account when planning his curriculum. He reflected on his planning practices and its impacts on his students’ learning capacities in the following passage: I plan day-by-day, not day-by-day, but like by week. Because I’ll come in one day and be like you know the kids aren’t understanding this as well as I need to, so I’ll do a lab. I’ve probably done this semester, at least, at least fifty labs. The way I teach it, the things I emphasize, I don’t know where the kids are going to have necessarily problems yet. So I leave a lot of room for growth or to expand on things. (Pat Interview)

Pat’s choice to alter his planning practices in accordance with his students’ learning progress displayed his acceptance of the cultural schema that focused on attending to the student learning and personal needs. Moreover, his application of self-reflective practice demonstrated his teaching agency; specifically, in his choice to utilize resources from his coteaching experiences and those within his first-year teaching community to alter his teaching practices to meet the needs of his students. Pat’s knowledge of a collaborative schema assisted him with engaging in his high school’s student-centered teaching culture through incorporating teaching practices that provided his students with a role in their learning. He acknowledged the value of the established professional development structures by participating in the associated activities and expanded on their use as a resource for his teaching by constructing lines of communication with other chemistry teachers. Pat further solidified his

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membership as a full participant within his high school community by modifying his planning and teaching practices in relation to his students’ learning needs. As a result, he accrued social and cultural capital among both his students and fellow science educators, ultimately impacting the course enrollment structure for the subsequent school year because the administrators added another chemistry class. The student population’s going to be bigger. As far as the percent that enrolled in chemistry, it’s, they’re saying that they’ve never had this kind of percentage. And people are telling me it’s a lot because, they said I’ve made it entertaining for them. Dr. Phil, my department chair is taking on two sections. (Pat Interview)

12.4.4 Contradiction Pat was provided with a mentor who was outside of the science department and whom he did not meet, partly because Dr. Phil acted as his mentor. Hence, his choice not to meet his school-appointed mentor, but rather his science department chairperson, represented the interaction among scholastic structures and Pat enacting his agency. In addition, the lack of resources impacted on Pat’s teaching practice to establish communication with the county teachers. Ultimately, Pat’s teaching practice was shaped by his solitary teaching assignment, while simultaneously affecting the teaching and learning culture of the school. Pat’s influences/interactions on the teachers and students within Grant County enabled him to build levels of cultural and social capital that he utilized to enact his agency.

12.4.5 Lisa Lisa’s coteaching experiences and the general teaching environment within her high school functioned as significant structures that affected her first-year planning practices and associated interactions with fellow science teachers. Before beginning the full practicum, Lisa was skeptical about coteaching. I honestly don’t know enough about coteaching. I don’t feel comfortable with the topic. And maybe that’s because other than [the] experience [of the science methods course], I’ve never experienced this. So, it’s hard to visualize it, like what it would actually look like. (Lisa Interview)

Despite her initial difficulty in visualizing how coteaching should “look,” Lisa coplanned with the other biology student teachers during her methods course. Lisa identified a feeling of uneasiness about her ability to plan and teach her individual class content material during her spring student-teaching practicum. During the methods, Lisa expressed a final concern for the effectiveness of the coteaching model regarding its effects on student learning. She specifically related this concern with having multiple teaching styles within a classroom. She stated that:

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I definitely think [coteaching] has strengths. Instead of student learning from one teacher, they are learning from both. I have also noticed that the students get to see different perspectives of the material. The coteachers often have different examples or methods of explaining things, allowing for the different learning styles of students to be reached. I think that if both people that are coteaching are strong in their subject matter and have points to add to each other—I think it does have a lot of strengths. But I also think those two people have to be compatible in their teaching styles, because I think the kids can get confused as to how they’re taught; what’s expected. I think that the expectations need to be similar between both teachers. (Lisa Interview)

Lisa’s concerns about students’ inability to relate to different coteachers assuaged as she began coteaching. I think I was more concerned for the kids’ sake, because I didn’t think they would handle it well, but they have. I haven’t seen any issues with styles of one doesn’t match the style of another and the kids are lost, because they’re not. If someone does something the first [period] and someone else is doing step two on the second day, they’ll follow from day one to day two. Even if it’s a different person. That was actually a surprise that they didn’t have that issue. The whole situation [with coteaching] has been better than I expected. I heard so many nightmare stories from so many people [regarding student teaching]. I got emails from friends that said “how is student teaching going? If it’s bad, it’ll get better.” It’s not bad at all. I can’t believe two weeks have gone by already. (Lisa Interview)

Lisa’s apprehension regarding a clear vision of what coteaching would “look like” in her spring field placement was directly linked to her concern for the effects on her students’ future learning. As the spring semester progressed, Lisa developed an understanding regarding what coteaching should look and feel like. In the following passage, she described her reaction to the model at the conclusion of her student teaching practice: I think learning to depend on other people, asking their ideas, because I don’t know a whole lot when it comes to teaching, and not relying on yourself to come up with every lesson was a great tool to learn. I’ve learned more and more to ask, “well what did you do for this, how can I do this.” Tim’s done labs in chemistry that I can do it biology, we’ve done labs in biology that I can do in Biochemistry, and it’s been a really good tool to learn how to rely on other people. How to get ideas from other people, using the resources that other people have which are a whole lot greater than I have on my own. I think it’s the combination. I think coteaching definitely helped because we were working with so many people that we could take ideas from one class and bring it to another class. I think also that the department is a nice department. All the people that work here for the most part communicate well with each other and don’t have a problem with us asking them questions, asking them for ideas, asking them for help. You know, they’re not trying to hide what they come up with. They’re free and willing to say, “here, use it”. (Lisa Interview)

Lisa’s first-year high school administration’s and teaching staff’s strong emphasis on students’ high academic achievement on SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and Advanced Placement assessments were major structural forces impacting her teaching practices. To address the demand for students’ continued academic success, Lisa and her fellow science teachers were provided with a wealth of technological resources within their classrooms. These included smartboards, flex cameras, computer stations, and other technological resources.

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We are ranked number one in [the state] for AP Scores and number one in the nation for SAT scores. The average SAT score for last year’s juniors [and] this year’s seniors was a 1254. We’re highest in AP scores … ninety-seven percent get threes or above, ninety percent get four or above, and eighty percent get fives. It’s unbelievable how many kids are taking the test. So, it’s a very, very competitive district. It’s not very diverse. (Lisa Interview)

This highly competitive environment affected the students’ academic motivation and Lisa’s teaching practice. The students’ motivation for success was clearly visible in the majority of her students’ classroom actions. As Lisa described: And you will notice here that if you give a test back, and it’s out of 30 points, and they get a 28 out of 30, calculators, everyone rips out their calculators. Everyone needs to know, “Miss Reynolds, what percentage is that?!” “I don’t know. I don’t care what percentage it is. You got a 28 out of 30. Pretty good as far as I’m concerned.” (Lisa Interview)

Lisa’s school community encouraged her to continually promote students’ success on their SAT and Advanced Placement (AP) tests. She described one of these study strategies in the following way: We have a word of the day because we push the SATs big time. Every day we have a word of the day. It goes up on the board with a definition and people are encouraged to use it in class. I usually don’t, but we’re encouraged to use it. (Lisa Interview)

To further encourage students’ academic success, each classroom at Franklin High School contained a maximum of 24 students, to promote a learning environment with a high student-to-teacher ratio. In her biology classes, Lisa described her efforts to bring about students’ active participation in the lessons: I don’t lecture, there is no such thing. Notes are really kept to a bare minimum, when they do take notes its like I do jigsaws, where a group is an expert on something and the kids are taking notes from the other kids. They have a really hard [time] with retention, so we do lots of drawings and putting them up on the wall. I honestly find that they [school administration] want to see you do anything that you want to do that’s effective for those kids. I mean, I whip around my classrooms like no other. I have so much technology at my fingers, I have a smart board and the kids are doing flex cam up on the board. And that’s encouraged, but I’m doing that at the same time as half the kids are working on the computers doing a lab and half the kids are at the microscopes and then they switch. (Lisa Interview)

Lisa identified the technology resources that she could incorporate into her teaching repertoire. Franklin High School’s and the district’s continued emphasis on high student academic achievement on SAT and AP assessments characterized a significant structure within Lisa’s first year of teaching high-school biology. Moreover, the resources that the school provided Lisa, namely, those in the form of technology, encouraged her to motivate students to continue to expand their scientific knowledge, ideally aiding their performances on standardized assessments. Lisa described her teaching relationships with her science department members as follows: I think it is a very well supported environment here. I think that the teachers are supported in their requests for what they want to do in a classroom by [the] administration, by the community, by teachers in the department. I want[ed] to take my environmental kids out to a stream to do a macro invertebrate section, and it’s not something that I’ve ever done before.

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I asked one of the other teachers, Francis, if he would go with me so we could do it together. He was like “No problem, when do you want to go?” And that’s not something we could do during school. That’s an after school, on your own time kind of thing, you know, for us to do. I mean, I’ll do it during school with the kids, but that’s something that he didn’t have to do. I mean everyone’s ideas are supported. (Lisa Interview)

The presence of such a stable support system provided Lisa with resources, both human and material, that she chose to utilize in addressing the curricular demands of her biology courses. However, Lisa identified difficulties preparing weekly laboratories, stating that: The biggest change from student teaching and all my high school years to now is we have a required lab every week. So, we have six periods a week, we have five single periods and then once a week we have a double period and we are supposed to be doing a real lab. And that is my biggest challenge because I don’t have anything to do. It’s slim what I have to pick from, but we have done a lot of coplanning, thank goodness—with the three other people that teach CP (college preparation) bio[logy] to set up the labs. We all meet and we all decide what we’re going to’ do. We rotate in a forming cycle, whose going to’ prep and whose going to’ clean up, and whose going to’ write the lab...which finally got put together, by my push, because I couldn’t do the labs by myself. (Lisa Interview)

Lisa’s “push” for collaboration amongst the four biology teachers regarding their weekly lab requirements displayed her need for activities and teaching strategies that would supplement those already present in her teaching repertoire. In addition, she used the supportive nature of the science department at Franklin High School to implement the practice of coplanning, amongst her fellow biology teachers. During her first year of teaching, Lisa identified her personal need for collaboration to cope with teaching weekly lab in her college preparation biology class. Lisa encouraged her fellow biology teachers to identify a time in which they could meet and discuss laboratory activity ideas. She described the steps she took to integrate coplanning into her fellow biology teacher’s regular course of teaching practices. There was [no coteaching or coplanning] going on at my school and I struggled with it at the beginning.… I wanted it. I wanted the coplanning.… Not to the degree of Wednesday afternoons [where] we’re going to spend two hours … not like that. I wanted something; because I wrote what I wanted to do for the week, but I had no idea if that was good, if I was following the curriculum. I had no clue! Yeah, but timing, timing was a real struggle, because [with] coplanning we were like, “you do this and this and this, this day, and at the end of this you’re done.” And there wasn’t, I was all on my own, I was on my own planet of “just do it.” So I would write my lesson plans and then show it to someone and eventually the four of us realized that we really needed to communicate more because we come up with labs and the lab for this week is supposed to be cell differentiation. Well, I’m up to that, but some people are two weeks ahead and some people are two weeks behind because there was not communication. I said “even if we’re doing this on email, why can’t we spend ten minutes before a faculty meeting just throwing around, ‘What are you doing this week? What are you getting up to?’ so we can plan for the next week.” and it worked. It’s gone so much better since I did [suggested the need to coplan] between the four of us that are teaching the same subject. (Lisa Interview)

Lisa addressed her self-identified need for feedback on her teaching and planning practices through coplanning. Through these interactions, Lisa accessed human resources to refine her teaching practices.

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It usually ends up being Rosalind, Marie, and I, that’s it. [We] work on labs more than anything else, so that the three of us are doing the same lab every week. Like that corn lab. We’re all doing that lab. So we all took pieces like, writing it up, analyzing the questions, are they appropriate questions, what do we need for set up, clean up, you know, that kind of stuff. In terms of day-to-day stuff, we share our resources, but we don’t really sit down and write lesson plans as a group. More for labs than for anything else. (Lisa Interview)

Lisa further identified how their coplanning practice enabled each participating teacher to share their material resources with one another. Lisa specifically identified her sharing of the resources that she gained from coteaching with Anne, one of her cooperating teachers. I’m more of the type of “Can I go in your drawer and pull out what you have for this topic?” And they’re more than willing to do that. If I come up with something, like a lot of Anne’s worksheets, they don’t have, and I’ll photocopy them and give them. And they’ve used a lot of those diagrams because they’re clear. (Lisa Interview)

In addition, this practice of sharing the resources that she had acquired during student teaching enabled Lisa to address her school’s emphasis on aiding students’ academic achievement through innovative, technology-based teaching strategies by communicating with her fellow teachers about their teaching strategies and the materials they used in their classes. Lisa enacted her teaching agency by initiating the practice of coplanning with her fellow biology teachers at Franklin High School. These informal coplanning meetings typically occurred after school, before and/or after departmental meetings, or via email. During these meetings, Lisa, Rosalind, and Marie primarily discussed their thoughts concerning the laboratory activities that they were teaching each week, but they also shared their various teaching experiences of the week, as well as different activities and teaching methods that they were implementing in their courses. Over the course of the school year, the coplanning practice became a regular component of their teaching practices, ultimately allowing Lisa, Rosalind, and Marie to collaboratively develop their teaching repertoires. The emergence of coplanning resulted from Lisa’s self-identified need for feedback concerning her teaching and planning practices, as well as her teaching peers’ decisions to continually share their teaching experiences and advice one another. Ultimately, Lisa’s collaborative efforts, as well as the resources that she garnered during student and first-year teaching environments, enabled her to integrate and sustain the practice of coplanning for herself, Rosalind, and Marie. By acknowledging one another’s teaching strengths and experiences, Lisa and her fellow biology teachers collaboratively cogenerated valuable resources to address their required laboratory teaching and planning needs, as well as their school’s concern for innovative teaching practices, the use of technology in lessons, and students’ continued motivation to achieve academic excellence in SAT, AP, and course assessments.

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12.4.6 Contradiction Lisa chose not to collaborate with her mentor teacher. She identified her mentor’s lack of coresponsibility and corespect regarding their regular monthly mentoring meetings as a major impasse. As a result, Lisa planned her biology curricula with her other biology teachers with whom she had corespect and coresponsibility for student learning. Similar to the outcomes during student teaching, a teacher’s lack of time or willingness to commit time to coplanning eroded the respect they may have garnered from coteachers (Scantlebury 2005).

12.5 Cross-Case Discussion/Analysis An examination of the first-year teaching experiences of Jaime, Pat, and Lisa showed that all the three beginning teachers actively engaged in collaboration with colleagues as a means to improve their teaching. None of them reported the isolation and frustration that the first-year teachers experienced (Kagan 1992; Meister and Jenks 2000; Veenman 1984). Lisa’s teaching began in this vein, but she quickly acted to engage other biology teachers into a coplanning experience that assisted her in managing the curriculum. Jaime and Pat used the professional development time to establish a network of collaborators. For Pat, these other teachers taught chemistry in other high schools, but he used their expertise via electronic avenues to cope with the stresses associated with the first year of teaching. Jaime, like Lisa, established a coplanning group at her school. Jaime, Lisa, and their fellow participating teachers shared their ideas and difficulties associated with teaching within their particular teaching environments. Within their first-year teaching settings, these collaborative planning meetings fostered an environment of sharing and respect amongst the participating teachers. Through their conversations, coplanning participants were afforded resources to further develop their course curricula, as well as employ content-specific instructional strategies for their classes. Thus, Jaime’s and Lisa’s choice to collaborate with their teaching colleagues generated a teaching practice that both themselves and their coplanning associates could continue to utilize throughout the course of their respective first-year teachings. Jaime, Pat, and Lisa addressed their needs regarding curriculum development, planning, and the development of classroom instructional procedures through their use of collaboration. Jaime’s and Lisa’s coplanning practices enabled them to obtain the necessary resources to plan their course curricula, as well as develop teaching strategies attuned to their specific classes’ learning needs. Pat’s collaboration with his science department, chemistry teachers throughout the county, and unofficial mentors provided him with a plethora of human resources. These individuals

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provided Pat with advice and ideas about how to plan his chemistry courses, as well as instructional strategies that he applied within his chemistry classes. Each first-year teacher responded differently to classroom management. In conjunction with his science department’s emphasis on addressing students’ academic and personal needs, Pat communicated with his students and provided support for both their curricular and extracurricular activities. From the social capital that he accrued among his students within and outside of his classes, Pat’s perception was that he dealt with discipline problems before they escalated. Jaime identified distinct differences between classroom management techniques that she employed during her coteaching experiences at Biden High School and those during her first year of teaching at Mendel Middle School. She described the students’ age difference as the critical factor affecting how she employed various management techniques. While she initially identified difficulties with classroom management, she did not specifically mention how she addressed the managerial requirements, but described managerial strategies that she would be using at the start of her second school year. These strategies emphasized the use direct instruction to curtail her middle school students’ disruptive behaviors. Lisa described classroom management as a minimal issue at her high school by identifying that the school was not a dangerous environment. Although she noted that her classroom management techniques could be improved upon, her school’s cultural expectations for academic excellence appeared to influence her teaching focus. Thus, owing to the combination of her school’s relatively “safe” environment and the expectation for students’ high performance on both SAT and AP assessments, as well as on their coursework, classroom management was not a major concern for Lisa. Students who were off-task during her lessons often talked quietly among themselves and did not typically disrupt the lesson.

12.6 Conclusions The data showed that each teacher acted agentically to collaborate with their colleagues as a strategy to deal with the typical challenges faced by first-year teachers. Through their collaborative efforts, Jaime, Pat, and Lisa constructed and applied various forms of capital to establish specific social networks within their respective school communities. While each got engaged in collaborative actions specifically attuned to their first-year teaching environments, all the three of these first-year teachers generated resources through their collaborative efforts as a means to improve their teaching practices. These resources/collaborations were a function of the first-year teachers’ self-reflection of their teaching practice and the subsequent discussion with other teaching professionals within their teaching environments. In addition, the beginning teachers’ collaborative practices were supported by their appropriation of the concepts of corespect and coresponsibility, the latter being the central component of the coteaching model of teacher preparation.

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Moreover, their use of the specific forms of capital previously identified and membership as active members of their teaching communities enabled them to engage in these collaborative practices. In addition, the lack of access to resources that Jaime, Pat, and Lisa encountered, as well as their personal motivations to improve upon their teaching practices, encouraged them to enact their teaching agencies. These teachers’ choices to apply their knowledge of collaboration functioned to generate resources to address their teaching needs within their individual teaching environments. Thus, the structural modifications of their first-year teaching environments, in the forms of Jaime’s and Lisa’s establishment of coplanning as a sustained planning practice amongst their teaching peers, as well as Pat’s impacts on the increased student enrollment for chemistry courses, reflected that they expected to collaborate with other teachers rather than remain isolated while teaching their classes. From their participation in coteaching during their teacher preparation, Jaime, Pat, and Lisa gained experiences and resources that aided in their transition from pre-service to in-service teachers. As these data illustrate, the coteaching model’s use of collaboration as a method for improving teaching practice was evidenced in these three beginning teachers’ agencies in their new high school. The first-year teachers’ use of collaboration as a means to support their practice demonstrates the program’s ability to support the transition of new teachers from teacher education programs to their own classrooms. Coteaching as a model of teacher preparation helps to alleviate the disconnect between pre-service teachers’ conceptions of their teaching identities as student teachers with their experiences during their student-teaching practicum (Britzman 2003). Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon (1998) identify that the difficulties associated with the transition period between pre-service and in-service teaching can be countered “when close collaboration exists between players in student teaching” (p. 152). Coteaching positions student teachers and cooperating teachers to link theory and practice through the critical analysis of their teaching and learning practices (Roth and Tobin 2002). The coteaching model’s emphasis on self-reflective practice assists these beginning teachers’ choice to engage in a collaborative community in which they could share their thoughts and personal reflections about their teaching practices.

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Chapter 13

Changing Lives: Coteaching Immigrant Students in a Middle School Science Classroom Bhaskar Upadhyay and Adrienne Gifford

13.1 Introduction Ann: I had never taught science to Hmong students and teaching Hmong students is just so tough because they don’t understand me and I don’t understand them.… Students have nice ideas, but I can’t get to use in class because some of their views don’t match with science.… I needed another person to be by my side to teach science and Chue has been a great asset to me and the students.… I couldn’t have gotten a better resource to teach my students science so they [students] feel comfortable to do and talk science. Ann: Chue has transformed my views about teaching science to minority [and] Hmong students and I think students’ views about why science is important for their future lives has changed too. Hmong students are more willing to speak their minds since Chue and I are coteaching.… Sometimes the problem is Chue is not a science teacher and he seems to be baffled by why I always [stressed] need to do inquiry science with students who don’t know what inquiry learning is. This is a challenge to me as a science teacher.

The two comments from Ann indicate that one way to engage minority students in science is through the process of coteaching. Ann is dealing with recent immigrant as well as first-generation Hmong students. Her struggle to understand Hmong students and their ways of learning science clearly shows the problems that many White teachers face in a classroom of minority students. Ann’s desire to work with Chue to help her teach science to Hmong students indicates that she is seeing coteaching as a positive approach to engaging her students in learning science. For Ann, coteaching not only creates a good teaching environment but also provides a learning environment where students feel empowered and engaged. Additionally, as Chue is a Hmong who is fluent in English and Hmong languages and is knowledgeable about Hmong socio-cultural practices, Ann can rely on him to bring his unique knowledge into the classroom to support science teaching and learning. Ann’s comments also indicate to us that coteaching with a coteacher who is deeply knowledgeable about the immigrant students’ cultural and social practices helps to connect science with students’ life experiences. However, coteaching is not without challenges and coteachers have to negotiate those challenges as they seek to implement coteaching in the classroom. For example, Chue believes that Ann should tell the students to memorize all the science facts first and engage them in science experiments

C. Murphy and K. Scantlebury (eds.), Coteaching in International Contexts: Research and Practice, Cultural Studies of Science Education, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3707-7_13, © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2010

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later so that Hmong students learn science “facts [that] are important to do science experiments correctly.” However, in Ann’s view, good science teaching combines hands-on science with science content: “There is no separation between learning science content and doing science activities.” There is increasing interest among science teachers in addressing the needs of students from diverse social, cultural, and linguistic groups. To better teach science to immigrant and domestic minority students, teachers not only need science resources but also cultural and social resources. Cultural, social, and linguistic resources are integral parts of effective science teaching practices, and coteaching can be a way to attain those resources. When students see their social, cultural, and linguistic knowledge connected to science, they are more eager to understand and learn science. Therefore, this chapter aims to demonstrate how coteaching by Ann and Chue aided in creating a science classroom environment that promoted science-related interactions and learning in immigrant Hmong students. Additionally, we show how coteaching generated an empowering science experience for Hmong students and decreased the language barriers to learning science. We also describe the challenges that must be negotiated to make coteaching effective in a classroom where one of the teachers is not a science teacher. We present our findings from an in-depth qualitative study of an urban middle school science classroom, cotaught by two teachers. First, we reason why coteaching may be necessary in the United States, based on student demographics, as classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse. Second, we discuss the theoretical frameworks of critical pedagogy and coteaching that directed our data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Third, we present the findings of the study. Finally, we discuss the findings and implications for teachers who want to coteach in schools that primarily serve minority students.

13.2 Student Diversity: A Reason for Coteaching The US Census Bureau in its 2008 report on school enrolment reported that in 2006, more than 21% of the children in the United States had at least one foreign-born parent. The report further indicated that 21% of the school-going children aged 3 years and over spoke a language other than English. In addition, more than 61% of the students are from a minority race or an ethnic group. The diversity in the student population is accelerating, and by 2050, one in five Americans will be an immigrant. Yet, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES 2007) in 2004, only 17% of the full-time teachers (all subjects) represented the minority groups. The percentage of minority teachers in each of the science fields, biology, chemistry, and physics, rose very slightly between 1990 and 2002. In 2002, minority teachers represented about 10% of the total science teacher population in the United States. Additionally, in 2004, only 63% of the middle school teachers, grades 7–8, were certified to teach science (Council of Chief State School Officers

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[CCSSO] 2008). There are few science teachers from minority groups and even fewer teachers with a science degree teaching in schools with a high number of minority students (National Science Foundation [NSF] 2008). The inequity in science teacher quality affects the minority students’ learning of science because schools with a high number of minority students are more likely to be assigned out-of-field science teachers than in-field teachers. Additionally, a majority of immigrant students from non-White ethnic groups tend to attend schools with fewer qualified science teachers who are prepared to teach students from immigrant families. Inequity in science education tends to marginalize immigrants, such as the Hmong. Hmong in the United States are relocated from camps in Laos and Thailand. Many Hmong refugee children in Ann’s school attended refugee camp schools, where they learned some basic literacy and mathematics. For example, in Thailand, many Hmong children attended the Boarder Patrol Police Schools, where police officers taught them life-skill subjects, such as the Thai language, basic mathematics (numeracy), and health or life skills. The education was geared towards developing basic skills for living within the Thai society. After relocating to the United States, the adults received literacy or vocational training opportunities. Most of the adults and parents did not have formal education, and thus, they lacked fundamental information that would help them to deal with the schooling of their children in the United States (Thao 2003; Trueba et al. 1990). Additionally, Hmong adults could only get low-paying jobs as they lacked college degrees or formal education. As most Hmong tend to live in closely-knit communities, they tended to settle in poorer communities because of familial ties and low housing costs. The children from these families attend poor urban schools where most teachers were unfamiliar with Hmong socio-cultural beliefs and values. As Hmong are categorized as Asian, most teachers labeled them as academically “intelligent” students. This stereotyping has disadvantaged Hmong students because their learning difficulties were interpreted as disinterest in learning. Therefore, the students received behavioral punishment rather than learning support. The lack of minority science teachers and the increased diversity in the student population also requires science teachers to be aware of the students’ cultural and pedagogical differences. Many researchers of science education have advocated for culturally sensitive and critical pedagogy to support minority students’ learning of science (Bouillion and Gomez 2001; Tobin 2002). The interactions between culture and pedagogy are important, because students and teachers express both these factors in everyday lessons. However, there are still questions as to whether “culturally responsive pedagogy and curricula alone are powerful enough to ameliorate the effects of social stratification, racism, unequal resource distribution, and historical discrimination” (Carter and Goodwin 1994 p. 323). In this context, where teachers lack the knowledge to deal with minority and immigrant students, coteaching can aid science teachers to teach science effectively. Coteaching can not only help in bridging the cultural and social gap (Scantlebury 2005) between the minority students

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and mainstream teachers but can also create an environment conducive to active participation of students in learning science. In our work with Hmong and nonHmong immigrant students, we have observed that coteaching has enabled coteachers to utilize each other’s cultural and social capital during science lessons. For example, a Hmong coteacher can provide linguistic expertise so that a non-Hmong speaking teacher can teach science in a language that the Hmong students can understand. This helps to build students’ science cultural capital. Similarly, a coteacher can encourage students to seek help from their US-born peers, who are also from the same ethnic and racial groups, to engage in science activities and learn science. Additionally, having a coteacher from students’ racial group creates a greater possibility of building stronger social capital between the coteachers and the students. In this way, coteaching brings together numerous resources to aid in teaching science in a diverse classroom setting. Therefore, coteaching can be one way to make the science classroom inclusive and equitable to minority students. Many White teachers discount minority students’ rich and complex cultural, social, and linguistic knowledge, because they have little knowledge of how to integrate these resources into their teaching (Luykx and Lee 2007; Roth and Lee 2004). Research on recent immigrant students and their White teachers show that the White teachers are unable to deal with these students’ cultures and habits of learning (Chang and Rosiek 2003; Lewis and Doorlang 1991). To support minority and immigrant students in learning science, many researchers have documented that group work, cooperative learning, gender-specific teaching, and connected science instruction that relates science content with students’ cultural, social, and home environments (Upadhyay 2006), may be some beneficial instructional strategies. We believe that coteaching can facilitate in valuing and acknowledging immigrant and minority students’ knowledge, experiences, and ways of learning science.

13.2.1 Critical Pedagogy: Coteaching Science for Empowerment We draw upon Paulo Freire’s (1970, 1973) idea of critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy takes the view that learning should be an empowering and transformative experience for students and teachers (Freire 1970). In this chapter, we specifically focus on the idea of empowerment and transformative experiences for Hmong students, by studying Ann and Chue’s coteaching teaching practices, which connect science to Hmong students’ home experiences, values, and cooperative ways of learning science. Freire believed that critical pedagogy aids in the empowerment of minority students because it allows for a process of interaction between the students and teachers to solve problems of comprehension. In this sense, critical pedagogy acknowledges that children come to class with the knowledge that they gain from the outside world (students’ life experiences), and teachers need to honor and value that knowledge. Thus, coteachers can access and use students’ resources to teach science. For example, in a study on Hmong students in a biology class, Chang and Rosiek

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(2003) found that Hmong students seek a connection between scientific views and their spiritual views about sickness. The teacher used students’ cultural resources to engage her students in the study of science. Similarly, in a critical ethnographic study of Hmong families in a school setting, Hammond (2001, p. 994) found that when “minority people become participants in school settings, they begin to learn mainstream ways of operating and become bicultural.” In this case, teachers and parents successfully engaged in cultural interactions, where Hmong parents felt empowered to help the school. Critical pedagogy provides us with an analytical lens to understand how coteaching supports sensitivity to cultural diversity that enables a science teacher to integrate local environments and customs without challenging the fundamental ideas of science. Coteachers from students’ cultural and linguistic background can use local activities to help students understand science lessons, and incorporate local landscape features and flora and fauna as components of geological or biological sciences. When teachers make these connections between science and students’ home experiences, teachers “help students to become critical thinkers who have the knowledge, attitudes, skills and commitments needed to participate in democratic action” (Banks 1993). In addition, when teachers draw on local resources and knowledge to teach science, they not only help the students to learn science better but also assist in the acquisition of the language of science (Lemke 1990). Thus, in our effort to understand coteaching in a poor urban school with a large immigrant student population, we believe that critical pedagogy offers a construct to understand coteachers’ actions in a science classroom as they try to implement coteaching.

13.3 Coteaching: Fusing Multiple Resources to Teach Empowering and Transformative Science Coteaching entails two or more teachers engaged in teaching and learning together, having equal stakes in students’ learning, classroom assignments, and shared responsibilities to support students’ learning (Roth and Tobin 2002). Additionally, coteaching provides extra human resources to teach content in classrooms where content experts may not be easily available (Gleason et al. 2006; Murphy and Beggs 2005). Results from these studies indicate an increase in positive attitudes towards science among the students. One important contribution of coteaching is how it lends itself to the implementation of culturally relevant curricula in urban schools that serve the students from diverse cultural and ethnic groups (Tobin et al. 2001). We further argue that for many mainstream teachers who teach students from poor and minority families, a coteacher who is knowledgeable about the students’ cultural, social, and linguistic backgrounds brings valuable and practical resources that mainstream teachers can use to teach. We believe that since coteaching values science content as well as students’ socio-cultural knowledge, it is more powerful and effective in sustaining interest in students to learn science. Thus, coteaching can

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help to expand the teaching and learning resources of teachers and students (Roth et al. 2004) at the content as well as the cultural level. These teaching and learning resources are the key knowledge sources that students continuously draw upon to learn and attain new sets of knowledge and skills. For example, Hvitfeldt’s (1986) study on Hmong learning patterns showed that cultural variables influenced classroom interaction patterns, preferred modes of learning, and concept acquisition. Similarly, Thao (2003) discovered negative learning experiences among Hmong elementary students because non-Hmong teachers failed to connect Hmong experiences with the subject matter. Thus, coteaching can aid in minimizing the disconnects of language, race, and culture between the minority students and mainstream teachers (Roth et  al. 2002) and subsequently help to bridge the gap between students’ and teachers’ diverse experiences. An important aspect of any effective coteaching is the practice of cogenerative dialogues between the coteachers. Cogenerative dialogues facilitate the infusion of resources from varied sources to improve teaching practice (Tobin and Roth 2006). Additionally, as cogenerative dialogues value constructive voices from coteachers and students alike, there is a strong sense of equity among all the stakeholders in the teaching and learning of science. Most of the empirical works on coteaching are related to preservice teacher education programs, in which most of the teachers were White (Murphy and Beggs 2005; Tobin 2006). On the other hand, only few researches on coteaching have investigated how coteaching impacts immigrant and language minority students’ learning of science. Therefore, this study attempts to fill the gap in coteaching research related to immigrant and language minority students’ learning of science in a poor urban classroom setting.

13.4 Methodology and Data Sources We conducted an ethnographic study to investigate how coteaching supported science learning in a poor public school, where the student body was primarily composed of Hmong students from recent immigrant families. The chapter describes how two teachers enacted coteaching in a science classroom and in what ways their coteaching was empowering and supportive to Hmong students’ learning and participation in science activities. Our data collection entailed videotaping of science lessons, audio taping of interviews with Ann and Chue, audiotaping of informal conversations with students, and field notes. Our interviews with Ann and Chue were semi-structured so as to reveal how they viewed coteaching in general, and how they viewed coteaching as beneficial to students. Our questions were based on our observations of the class and study of the videotaped lessons. We observed 12 science lessons that were cotaught by Ann and Chue over the course of the 2006–2007 academic year. We also observed 16 science lessons when Ann was not coteaching, because we wanted to document the differences in students’ participation when Chue was absent from the class.

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We videotaped eight science lessons cotaught by Ann and Chue. We audiotaped three conversations between them after they had cotaught lessons on pollution and health, because these content areas have a greater potential to show how coteaching helps to fuse science content and students’ linguistic and cultural knowledge. We audiotaped two occasions when Ann and Chue met to talk about science lessons before coteaching. We also audiotaped students’ informal science talks during science activities, and their comments during and after the science lessons. We were particularly keen on documenting students’ comments about the usage of Hmong language and their life experiences during science activities and small group or whole-class discussions. In these instances, we carefully documented how Ann and Chue used their own knowledge from everyday experiences during science lessons.

13.4.1 Methods of Analysis We used grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) to analyze the data. We developed themes and categories from interviews, classroom videotapes, field notes, and observation data. We also took note of contradictions and coherences during analysis (Sewell 1999). The data analysis was an ongoing and iterative process. We triangulated the data from various sources and participants. The following are the themes and categories that emerged from the data.

13.5 Findings of the Study 13.5.1 Participatory Science: Connecting Language and Experiences Through Coteaching Our observations of Ann and Chue’s coteaching of science lessons showed numerous occasions of culturally responsive pedagogy (Ladson-Billings 1995) and empowering science experiences for Hmong students. Whenever possible, the teachers incorporated students’ knowledge and experiences from various sources, such as family, friends, community, and mass media (e.g., television) in science lessons. For example, while teaching about the impact of environmental pollution, Ann wanted students to investigate which of the given materials or chemicals would best help remove an oil spill from the sea and seashore. Since Ann knew that many Hmong students did not have any experience with the sea and seashore, she asked Chue to be a part of the planning process. In addition, Ann requested Chue to actively participate in the experiment. During planning, Chue suggested that instead of color dyes and other chemicals, Ann should use some everyday materials readily available in Hmong homes. Using Hmong students’ knowledge from home would excite them to actively

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participate in the activity as well as classroom discussions. Chue suggested that Ann should use vegetable oil as a pollutant and turmeric to color the oil yellow so that the oil was easier to see when poured into water. Turmeric mixes well with oil, because it’s an organic substance. Chue also explained to Ann that many Hmong elders use turmeric as food coloring. In addition, Hmong families harvest turmeric in their family gardens. Ann found Chue’s idea relevant and appropriate for teaching the concept of pollution because turmeric is a natural and organic substance. Similarly, Ann and Chue agreed that students would present their findings to the class. During this activity, the students were given vegetable oil, turmeric, water, sand, and a tray. The students poured water into the tray and added sand at one end of the tray. The water replicated sea and the sand, the seashore. The students used turmeric to color the oil yellow because yellow oil is easier to see in the water and on sand. The students used paper towels, a piece of cotton, soap, alcohol, and wheat flour as pollutant-removing agents. During the activity, we heard Hmong students, who were working in small groups, discussing their experiences of using soap to wash greasy pots and pans and clothes. In some groups, the girls discussed how they used flour to clean greasy pots and pans, because flour absorbs grease and helps clean oily containers. In one group comprising two White and two Hmong girls, there was a discussion about what the yellow powder was called and why could not they use a yellow coloring like the one they used in their arts class. During the group discussion, the Hmong girls were able to help the rest of the group members understand what turmeric was and why turmeric was a good coloring agent for this experiment. Mary: Pa: Mary: Pa: Mary: Pa:

What is this yellow powder? Turmeric (Turmeric). It’s root of a plant. Looks like ginger root. You have seen ginger in (grocery) stores? Makes things yellow like yellow watercolour. Can’t we use yellow coloring like that art color? Art color not mix in oil. Turmeric (turmeric) mix better. [Pa mixes the turmeric with oil successfully.] See. How do you know? You are good. I know from home. We use lot.

Pa was successful in describing why an organic substance like turmeric would mix well in oil (an organic substance), but oil would not mix well with water-based dye. Even though Pa did not know the scientific reason why turmeric would mix well in oil, she knew that oil would not mix with watercolor. Pa’s knowledge about turmeric from home experiences assisted her peers to acquire new knowledge and understand science better. In addition, the peers empowered Pa through complimentary acknowledgments and by valuing her knowledge. As one of the groups was presenting the findings from their activity, a Hmong student asked about cornstarch. Ann asked the students if they knew what cornstarch was. Chue followed Ann’s question by asking if anyone knew what pobkws (corn/maize) was. Hmong students nodded in the affirmative that they knew pobkws. Chue asked if anyone knew an English word for pobkws. After a short conversation about pobkws, Ann pointed out that cornstarch is made from corn. After a slight pause from Ann, Chue explained that maize is called corn in America.

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This was an important information to many recently immigrated Hmong students because they grew up knowing pobkws as maize in English. Xu (boy): What is cornstarch? Vang (girl): I don’t know. Ann: Check it with your fingers. [Students take some cornstarch and feel it.] Chue: What is pobkws? Pa: Maize. Sai (boy): What is... [tries to make a sentence and recall the name cornstarch]. Pa: Cornstarch? Sai: Yes. Vang: This flour (pointing to cornstarch) is made from maize. Jimmy: Corn…. Sai: Corn and maize same. [She points to the picture of corn cob on the corn starch box and calls it maize.] Chue: Maize. In America maize is corn. Pobkws (corn/maize). Lin: It is like Hmoov mog (wheat flour)? Vang: Yes. Ann: Check if cornstarch and flour are similar. Lin: I know flour can soak lot of oil. [In] cooking use lot of oil to fry (battered) vegetables… Xu: Yes. Cornstarch can clean oil.

Students were very much engaged in discussions facilitated by Chue and Ann. Chue helped the students to use their home experiences to understand science. Chue was allowing Hmong students to connect science and knowledge from home through examples related to Hmong students’ life experiences. Ann and Chue were encouraging students to help each other in learning new vocabulary as well as developing a sense of equal partnership in learning science. The interactions between the students, Ann, and Chue unfolded seamlessly. Ann and Chue knew who spoke at which point, and Ann and Chue each seamlessly led the class discussions without problem. In this instance, Chue was taking the lead in connecting Hmong students’ knowledge with science, while Ann was writing students’ responses on the board for all to copy – she was directing students to learn from classroom experience. Thus, coteaching is the utilizing of multiple resources from multiple sources to support science learning.

13.6 Connecting Spirituality and Science: Valuing Students’ Ways of Knowing Through Coteaching Ann understood that most Hmong students in her class had limited facility with the English language. Therefore, she needed to integrate Hmong ways of expressing and learning with science knowledge. As Ann and Chue coplanned for the lesson, they talked about bringing in the health consequences of pollution. They particularly wanted to incorporate the health hazards of polluted water, because the lesson was on pollution of the sea and many Hmong students and families had lived through waterborne diseases during their stay in various refugee camps in Thailand and

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Laos. Chue explained to Ann that Hmong students, especially those who are recent immigrants, are very conscious about the spirit. For Hmong, the idea of spirit is very personal and it is an important part of who they are as Hmong. Spirit and spirituality are the part and parcel of their everyday living and being. For example, Chue commented during the lesson planning that spirituality is so much ingrained in Hmong life that everything done or learned somehow connects to the spirit: We [Hmong] see spirit in all the things that we do in our everyday lives. Hmong are very connected to gardening and the food that comes from a Hmong garden. We view that gardening connects us to the spirit, and the food that we get from our gardens not only embodies good health but also a spiritual connection to the nature and what we do.

Thus, Chue is keen to help Ann ensure that the students learn science by helping her connect science to the students’ core value of being Hmong. Chue understood that a disconnect between science and students’ cultural identity would only make science teaching and learning difficult for both the teachers and the students. During the lesson, Chue gave examples of waterborne diseases such as dysentery, skin rashes, and stomach bugs to demonstrate how pollution can affect health. Students shared their experiences of suffering from these illnesses when they were in the refugee camps in Thailand. In addition, Chue mentioned that sometimes chemicals from factories can pollute water and cause serious illnesses. At this moment Chue was looking for a recent example. Ann immediately added that decades of chemical disposal from a 3M® plant polluted well water near a city and may be responsible for serious health problems such as cancer. Ann talked about how cancer is a disease that is difficult to cure and the unavailability of actual treatments for it. Students then went to their groups and talked about how pollution and health were related. In one group, a student mentioned to Chue that his family talked about diseases and that people suffer from serious diseases because of bad spirit. Chue asked other students in the group if they believed that spirit caused serious diseases. Most students agreed. Chue then asked Ann to explain to the group how science explains natural phenomena such as the cause of cancer. Ann described how in science the idea of theory is used to explain why something – such as cancer, tornado, or earthquake – happens. For example, science uses a germ theory, which proposes that microorganisms such as bacteria are the cause of many diseases. Ann further added that in science, there may be more than one theory to explain similar phenomena. However, Chue interjected that Hmong believe that spirit causes illnesses. Ann then added that the theory of spirit is one that cannot be tested or changed. For Ann, the idea that theories can change was an important distinction between spirit and scientific theory. The students agreed that their parents and grandparents mention spirit to explain why someone is ill. Pao: Chue: Pao: Chue: Ann: Lee: Chue:

My parents always say people get sick because of Ua Dab. Do they use different reason for sickness? No. Anyone? Do you think your parents say some kind of germ makes you sick? No. They say spirit is making us sick. How do you get not sick?

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When spirit is happy. Spirit get you sick and spirit make you not sick [well]. What do you do in science? More reasons, like germ, virus. Science has more than one theory to explain why people get sick.

Ann and Chue worked together to explain to the students why and how the ideas of spirit and theory are similar and also different. Ann and Chue did not tell the students that their way of reasoning is not valued. Ann and Chue instead valued the students’ ways of understanding nature to explain scientific ways of understanding the world. Coteaching allowed Ann and Chue to use their respective strengths to help Hmong students understand the concept of theory. For Ann, this was a revealing and satisfying moment of coteaching, because she was able to acknowledge a minority group’s knowledge to teach a scientific view. According to Ann, without Chue’s help, she would have dismissed Hmong students’ explanations of spirit and told them to learn scientific ways of knowing. After this class, Ann and Chue reflected on the lesson. During their reflective cogenerative dialogues (Scantlebury et  al. 2008), Ann and Chue discussed the importance of fusing examples from Hmong students’ experiences into the lessons. Ann believed that she would not have thought of using materials like turmeric and flour in the activity relating to pollution and pollution-cleaning materials. Ann also wondered if she would have valued Hmong students’ knowledge, if she were not coteaching with Chue. For Chue, coteaching provided an opportunity to support Hmong students in science learning. Additionally, Chue felt responsible to be a part of Ann’s science lessons, because he understood that excelling in science would increase Hmong students’ chances of getting better education. He was also committed to being a cultural liaison for Ann because she did not know Hmong cultural and social habits. Chue was encouraged that Ann was passionate about teaching science to Hmong students, despite their limited knowledge of basic scientific skills, such as observation and measurement. Ann and Chue showed respect for each other’s knowledge and expertise. Ann respected Chue’s language and knowledge of Hmong culture and Chue respected Ann’s desire to teach science to Hmong students. Chue: I am very excited to help Ann to teach science effectively to Hmong students. I don’t have to know all the things to help her teach science. We always talk about how to improve the lesson next time. I try to bring cultural and linguistic support and Ann brings her science expertise. I’m inspired by her willingness to engage students through what they know. Ann: We work to give Hmong students multiple resources to learn science. Chue gives them language and examples that they know. I give them science content. Working with Chue has been a learning experience for me too.

Ann and Chue both respect each other’s expertise and the value that each of them brings to science teaching and to the learning experiences of teachers and students. Both take the responsibility to support minority students in learning science, and agree that they are accountable to make science learning enjoyable and valuable for them. Ann and Chue also believe that they need to work to make science relevant to Hmong students’ life experiences. Connected science empowers students and they may view science as useful to their lives.

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13.6.1 From Quiet Students to Talkative Students: Engaged in Science Activities Through Coteaching Because of language and cultural difficulties, many Hmong students are quiet in science classes. However, when they get to talk with Hmong friends, they are quite conversant. Additionally, Hmong students are more willing to participate in smallgroup activities than in large-class discussions. Therefore, Ann and Chue employed a “lead and support” coteaching model to help recent immigrant Hmong students become comfortable and learn new ways of learning science, such as hands-on and inquiry-based models. Her coteaching with Chue benefited Ann’s students in many ways, both academically and socially. For many months, Ann took the main role in instructing the class, and Chue translated important points and retold parts of the lesson in Hmong. When students worked in their lab groups, Chue worked with them in small groups or with individual students to support them in their learning of science content and concepts. Most importantly, Chue spoke the native language of Hmong students and could translate many of the concepts that Ann taught and the safety instructions that she provided in a language that the students could understand. Additionally, when the students worked together in lab groups and communicated with each other in Hmong, Chue could translate those conversations to Ann so that she could better assess the students’ science understanding. Chue also shared a common native culture with the students. Because of this, he was able to bring in background knowledge and common experiences that could tie the science curriculum to students’ home lives. Ann believed that coteaching with Chue allowed “even her lowest English language learners to be exposed to the science content.” According to Chue, many teachers believe that Hmong students create few behavioral problems in class, because they adhere to mainstream expectations such as sitting quietly in class. Additionally, Chue thinks that being quiet in class has nothing to do with Hmong students’ learning abilities. Therefore, in Ann’s class, Chue encouraged her to implement teaching methods that supported Hmong students’ participation and discussion. To this end, Ann and Chue designed small group activities and group presentations that valued all students’ contribution and did not put only one student in the spotlight. Creating this kind of learning environment was conducive to learning, as Ann and Chue noticed that students showed more participatory and conversant behavior in science classes. Ann noticed several positive changes in her students’ classroom behavior after Chue and she began coteaching. Ann: Many of my students who are recent immigrants are generally very quiet and passive during class. But when Chue is coteaching with me, these students become much more active and involved in their lab groups. Some students who generally never raise their hands in class have begun contributing to class discussions when Chue is in the room.

Clearly, students in Ann’s class are becoming increasingly comfortable asking questions about the science content or lab directions when Chue is in the room. Furthermore, Ann noticed the increased level of comfort and confidence in her

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students carrying over to other lessons, even when she was not coteaching with Chue. Ann believes that without coteaching, she would not have been able to engage Hmong students in science conversations. She also believes that Chue’s Hmong ethnicity further added to her success in developing scientific habits, such as critical thinking, questioning, and communication of science activities, in her students. According to Ann, Hmong students moved “from being quiet to talkative in science.” One student’s comment about her learning experiences in the cotaught class shows the students’ enthusiasm for learning science: “We want to be in small groups all time and do experiments. We understand [science] in Hmong. Friends good in science help us understand science in group and sometime large group.” Many students showed similar sentiments about their learning experiences in Ann’s class. Despite these kinds of reactions from the students, Ann sometimes wondered if Hmong students were learning science or copying from their abler friends. During her early teaching experiences at this school, Ann was frustrated that Hmong students would not do their assignments and class work on their own. Students who were more able academically would always help the rest of the Hmong students in the group. Coteaching with Chue helped Ann to understand that for her students sharing answers was not cheating, but supporting their peers in learning science. As sharing knowledge is an integral part of Hmong ways of learning, Ann’s science instructions and assignments are tailored to encourage students to show what they have learned. For example, during a science activity on mixtures, we observed each student being required to write a section of the lab report, and later, the whole group worked together to compile the report to present to the class. In this way, Ann assessed individual student’s understanding of science and also encouraged them to keep on working in groups. Thus, Chue and Ann employed cooperative learning techniques to teach science. Students who hesitated to participate in class in the beginning became more participatory in the small groups as well as in whole-class conversations. Ann: I’m amazed how much these three students talk and share their ideas in whole class contexts. Students are more willing to contest their peers’ answers and comments during discussions. Students also ask more questions to me, if they don’t understand something in science class.… Coteaching with Chue definitely helped students to see a White female teacher who would help them learn science in a U.S. classroom.

Coteaching was an indication to Hmong students that Ann was willing to support them in learning science. Students also viewed Ann as someone who respected and valued Hmong habits of learning because Chue and Ann were working together. Additionally, students believed that Ann was responsible for bringing Chue into the class as a teacher to help them learn science and enhance their schooling in the United States. Chue’s presence in Ann’s class motivated and built confidence in Hmong students to actively engage in science activities and discussions. Coteaching reduced learning anxiety in most of the students. Therefore, coteaching aided in encouraging students to be vocal and engaged in science classes. Furthermore, Ann noticed that students, who, before Chue’s arrival, had struggled to complete their assignments, were able to bring completed assignments. Many Hmong students who earlier would not even try to solve a problem or answer

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a difficult question in an assignment were attempting to solve the problems. Ann believes that without coteaching, students would not have felt comfortable attempting to solve the problems. One example of increased understanding of science was evidenced from the students’ improved scores in Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA). Ann believes that her students were able to do better in MCA tests because coteaching helped them understand science in their own language. Thus, with increased understanding of science concepts and related science content, Ann believed that students were able to solve the problems in the test easily “despite limited English language proficiency. Most of [Ann’s] students were able to understand and respond to knowledge based questions in the test.” Another example of improved scientific understanding was revealed by Hmong students’ ability to understand and utilize an energy simulation flowchart on the computer. Students were able to create their own concept maps showing how energy production and usage influenced various environmental and health-related issues. Students were also able to argue for and against certain kinds of energy sources, such as nuclear and coal energy. Additionally, during a discussion on how energy production and usage was related to pollution, many students were able to integrate the concepts of efficiency, power, energy conservation, and renewable and non-renewable energy. Some students responded both in English and in Hmong as they participated in this discussion. Thus, coteaching helped the students to learn science content and concepts and show improved achievement on standardized science tests.

13.7 Discussion and Implications As student diversity in schools increases, there is a greater need for increased diversity in the teaching population. However, there are currently few teachers who come from minority groups. In this climate, there is increased demand for a structure that augments teachers’ knowledge about their students’ cultural, linguistic, and social resources. One way to provide social and cultural capital and networks to enhance teachers’ agency is through coteaching and cogenerative dialogues (Tobin and Roth 2006). In our study, Ann and Chue complement each other’s weaknesses with their respective strengths. Ann has a good grasp of science content and science pedagogy, while Chue contributes his expertise in Hmong language and the social and cultural practices of Hmong people. Ann is able to engage Hmong students in science activities and discussions because Chue is able to provide the students with the necessary linguistic support to enable them to make sense of the science they are learning. Language plays an integral part in science learning because a language barrier can obstruct science and math learning (Orr 1987). Moreover, language may affect the “culture of power” dynamics in the classroom (Delpit 1995). This kind of barrier can deter students from participating in science conversations because they may feel insecure, disrespected, and unsafe to participate in class. In this study, Chue’s language support and Ann’s willingness to value

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students’ science learning in their own language encouraged the students to be active participants in the class. Thus, a shift from quiet and non-participatory behavior to more participatory and vocal behavior is an important positive outcome of coteaching. The analysis of our data indicates that as the recent immigrant students are still closely connected to their previous location, coteaching can provide a link that allows students to connect classroom science to their recent life experiences. In our study, Ann was able to connect Hmong students’ idea of spirit with the scientific idea of theory. Ann, as a science graduate and White teacher, could have dismissed and devalued Hmong students’ ways of understanding the world. She could have also ignored the importance of spirit on Hmong students’ lives. Instead, in this case, Ann was able to utilize students’ knowledge to teach an important scientific concept. Therefore, we believe that the purposes and goals of science education for students from recent immigrant and minority groups need to place a high priority to support students in learning science without devaluing their knowledge gained at home. The coexistence of opposing views is possible, if teachers can work in a coteaching structure where the coteachers feel that they are equally responsible (Feiman-Nemser 2001) for their students’ success. On many occasions, science teachers feel isolated when their students’ social and cultural norms are different from theirs. Teachers in that kind of environment may feel inadequate to help students in culturally appropriate ways. Thus, we believe that coteaching can disrupt the feeling of isolation and increase the agency of a coteacher. In this regard, our study indicates that coteaching is a valuable resource for teachers who have very little social and cultural capital and agency. For example, during the activity on water pollution, Chue was able to provide concrete and tangible resources to Ann so that she could design a science activity that valued and utilized students’ knowledge from home. The inclusion of familiar and locally available materials, such as turmeric, flour, and oil, enhanced the students’ participation in the activities as well as their commitment to learn science. In this case, coteaching helped the students to learn science that is meaningful to them. It also enhanced Ann’s cultural and social capital. Ann felt included in the activities and the conversations that the students had during this activity. Coteaching made this lesson less difficult and challenging for both Ann and the Hmong students. The larger impact of this kind of coteaching is that it can aid in reducing teacher burnout and teacher attrition rates in schools that serve immigrant, poor, and minority students. This study shows the importance of coteaching where the student body is largely composed of minority and immigrant students. Coteaching provides a framework for teaching and learning science, where multiple resources can be pooled. In addition, coteaching creates new knowledge for coteachers, which they can utilize in later teachings. Furthermore, with coteaching, students can get the support they need during lessons because of the availability of extra personnel. Thus, coteaching may be more effective than standard methods for teaching science to minority and immigrant students, because there is a greater chance of students receiving direct and one-to-one support during learning.

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References Banks, J. A. (1993). Multicultural education: Historical development, dimensions, and practice. Review of Research in Education, 19, 3–49. Bouillion, L. M. & Gomez, L. M. (2001). Connecting school and community with science learning: Real world problems and school-community partnerships as contextual scaffold. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38, 878–898. Carter, R. T. & Goodwin, A. L. (1994). Racial identity and education. Review of Research in Education, 20, 291–336. Chang, P. & Rosiek, J. (2003). Anti-colonial antinomies: A case of cultural conflict in the high school biology curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry, 33, 251–290. Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO]. (2008). State indicators of science and mathematics education 2007. Retrieved on December 12, 2008, from http://www.ccsso.org/content/ pdfs/SM%2007%20report%20part%201.pdf Delpit, L. (1995). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: The New Press. Feiman-Nemser, S. (2001). From preparation to practice: Designing a continuum to strengthen and sustain teaching. Teachers College Record, 103, 1013–1055. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. New York: Herder & Herder. Glaser, B. & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine. Gleason, S., Fennemore, M., & Scantlebury, K. (2006). Choreographing teaching: Coteaching with special education/inclusion teachers in science classrooms. In K. Tobin (Ed.), Teaching and learning science: A handbook (pp. 235–238). New York: Praeger. Hammond, L. (2001). An anthropological approach to urban science education for language minority families. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38, 983–999. Hvitfeldt, S. (1986). Traditional culture, perceptual style, and learning: The classroom behaviour of Hmong adults. Adult Education Quarterly, 36, 65–77. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 465–491. Lemke, J. L. (1990). Talking science: Language, learning and values. Norwood, MA: Ablex. Lewis, R. B. & Doorlang, D. H. (1991). Teaching special students in mainstream. New York: Macmillan. Luykx, A. & Lee, O. (2007). Science education and student diversity: Synthesis and research agenda. New York: Cambridge University Press. Murphy, C. & Beggs, J. (2005). Coteaching as an approach to enhance science learning and teaching in primary schools. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 207–231). New York: Peter Lang. National Center for Education Statistics [NCES]. (2007). The condition of education 2007. Retrieved on February 26, 2008, from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid = 2007064 National Science Foundation [NSF]. (2008). Science and engineering indicators 2008. Retrieved on February 4, 2008, from http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/c1/c1s4.htm Orr, W. E. (1987). Twice as less: Black English and the performance of black students in mathematics and science. New York: W.W. Norton. Roth, W.-M. & Lee, S. (2004). Science education as/for participation in the community. Science Education, 88(2), 263–291. Roth, W.-M. & Tobin, K. (2002). At the elbow of another: Learning to teach by coteaching. New York: Peter Lang. Roth, W.-M., Tobin, K., Carambo, C., & Dalland, C. (2004). Coteaching: Creating resources for learning and learning to teach chemistry in urban high schools. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 41, 882–904.

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Roth, W.-M., Tobin, K., & Zimmermann, A. (2002). Coteaching: Learning environments research as aspect of classroom praxis. Learning Environments Research, 5, 1–28. Scantlebury, K. (2005). Gender issues in coteaching. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), Teaching together, learning together (pp. 233–248). New York: Peter Lang. Scantlebury, K., Gallo-Fox, J., & Wassell, B. (2008). Coteaching as a model for preservice secondary science teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 967–981. Sewell, W. H. (1999). The concept(s) of culture. In V. E. Bonnell & L. Hunt (Eds.), Beyond the cultural turn: New directions in the study of society and culture (pp. 35–61). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Thao, J. Y. (2003). Empowering Hmong students: Home and school factors. The Urban Review, 35, 25–42. Tobin, K. (2002). Beyond the bold rhetoric of reform: (Re)Learning to teach science appropriately. In W.-M. Roth and J. Desautels. Science education as/for sociopolitical action (pp. 125–150). NY: Peter Lang Publishing. Tobin, K. (2006). Learning to teach through coteaching and cogenerative dialogue. Teaching Education, 17, 133–142. Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam: Sense Publishing. Tobin, K., Roth, W.-M., & Zimmermann, A. (2001). Learning to teach science in urban schools. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38, 941–964. Trueba, H., Jacbos, L., & Kirton, E. (1990). Cultural conflict and adaptation: The case of Hmong children in American society. New York: Falmer Press. US Census Bureau. (2008). School enrolment in the United States: 2006. Retrieved on September 26, 2008, from http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p20-559.pdf Upadhyay, B. (2006). Using students’ lived experiences in an urban science classroom: An elementary school teacher’s thinking. Science Education, 90, 94–110.

Chapter 14

Parents as Coteachers of Science and Technology in a Middle-School Classroom Linda-Dianne Willis and Stephen M. Ritchie

14.1 Introduction For almost four decades, attempts to enhance parental1 engagement in education have occupied governments, educators, and parent organizations globally (Desforges and Abouchaar 2003). Driving this trend has been the weight of research evidence that indicates a positive correlation between parental involvement in students’ learning and academic performance and school success (e.g., Henderson et  al. 2007). In addition, a high level of parent and community involvement has been found to characterize very effective or “good” schools: ones that achieve high standards irrespective of students’ socio-economic class, ethnic/racial background, or their parents’ level of education (Masters 2004). Nondeficit accounts of parent–school engagement such as inviting parents to participate in schools as curriculum partners and decision-makers are rare. Most studies of parent–school partnerships fail to consider the networks of individuals and resources that surround the scope, focus, and purpose of participation or the unique experiences that frame parents’ beliefs leading to further investment in schools (Delgado-Gaitan 1992). For such knowledge to be created, more detailed research into parent–school partnerships that foreground the voices of parents and teachers is required. In research into teaching science using coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing, collaborative classrooms appear to benefit students academically and socially while rewarding educators professionally (e.g., Roth and Tobin 2002). Roth and Tobin (2002) describe coteaching as two or more teachers teach together explicitly for the purpose of learning to teach or become better at teaching while simultaneously providing enhanced learning opportunities for their students. Cogenerative dialogues or “cogens” primarily occur during debriefing sessions in which all participants attempt to make sense of the teaching and learning process in which they have participated (Roth and Tobin 2002). When cogens are initiated, LaVan (2004) suggests 1  Throughout this chapter, the term “parent” refers to a student’s biological parent, guardian, caregiver, or other stakeholder who primarily is responsible for a student’s well-being.

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that participants learn to talk, listen, and learn from one another across such boundaries as age, gender, ethnicity, and social class. Over the last decade, it has been possible for teachers, student teachers, researchers, and even students to teach together in one classroom and to participate productively in cogenerative dialogue sessions (e.g., Tobin 2007). Until now, parents have not been included as coteachers in the classroom. Against this background, this study explores coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing with parents to investigate how it may be employed to engage parents more meaningfully in schools. In particular, this chapter examines how coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing may assist parents to become coteachers in the classroom and the ways in which the process may allow parent participants to position themselves in new spaces for school engagement.

14.2 Theoretical Framework 14.2.1 Field A sociocultural perspective to knowing and learning is adopted throughout this study with the construct of “field” as derived from Bourdieu’s (1992) work, which is used to explain where culture is enacted. As distinct from common usage, field carries an exact connotation for Bourdieu that Grenfell (2007) summarizes as being “a structured space of social forces and struggles” (p. 54). Hence, fields are more than physical sites but subsume aspects such as what typically occurs in a given field (e.g., ways of acting, thinking, and speaking and roles participants play), resources both human and material (e.g., teaching aids, equipment, furniture, space, time) that support action, and symbols (e.g., schema germane to the field like rules, ideologies, and signs associated with artifacts, people, and practices) (Tobin and Roth 2006). Entry into a field depends largely on subscribing to the pre-existent forms of the field and accepting the “rules of the game” (Grenfell 2007). Fields are heterogeneous and can be ascribed to such large, amorphous entities as the teaching profession (macrocosm) or to small, local ones including cogens (microcosm). Consequently, fields exist within fields (Grenfell 2007). Every field may be viewed as being simultaneously structured(Tobin and Roth 2006). For this reason, Bourdieu warned against reifying fields, since as networks of dynamic social forces, they are responsive, in a state of constant flux according to actual socio-historic forces at work (Grenfell 2007). It follows that a field should be seen to operate nondeterministically, since its ways are peculiar to it at any one point in time and space (Grenfell 2007). In his work on coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing, Tobin (2007) harnesses Bourdieu’s construct of field. He contends that activity and collective motives set fields apart and, like Bourdieu, views fields as “constantly being reproduced and transformed as culture is produced in a series of singularities, each never-to-be repeated” (p. 1). Using the analogy of electric fields,

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Tobin (2007) theorizes that social fields have no boundaries making it possible for culture enacted in one field to diffuse and overlap with that associated with others, hence creating the potential for changes in the way social life is conducted.

14.2.2 Structure|Agency A dialectical approach is taken throughout this study to theorize how culture is enacted in fields. The term “dialectic” refers to a pair of theoretical concepts, usually seen as opposites but that actually are two sides of the same coin, since one cannot be analyzed separately from the other (Roth 2005). Structure|agency laid out by Sewell (1992) is one such dialectic featured in this research. Structures may be understood as being reproduced and transformed through action while an individual’s agency is given a meaningful form through their surrounding structures. That is, structure and agency construct each other continually, indeed indefinitely. “Structures” themselves exist in a dialectical relationship between “schemas” that are virtual (e.g., social rules, procedures, attitudes, or beliefs) and “resources,” which may be human or nonhuman. Structures both empower and constrain social action and tend to be reproduced by that action, although reproduction cannot be assumed (Sewell 1992). That structures are not reproduced automatically arises because they are multiple and overlapping, schemas are transposable (a rule, for example, can be applied or extended to new contexts), and any array of resources is capable of being interpreted and used variously, even unpredictably, by different actors (Sewell 1992). When contradictions do arise, these factors introduce new resources into structures that provide opportunities for subsequent actions within a particular social setting to occur; hence change is possible.

14.2.3 Agency|Passivity The term “agency” does not refer to the intentions that underscore what people do but their capability of doing (or not doing) those things in the first place; that is, their power to act (Giddens 1984). A person may be unaware of how they act since actions often are culturally derived (see “habitus” later). As such, actions are not discrete units but “a continuous process, a flow” that actors sustain throughout their daily lives (Giddens 1984, p. 9). Agency arises from a person’s knowledge of schemas and encompasses their ability to apply such schemas creatively or to new contexts (Sewell 1992). It also is contingent on a person’s control of resources with respect to their schemas (Sewell 1992). All individuals are endowed with a capacity for agency. The actual form and extent such agency takes, however, varies considerably depending on the specific range of cultural schemas and resources available to a person in the field in which they are operating.

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There is a further essential dimension of agency used in this study. Roth (2007) suggests that for learning to occur, a student needs to know what there is to be learnt so that such can be the object of their intention. He elaborates that if the student already has the particular knowledge, then there is no need for him/her to learn it (Roth 2007). However, since they cannot intend knowing what they do not already know, then essentially the student is “passive” with respect to what they have come to learn (Roth 2007). This exposes the dual nature of agency, which like structure may be represented dialectically, in this case as agency|passivity. That is, intending to learn something about the outside world presupposes the need to open oneself up to being impressed by that which is other (Roth 2007). “Receptivity,” as it is also called, is a way of viewing how individuals experience the actions of others passively and react without having complete control (Levinas 1998). Accordingly, real-time, classroom teaching is driven less by rational thoughts and deliberate intentions on the teacher’s part, and results more from the teacher “getting into and being in tune with the events as they unfold” (Tobin and Roth 2006, p. 36). Thus, the theory underpinning agency and structure may be viewed more completely as a gency|passivity||resources|schema (Roth 2007). The agency|passivity dialectic assists the explication of how an individual’s actions in a particular field appear to unfold continuously since as social agents our sense of the “game” allows us to make ongoing and immediate adjustments about how the game may be played in the light of our available resources and schema. “Passivity” here does not refer to the decision a person may make, for some reason known to them, not to speak since to do so signals an intention that orients a particular form of agency: choosing to do something different compared to others in the situation (Roth 2007).

14.2.4 Capital “Capital” relates to a person’s agency and is a useful construct in this study for considering an individual’s capacity to learn to teach. It refers to an individual’s knowledge of practices and schemas within a certain field and may take various forms including cultural, social, and symbolic (Bourdieu 1992). For Bourdieu, fields are understood as “networks of value” much like a market where social goods are exchanged (Grenfell 2007, p. 59). Practice in fields is based on individual and group interest and investment; profit is assumed (Grenfell 2007). Therefore, “capital is a social relation; that is, an energy which only exists and only produces its effects in the field in which it is produced and reproduced” (Bourdieu 1984[1979], p. 113). “Cultural capital” arises from engagement in and with education and culture and may be categorized as “embodied,” “objectified,” or “institutionalized” (Grenfell 2007). “Embodied capital” encompasses forms of knowledge or dispositions that a person gains throughout life from partaking in numerous cultural practices and may be manifest in such practices as tone of voice or physical demeanor (Grenfell 2007). Embodied capital aligns with Bourdieu’s theoretical construct of “habitus” such that each individual may be seen as embodying a “generalized collective self”

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developed through socialization and interaction in different contexts (Swartz 1997). Although Bourdieu appears to have developed habitus as a thinking tool to straddle conscious and unconscious practices (Grenfell 2007), in this study habitus is used to describe that aspect of cultural capital that an individual enacts unconsciously since there is a tendency for a person unintentionally to apply schemas and practices developed in one field to that of others. “Objectified capital” exists in the relationships that are established with actual material objects including books, scientific instruments like microscopes, and machines while “institutionalized capital” takes incarnated forms linked to specific institutions (e.g., university professors, school principals) (Grenfell 2007). Cultural capital is always relative and only possesses value to the extent that it is legitimized within a field (Grenfell 2007). Cultural products that pass as holding legitimate value are known and recognized although it is possible for individuals within a field to recognize cultural capital in others but not to hold it themselves (Grenfell 2007). “Social capital” is more about “whom” than “what” you know. It refers to the resources that an individual accrues through their interactions with others (e.g., sharing information) and directly results from the different social groupings to which a person belongs (Bourdieu 1992). An individual’s social capital may enable them to use their agency to access the cultural capital of other individuals or groups with whom they interact. “Symbolic capital” is similar to institutionalized capital and refers to the “status” of an individual or object as recognized and respected by others within a particular culture (Bourdieu 1992). It may be ascribed to an individual on the basis of their race, gender, age, or socio-economic background (Bourdieu 1992) and as such can affect the types and quality of interactions that occur within a particular field.

14.2.5 Individual|Collective In this study, the individual|collective dialectic as developed by Roth and Tobin (2002) assists to unlock how the process of learning to teach is connected with participating in a coteaching community while simultaneously helping to describe how the concept of “identity” may be perceived as a function of the changing relationship of individuals toward and within that community. Here “community” means a “community of practice” whereby a group of people engage in an activity with common or closely intersecting goals and interests (Wenger 1998). As individuals participate in various communities, and as they apply their agency across multiple fields, they are learning and changing constantly. A person’s identity may be understood to be in a continual state of production and reproduction. It is something that describes who an individual says they are to others as well as to themselves but an individual’s identity can change depending on other participants in their community and how they view their status (Wenger 1998). Identity and agency are intertwined. Schemas and resources vary according to the specific sociocultural situation in which an activity is taking place, and the ways

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in which an individual can use aspects of their capital to exert their agency (Kress 2006). How an individual participates in an activity varies depending on the particular field in which they find themselves, which means that their perceptions of themselves and others’ perceptions of them also will vary (Kress 2006). Consequently, it is possible for an individual to embody multiple, co-existing identities since they participate in numerous fields (Ritchie et al. 2007). Coteaching is an ideal activity for learning because it provides a context in which the collective can achieve more than any individual can on their own (Roth and Tobin 2002). Since it enables (new) collective actions, these become part of the action repertoires of individuals, thereby enlarging each individual teacher’s agency (Roth and Tobin 2002). Viewed dialectically, individual teachers in turn contribute to the development of the community, and indirectly to their own development and learning process, and so on (Roth and Tobin 2002). The individual|collective dialectic thus provides a theoretical platform to describe learning and participation during this study involving parent coteachers. As individuals undergo changes through interactions with others and new experiences, so too they are afforded opportunities to change their identities continually (e.g., parent volunteer to classroom teacher).

14.3 Description of the Study Using an interpretive case-study approach, this study spanned 8 months. The research site was a single Year 8 classroom (students’ age = 13 years) in a Queensland state secondary school. The participants included an experienced, middle-school teacher (John2) – employed to teach English and Study of Society and the Environment (SoSE) – and the first listed author (i.e., Linda Willis) who had cotaught together previously, the students (n = 27), and two parents of students from the class (Dale and Ruth) who volunteered to participate. The class comprised students who had been selected by the school on the basis of their primary school performance in mathematics and science. The “Academy Class” was in its inaugural year; to maintain their place in the class, students were expected to display a strong work ethic and to continue achieving highly academically. Hence, challenges to teaching in terms of behavior management and learning difficulties among the students were minimal. This chapter centers on the first phase of the study (unit one) conducted over 10 weeks, taught in three, 70-min periods each week. The class studied a multidisciplinary unit entitled War and Refugees in which science and technology3 were particular foci. John and Linda cotaught each lesson. The parents joined the  All first names used in this study are pseudonyms.  In Queensland, all curriculum areas incorporate information technology while the technology curriculum relates particularly to the design of products commensurate with the needs and wants of individuals and their respective societies.

2 3

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coteaching cohort for the final period each week after which all participants convened for a 90-min cogen. Throughout the study, guidelines after the heuristics provided by Roth and Tobin (2002) for productive coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing were followed. The unit culminated with a special evening to showcase the class’s learning to which all the students’ parents were invited. Data were generated using a variety of sources including observational field notes, photographic and video- and audio-tape recordings (classroom activities, interactions, and cogenerative dialogues), and their transcripts, plus relevant artifacts such as lesson plans and teaching aids, student journals and technology products, and e-mail correspondence. Data sources were analyzed using the techniques of discourse and conversation analysis (see Roth 2007).

14.4 A Parent’s Experience with Coteaching In this chapter, the account of the coteaching team through cogenerative dialogues and classroom interactions is highlighted primarily from the perspective of one of the parent coteachers, Dale, a medical scientist by profession. What we have learned about coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing with parents thus far is presented in two parts: becoming aware of and accessing resident capital (i.e., Dale’s capital) and the role of cogenerative dialogues with respect to decision-making by coteachers.

14.4.1 Accessing Capital for Coteaching Through Cogens The field of cogenerative dialogues afforded coteachers a structure in which they became aware of resident capital – that which the collective could access from individuals and individuals could use from the collective – available to them as a resource for coteaching. Dale initially indicated that she did not believe she possessed any knowledge or skills that could be of any use for the group in coteaching the War and Refugees unit. However, in discussing the content of the unit during the first cogenerative dialogue session, the link between living communally in refugee camps under conditions of poor sanitation and outbreaks of serious diseases like cholera and malaria was raised. As John and Linda discussed the possibility of one student group’s project being a PowerPoint presentation on the various diseases commonly suffered by refugees, Dale suggested that she might be able to give the students a laboratory perspective on the subject. The attention in the cogenerative dialogue fell on Dale as together the team worked through the reservations she expressed about doing so: Cogen 1 01 Dale: I could give them a lab perspective on diseases. I’d have to think about how I could do it. But yeah, because we have slides we have… 02 John: We have laboratories here and we could organise to swap…

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03 Dale: Microscopes? 04 John: Yeah, we could organise some and have a laboratory for a lesson or two. 05 Dale: Yeah, I mean I could…give me time to think about it… 06 Dale: I’m sure I could…No, no, I could come up with something to talk about but I mean in terms of getting resources like I could probably speak to work and get some slides to show the children you know and stuff like that…like it wouldn’t be contagious or anything like that… 07 Ruth: So, no hands on things? 08 Dale: No, nothing. No germs; no real germs. 09 Ruth: Yeah, see that’s where we could go to the science lab. 10 John: You see we’ve got four weeks before we get into this (indicating to a teaching calendar). So we’ve got two weeks of holidays, four weeks of mapping, so we’ve got eight weeks before… 11 Dale: Oh, we can think about…even if it’s not to do with the microscope. Even if I was to have pictures of what’s down the microscope. That might be even better in terms of timeframes but I could certainly do something that would be of interest. 12 John: They have class sets of microscopes that are designed to be taken to classrooms so if you were to bring in slides of actual malaria parasites… 13 Ruth: Yeah, that’d be cool…That’d be a lot more exciting than a picture. 14 Dale: Yeah, but malaria’s rare. But let me think about it. 15 John: Yep. 16 Dale: I’d have to work out how I could arrange it but that could be something…. 17 Ruth: In your capable hands. 18 Dale: I just have to think about it.

The process of dialoguing cogeneratively raised Dale’s awareness that the cultural capital available to her from the field of microscopy as a medical scientist could provide a resource for the students’ learning in the classroom. Previously, her perception was that in the field of the classroom none of the cultural capital she possessed (embodied: knowledge of diseases, objectified: skills in working in science laboratories with microscopes, or institutionalized: qualified medical scientist) would be recognized or respected as having value for teaching and learning in the refugee unit. Through discussion, the team’s goals for student learning became salient. This led to Dale becoming cognizant of the possible ways available to her for exercising her agency in the classroom and subsequently altered her existing schema about her potential for participation in the coteaching study. For example, in the next cogenerative dialogue session, she commented: “I am feeling like I will be able to contribute. I was thinking that I may not be able to contribute apart from just being in the classroom and being a physical presence.” She elaborated: “I bring other things. Like we don’t have…like we don’t have the teacher training…so we feel like we’re…well I (sorry, I shouldn’t speak for Ruth)… like I feel like I’m we’re outside of the loop sort of thing but we do bring other skills.”

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Dale’s comments are insightful. Harris and Goodall (2008) indicate that parents’ sense of personal efficacy – “the degree to which they feel able to make a difference” (p. 280) – has been identified as a barrier to parent engagement in schools. Similarly, parents’ feelings about their capacity to contribute appear to influence engagement (Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler 1997). In becoming more aware of the resources at her disposal for coteaching through the structure afforded by cogens, Dale indicates that she feels less on the margin (“out of the loop”) and more central with respect to coteaching. Coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing thus appears to be a way of facilitating opportunities for meaningful engagement of parents in schools. In addition, while it has been found in previous studies that the structure of coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing affords teachers more resources for teaching and learning than can be supplied by one teacher on their own (Roth and Tobin 2002), it appears that parents may be able to play legitimate roles in providing appropriate resources for teaching from fields beyond the teaching profession and the school.

14.4.2 Decision-Making by Coteachers The role of cogenerative dialogues with respect to decision-making by coteachers when planning what and how to teach is now explored. In establishing the way in which the cogens would operate, Linda had articulated the need for mutual respect and complementarity among participants as evidenced through such actions as active listening, the suspension of judgment, equal talk time, and reaching consensus on an issue before moving onto subsequent ones (Tobin and Roth 2006). Further, John expressed the view that the trained teachers hoped to learn as much from the parent coteachers as they might hope to learn from the teacher coteachers. There’s obviously places where we need to show you what we want to teach them (the students) so you can help out but we’re also hoping to broaden our experience of other ways to do things that may not have been thought of being done which you can do because you’ve got a new, another perspective (cogen 1).

In so doing, John and Linda set up the field of the cogens in much the same way that someone would set up a game and lay out the rules. In the first cogen, Dale offered to provide the students with a laboratory perspective on diseases. In the second cogen, during the process of deliberating on the best way for Dale to do so, it initially appeared that she would have been more comfortable if John and Linda had been prescriptive about what to teach. Cogen 2 01 Dale: Which brings me to thinking about the disease part of the program…? 02 John: Yes. 03 Dale: just down the track, and like I’ve been thinking about how I’d approach it and I guess I narrowed it down to, I need to find, because I have such a broad base, I need to know specifics, like specifically which diseases you would like to talk about…

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04 John: Mmm…(here Dale shifts her gaze from John to Linda and back to John). 05 Dale: and yeah, whether we look at parasites, whether we look at just the bugs like you mentioned malaria and cholera, they’re like the big main ones, but I also thought about like when you’re in a detention centre and that you’re living in communal living there’s lice… 06 Linda: Mmm. 07 Dale: There’s fleas…so just you know so you can really go out on a really big tangent so I guess that’s just for my part of my planning is just knowing how far we need to go and I guess it’s just the timing more than anything… 08 John: I guess in a situation like that the thing that I’d do is that I look at a little bit of all the various things that the diseases or bugs could be a problem… 09 Dale: Yep. 10 John: So have a look at the different, the way they’d be categorised, the types of things they do… 11 Dale: So you have no, you have no thoughts on which… 12 John: No (looking to Linda). 13 Dale: diseases you’re going to talk about? 14 John: and what I thought, what I would do then is I would go with one or two of them… and we’d look in more detail… The approach that I would normally take was that as I was going through talking about each one of these I’d sort of be saying, “Ah, well, they seem to be quite interested in cholera, or they seem to be quite interested in the malaria bug or…lice you know so that’s the one we’ll go with.” 15 Dale: Okay. 16 John: So it’s probably a bit harder from the point of view of preparing well ahead of time ah something that’s in depth… So that’s the way I’d normally go about it but if you’re going to be trying to access samples or… 17 Dale: Yeah. 18 John: That’d take time… 19 Dale: Well, that’s why I… 20 John: So the best thing to do is go with a particular thing… 21 Dale: Well, that’s what I thought. I’ve got to find out what I can access first. 22 John: Well, that’s something to do first… I guess my first thing I’d do is cholera because that’s the big… 23 Dale: Sure. 24 John: That was the focus of the video yesterday. 25 Dale: Yep, that’s what I needed to know.

Given her position as a medical scientist, John and Linda recognized and respected Dale’s symbolic capital in relation to science that she brought with her to the cogenerative dialogue field. While they knew about the sorts of knowledge and

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skills she possessed, it could not be said that they had a precise picture of what she knew and did in her work. Thus, it could be suggested that not knowing such underscored John’s reluctance to specify the curriculum. However, having worked with John before, Linda suspected he wanted Dale to have as much ownership of the decision-making process in relation to her lesson as possible, starting from the particular diseases that would feature in her lesson. In demonstrating a willingness to accept Dale’s ideas, John could have had no idea of where the possibilities she might suggest could lead. In doing so, he exposed his vulnerability as a teacher attempting to create a culture of power-sharing in coteaching arrangements to the prospect that a product other than that which he intended might result. However, in proceeding to describe his habitus of teaching in an anticipatory way as a result of the flow of interactions between himself and his students in the classroom, he seems to realize that Dale’s request for direction and support is legitimate given her lack of classroom experience and the need to organize specific resources for teaching about particular diseases. Tobin and Roth (2006) point out that regarding their pedagogical maneuverability or “Speilraum” beginning teachers have fewer possibilities for doing what is right at the moment than experienced practitioners. It is logical to conclude similarly for parent coteachers. While John subsequently makes the proposal of cholera, he knows that he risks limiting Dale’s agency in decisionmaking for coteaching (since, as the classroom teacher, Dale is likely to be receptive to his suggestion). However, there is no hint until the moment of utterance that he has given prior thought to the statement, “That was the focus of the video yesterday.” This statement appears to reflect John’s passivity in terms of the potential he has to facilitate decision-making in the cogenerative dialogue field since his words assist all team members, Dale in particular, to recognize that choosing cholera will align with the collective goals for classroom teaching and learning. Further discussion during cogen 2 contributed to the decision-making process. Cogen 2 28 Linda: And malaria, I think, because it’s so common. 29 Dale: Well, they’re actually two good examples because one’s a parasite and one’s a bacteria so they’re two good examples. 30 John: Well, see what you can do but perhaps do that: a bacteria and a parasite even if it’s not those two. 31 Dale: Yeah, because I just wondered if you had a specific one in mind. 32 John: I guess the other one is tuberculosis (looking over to Linda) because it is an issue particularly in indigenous communities in Australia. Like kids don’t know about that.

Clearly, Dale had considered cholera and malaria as possible diseases to include in her lesson. Her knowledge that one could be categorized as a parasite and the other a bacterium subsequently provided a useful structure for mutual decisionmaking about the curriculum as evidenced by John’s comment: “…perhaps do that: a bacteria and a parasite even if it’s not those two.” While the three diseases singled

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out eventually featured in Dale’s lesson, the final decision about what to cover was not made until after considerable further discussion in the ensuing two cogens about the suitability or otherwise of several other possibilities including the Guinea Worm, botfly, candida, and fecal pathogens. Dale deployed her available social capital by conversing with her work supervisor and colleagues about her upcoming lesson while John suggested to the coteachers that they visit the school’s science department after cogen 2 to speak with the Head of Department (HoD) about possible resources that Dale might access for her lesson. Doing so enlarged the field of the cogen to include human and physical resources (e.g., the school boasted a television microscope) beyond themselves such that their potential for decision-making with respect to planning the curriculum expanded. In particular, John’s actions and associated passivity were indicative of his continued commitment to facilitate Dale’s agency when it came to making decisions about what and how to teach. Dale’s own reflection on the decision-making process proved fruitful. Tobin (2007) observes that “an individual thinking about possibilities is still socially connected with others through what has been done in the past and the potential for what can be accomplished in the future when others are present” (p. 2). Dale commented in cogen 4 about her thinking between cogens: Cogen 4 01 Dale: The other thing with TB (tuberculosis) is that I actually like the idea the more and more I think of it, the three that we’ve sort of focussing on: malaria, TB, and cholera are three different types of modes of transmission. Malaria’s blood borne… cholera is gastrointestinal, and TB is aerosols like respiratory… 02 Linda: Yes, okay. 03 Dale: and I thought well, that’s a great, broad cross-section of… 04 Linda: Yes, I’ll say… 05 John: Mmm. 06 Linda: That could be a comparison, couldn’t it? 07 Dale: You couldn’t ask for better than that…

While Dale had continued thinking about the diseases to present in her lesson, she remained an active participant in the cogenerative dialogue field. In bringing to bear her own personal scientific knowledge and understanding by recognizing that the differences between the three diseases formed a basis for comparison during teaching and learning, she subsequently was able to connect the team’s previous thinking and ideas with possible future actions by all coteachers. Narrowing down the diseases for consideration on the basis of type appeared to provide Dale with a structure for expanded agency as a coteacher. During her lesson, her coteaching role would need to be central in relation to the other coteachers without expertise in the field of microbiology. Given that each of the three diseases had its own transmission forms, symptoms, treatments, preventative measures, and indications (diagnostic tests), a pedagogical platform for curriculum enactment in the classroom that the team could use began to emerge for her. In cogen 4, for

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example, Dale considered whether she could use the school’s television microscope to allow the students to scan a parasitology film to locate malaria-infected, red blood cells together and whether this could springboard into a discussion about the life cycle of malaria, the incubation period, the different types, and the ideal time to obtain a blood sample to confirm the presence of the disease. When thinking about cholera, she wondered whether to use agar plates with different media to isolate various bacterial strains that in turn could be compared with pictures of cholera. She suggested that a simple pathology exercise in which students could participate would be to use a sterile loop to streak a plate that subsequently could be placed into an incubator as would happen in real life. While funneling her ideas assisted Dale to see how her lesson could become more workable in the classroom, she experienced considerable internal turmoil in justifying her decisions to coteach science against her conception of what the refugee curriculum entailed. A continuation of the previous excerpt from cogen 4 is illustrative of the role of cogenerative dialoguing in this regard. Simultaneously, it highlights what the coteachers learnt about each other and cogenerative dialoguing. It begins with Dale proposing to use a simple, biology gram stain as used to indicate TB: Cogen 4 08 Dale: It’s a really simple stain that we do and we actually divide bacteria into gram positive which are blue and gram negative which are red and then they get divided up in their morphology so it’s a really simple test but it can… 09 Linda: I think that’s worthwhile (looking to John). 10 Dale: Do you think that’s relevant or am I getting…? 11 John: From the point of view of relevance, I guess there are a number of ways to look at it. SoSE and science are very closely related anyway as subjects so that’s not a… Whether we end up doing a little bit more science it doesn’t really matter because science is part of that. Secondly, because they (the Academy Class) have an interest in science, it’s a good way to get them to sort of focus their interest into SoSE and English. So doing science that leads into SoSE is also very relevant, interesting, and active. And if you’ve got three different types, that’d be great. So they’ll enjoy doing the science. And it’s also good for them because they’re still talking about: “Why are we doing maths in SoSE? And why are we doing…?” They need to understand that these disciplines aren’t separate, they’re linked… So I don’t mind them doing the science there and if it encourages them to look at the various ways things can be transmitted and various issues…hey, go for it. 12 Dale: Because I was thinking that everything I bring would be sterile so I was just thinking like as a parent who… Like, I love microbiology, and I know that I can’t catch things and all that but somebody who’s a lay person might panic and I don’t want to tarnish the lesson sort of thing… So, I’m sort of thinking that maybe I won’t do as much because when I initially thought, “Oh, I’d love to show them what I do in the lab,” but then I’m thinking, “Well, it’s not really relevant,” you know so… 13 Linda: You’re thinking relevant to refugees? 14 Dale:

Yeah, refugees.

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15 Linda: And John was saying it’s multidisciplinary and I read something recently, actually this week that said that more and more, because of the cross-over between the disciplines, that it’s so difficult to do what we’ve done traditionally and so: just teaching science or just teaching…and more and more we realise that we really…that’s probably the worst thing we could have done because then we’re asking children to make those cross-overs when they’re there naturally and we’ve made these borders. 16 Dale:

Okay.

17 Linda: What I read was that there’s a school of thought now where they’ve reduced the curriculum to three subjects. How much easier would it be for you (to John) to teach English, SoSE, and maybe science all together rather than this compartmentalisation and not the cross-over? 18 John:

That’s why I do that anyway.

19 Linda: We do. We understand that. 20 John:

Which is why I’m not concerned about doing science.

21 Dale:

Okay.

22 John: I think if a student is interested in biology, particularly microbiology, they’ll really enjoy doing it… They need to understand the processes behind the diseases and then they can… Once they understand that, and you can get them to understand that in essentially a lesson, it’s not… 23 Dale:

Yeah, oh definitely. That’d just be easy, yeah, no…

24 John: But once they understand that, they can then go on to look at the human impact of all that and the sorts of organisation that needs to be done to help refugees and protect refugees, all the sorts of needs that they have… 25 Dale:

Oh, but…you’ve just hit on something…

26 John: So it sort of… it leads into all the SoSE stuff: they’ve got a science background for all the SoSE stuff they’re going to do. 27 Dale: You’ve just reminded me, and I really want to make a point of it, was that with these particular organisms we can get them. Not just refugees. Refugees get them because of their environmental, their geographical locations… But, they’re humans, just as we are… 28 John:

Uhumm.

29 Linda: Yeah. 30 Dale:

and if we put ourselves in that position…

31 Linda : Absolutely. 32 Dale:

I thought that it made it a bit more real, you know? I thought it was…

33 Linda : Yes, that’s important to say that. That’s a good point. 34 John:

If they’re going overseas they have to be immunized.

35 Dale: Immunised, exactly… So, even if I had a simple gram stain and I showed that on the microscope, the difference between gram-positive and gram-negative, that doesn’t matter? You know? That’s okay. All right.

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Time spent listening to Dale enabled the coteachers to see that she was not planning on lecturing the students about microbiology. She appeared to be selecting activities purposefully on the basis of them being instructive but simultaneously interesting and engaging for students. Later in cogen 4, she indicated that: “As a parent, I want the kids to have fun more than anything else really and I don’t mean fun as in they play up or anything but I want them to enjoy what they’re doing and there are different ways of learning.” Authentic learning that related to students’ real-life experiences also underscored Dale’s choices; hence her point “…with these particular organisms we can get them. Not just refugees.” Consequently, through cogenerative dialogue, Linda gained a sense that Dale was making decisions for coteaching based on particular schema that she held of what “good learning and teaching” looked like for children. Interestingly, she articulated a view consistent with Linda’s own notion of teaching as creating authentic learning contexts to produce currency for use by students in their respective sociocultural realms. Throughout cogen 4, it was evident that Dale took her work in the field of microbiology seriously. As such, she did not want to create an impression for students that trivialized what she did by reducing the activities she was planning to viewing the weirdest bugs she could find under the microscope. Earlier in the cogen, she had observed: “I guess that the things that I bring are dead. I just wonder how the parents would feel about it if I brought fecal pathogens and stuff like that so I’m sort of moving away from that,” hence her follow-up statement: “I know that I can’t catch things and all that but somebody who’s a lay person might panic…” Clearly, she had weighed up the possibility of promulgating a perception among the students, and subsequently their parents, of them having been exposed to a serious disease. In doing so, she appeared to transfer the high respect she holds for microbiology to the new field of coteaching as her conclusion, “…and I don’t want to tarnish the lesson” would indicate. Knowing that Dale had measured students’ needs against the possibility of creating misleading impressions of microbiology and considerations to do with workplace, health and safety engendered trust among the coteachers for the level of commitment and respect with which she approached coteaching. At the same time, their receptivity in allowing her to think through the possibilities out loud in the cogen helped her to “test” her decision-making capacity as a coteacher. That Dale took her coteaching role seriously came through in other ways. From the beginning of the study, she compiled a resource folder, in much the same way a teacher would, to hold any information pertaining to the refugee unit that she amassed along with coteaching artifacts such as letters and printed out e-mail correspondence. In previous cogens, she had shared information about refugees and the suitability for the unit of the event, “Refugee Camp in Your City” that was coming to Brisbane that she had gleaned as a result of independent Internet research. By attempting to immerse herself in the unit’s content, she built cultural capital for herself that became available as cultural capital for all through the sharing opportunities afforded via cogenerative dialoguing. However, throughout cogen 4, especially in her self-talk, Dale’s conversation was peppered with statements similar to: “Is that really relevant?” and “Do we really need to show them that?” As a budding

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parent coteacher, it is only natural that Dale sought feedback and guidance from the teachers about the curriculum appropriateness and relevance of what she proposed. However, in situ (of cogen 4), Linda sensed that Dale felt constrained in her agency as a decision-maker by considerations of whether she had made the “right” connections with the curriculum, hence her need to seek constant reassurance from the coteaching team. As can be seen in the excerpt from cogen 4, John’s role was significant in assisting Dale to recognize her agency when it came to making decisions about her lesson. As was his habitus generally, John had listened patiently and attentively to Dale throughout the cogen and through his demeanor responded with care and sensitivity. While a guideline in the cogens was that all voices carried equal weight, we suspect, as intimated earlier, that Dale was passive to John on this occasion (and throughout the study whenever he spoke) as a mark of his resident, institutionalized capital that she recognized and respected. However, John was careful not to use his role as designated classroom teacher so as to exert power over Dale, telling her that her ideas were worthwhile and reassuring her that from the perspective of student learning, he could not see how any of the suggestions she had made would be unacceptable. He proceeded to lay out a holistic view of teaching that revealed his habitus to integrate as many curriculum areas as possible whenever opportunities arose. In so doing, he defined his identity as “teacher” as extending beyond that which might be associated with the more narrow designation of English/SoSE teacher. What’s more, he helped Dale to see how her coteaching role was one of providing resources for student learning since ultimately the students would exercise their own agency to structure their learning according to their particular needs and purposes. In this way, Dale was assisted to see how her goals for student learning aligned with those of the collective, thus expanding her agency to make decisions about science teaching in relation to the curriculum. The excerpt from cogen 4 concludes with Dale answering her own question about showing the students a simple, gram stain under the microscope with the statement: “That’s okay. All right.” In the process of Dale arriving at this conclusion, positive emotional energy (EE) was generated among participants. John and Linda, for example, focused their mutual attention on Dale’s concern about curriculum relevance and did what they could to help her feel that they were in the decision-making process together. Collins (2004) describes positive EE in an individual as a “feeling of confidence, elation, strength, enthusiasm, and initiative in taking action” (p. 49) that leads to group affinity and solidarity. Tobin (2006) observes that productive coteaching relationships exude positive EE and as such “it is essential that coteachers successfully interact with one another, show one another respect, and inscribe their teacher identities in terms of us as well as me” (p. 5). In assisting Dale to make decisions about her available resources for coteaching, cogenerative dialoguing facilitated the generation of positive EE whereby the coteaching team built agreement about what and how to teach. Subsequently, Dale appeared to act with more confidence in preparing to coteach. She made decisions about the practical, laboratory activities in which the

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students would engage with the supervision and assistance of the coteachers and appropriated the necessary physical resources to conduct the laboratory activities from her workplace. She enlisted Linda’s support in the preparation of visual aids and they discussed teaching techniques either in person or virtually using the online platform of e-mail for how these could be integrated throughout her lesson. The idea of role play was raised in the cogens and led Dale to orient the lesson such that students were invited to: “Take a Walk in my Shoes as a Medical Scientist.” The lesson itself included universal precautions and aseptic technique for laboratory work, laboratory techniques including a “wet prep,” patient request forms with clinical notes for interpretation, as well as information on the three diseases for which Dale had prepared comprehensive, one-page summaries that students and coteachers could use as future reference. In reaching the point of lesson delivery, Dale had made many decisions individually yet did so in the knowledge and confidence that her actions accorded with the collective motives and goals for teaching and learning. She was assisted to feel agential in this regard since the decision-making process unfolded in full view of coteaching members who, as was their agreed process at the start of the study, when not able to convene for a cogen were copied into all e-mail correspondence so that each participant remained apprised of issues and developments pertaining to her lesson. Consequently, any one of the coteachers was able to ask questions, offer suggestions, or make confirmatory or follow-up comments about what was happening while simultaneously extending any physical or moral support that was considered necessary or appropriate during this time. The transparency afforded by this communication practice appeared to expand Dale’s maneuverability as a coteacher since, given there were ample opportunities for participants to indicate otherwise, she could be confident that the steps she took toward coteaching had the backing of the whole group. In addition, since the practice fostered inclusivity, it seemed to enhance positive EE and solidarity as evidenced by the tone, enthusiasm, and frequency of online responses among group members. Thus, e-mailing among coteachers appeared to enlarge the cogenerative dialogue field such that the process of decision-making was facilitated by participants being able to connect positively (albeit “virtually”) with each other and hence the group more often than was practical or possible in person. The decision-making process in which Dale engaged subsequently became an unexpected resource for coteaching in the classroom. One group of students (Education Officers) had been tasked with the technology project of constructing and preparing an information resource pack for use by refugee workers in Nigeria but, a fortnight before the showcase event, had made slim progress. During one, video-recorded coteaching session, Dale worked with these students. While she asked them many questions, she also listened to their ideas and concerns and told the coteachers in the cogen afterward that she gained a sense for the frustration level that had led to their inertia when it came to making decisions about what to do (e.g., the students wondered if they should incorporate information in the pack ranging from treating bee stings and broken limbs to rehabilitating landmine victims). She encouraged them to deploy the approach that the coteachers had developed in the cotaught classroom of posing questions to themselves about their project’s

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particular context, purpose, and audience. She produced artifacts that she had brought from home in the form of brochures, pamphlets, and business cards to give the students ideas about designs, layouts, and styles for their own work. In addition, she discussed the need to project-manage the assignment by using the techniques of back-mapping and divvying up tasks among individuals to ensure timely completion. However, all students in the group seemed to become most attuned to her when she shared with them her own recent experience of learning to coteach. This is what I found when I did my talk about diseases: that there’s so many microorganisms that I wanted to share with you but I had to funnel it down because you just don’t have the time to talk about everything and it depends on how much detail you want to go into everything. So I think we’re moving away with the landmines… We’re moving away from the focus of what your [project] is really about (week 10).

On the video, and in discussing what happened in the cogen afterward, it seemed that this point was a watershed moment for the students. Dale’s words appeared to galvanize them into action such that they were able to make productive decisions about their project from then on. In sharing her experience of learning to coteach, we suspect that the students came to see Dale as a member of their classroom community of learners. Her recent experience meant that the learning distance between her and the students was less than it was for John and Linda (who had tried on separate, previous occasions to help these students to move forward on their project) such that she was able to provide them with renewed structures for thinking about and approaching the task. The students’ subsequent transformation appeared to derive from the confidence and motivation to exercise their agency to make decisions about what to do and how to go about it that they gained from knowing that Dale had experienced similar challenges and frustrations to them in the decisionmaking process. Hence, the process of decision-making in cogenerative dialogues itself became a useful resource in affording Dale a structure to use in the field of the classroom. What’s more, she acted with fluency, without hesitating by asking, “Is this relevant?” or needing to consult with fellow coteachers. Dale’s Speilraum had expanded such that she indicated in the cogen that the decision-making process in which she had engaged for her lesson through cogenerative dialoguing not only helped her with knowing about what to teach the students but that now she had more strategies to call on in the classroom as a parent coteacher. Interestingly, she commented in the cogen about the Education Officers’ lack of progress, “As a parent I’m thinking: ‘Get a move on!’ That’s what I really want to say to them but I can’t say that.” Later she indicated that, “I’m a tougher mother than I am a teacher.” Dale’s habitus in the field of her home toward her children completing schoolwork was challenged in the classroom. As she sought to find ways to focus and motivate the students, she appeared to call upon other resources from the field of cogenerative dialogues such as active listening, engaging all participants, and asking open-ended and clarifying questions to build agreement and positive EE throughout the process of decision-making. In this way, it seemed as if she was able to enact culture similar to that created in the cogenerative dialogues in the classroom and in so doing cast for herself a different identity that was more than either “parent” or “teacher” but rather a “parent coteacher.”

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14.5 Further Discussion and Conclusion From the data we have presented in this chapter, coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing afforded a structure that enabled Dale to share her highly specialized knowledge and skills in microbiology in meaningful and appropriate ways for students studying a unit on War and Refugees. Over the course of the unit, as coteacher, Dale simultaneously embodied an ongoing resource for the students and her fellow coteachers as a resident consultant on diseases and medical issues in general. As such, her role differed from that played by a parent who may be asked to present a one-off information session to students about a particular science topic or from parents who assist in the classroom but who may not necessarily have information at the ready to answer students’ queries making deferment to the classroom teacher more necessary and more often. However, through cogenerative dialoguing, Dale’s resources expanded such that she became more agentic in planning for and enacting coteaching generally (as opposed to coteaching only science). Importantly, students recognized the cultural capital that she built, indicating in written comments at the conclusion of the study that coteaching parents were more informed than regular parents in the classroom and had more strategies for helping them with their work when they needed it. The coteachers in this study accessed the virtual platform of e-mail as a resource for communication such that doing so appeared to enlarge the field of cogenerative dialogues when direct contact between participants was neither practical nor possible. Since many coteaching arrangements suffer because of a failure of one or more coteachers to plan adequately (Tobin and Roth 2006) and given that research evidence indicates that logistics is a limiting factor for parent engagement in schools (Johnson et al. 2004), coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing with parents may require creative ways for all participants to utilize the existing or new structures to facilitate regular communication among the coteaching team. Importantly, the coteachers in this study adopted particular e-mail practices that afforded transparency and inclusivity among participants such that new structures were created that fostered positive EE and group solidarity. For parents to become coteachers in the classroom, interstitial culture will be needed. Tobin (2007) observes that unless those involved in cogenerative dialogues work toward creating new forms of culture that accord with individual goals and group motives, breaches in interactions are likely to occur. From the beginning and throughout this study, participants realized that John’s role as a professional teacher meant that he was responsible educationally and legally for the class. While Linda also holds teaching qualifications, as a researcher her role in the study would be different from John’s as too that of parent volunteers without such qualifications. The heuristics for productive coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing provided guidelines for participants in the study as did The Code of School Behaviour for Queensland’s schools but at the heart of this study’s success were mutual respect, trust, and honesty. In this regard, as evident throughout this chapter, the case teacher (i.e., John) played a significant role in creating a culture facilitative of coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing. Evidence from research as to why teachers avoid engaging parents in

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schools includes: perceptions that parents threaten their authority and professional status, the view that assisting parents to develop the self-confidence to see themselves as capable, co-educators of their children lies beyond their job description, and minimal, if any, professional preparation in strategies for developing parent–school partnerships (McConchie 2004). John, however, as viewed through the agency|passivity dialectic, demonstrated a willingness to open himself up to the possibilities that life in his classroom could be different than it otherwise was. In sharing power with parent coteachers, he did not so much “take risks” as demonstrate trust. Trust permeated his words (e.g., he used the personal pronouns “we” and “us” to refer to the coteachers even when parent coteachers were absent) and actions (e.g., he rearranged his teaching schedule and met with the principal and HoDs to follow-up decisions made by the coteaching team). In this regard, John appeared to operate from particular schema that led him to the view that when it came to the students’ education, these parents wanted similar things for their children as he did for them as their teacher. His willingness to enact a culture of trust appeared to generate more trust among the coteaching cohort such that each coteacher came to be able to share their teaching successes and failures openly and frankly and participated in assessment practices even when for parent coteachers it required them to deliberate on the learning and achievement demonstrated by their own children. Being willing to give and receive trust was a driving force for forging new culture in this study and, given traditional roles in which teachers and parents have been cast in terms of parent–school engagement, such will be essential, particularly for teachers, who choose to engage parents through coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing in the future. As seen in this study, cogenerative dialogues provided a space where participants became aware of resources available for coteaching, made decisions about planning and enacting coteaching, as well as built interstitial culture that facilitated positive parent–teacher relationships. Tobin and Roth (2006) have observed that when it comes to learning to teach at the elbows of another, the world in which we reflect and talk about is no substitute for the lived experience. During an audiotaped conversation following cogen 4, Dale remarked to Linda: It’s funny you know… When I first came here and the cogenerative dialoguing… I’m thinking: “What does that mean?” You know? And like now it’s just like, “I get it!” I just so totally get it and it’s not like I didn’t understand what it meant but it’s one thing to have words on paper and know what they mean but actually to see it in action is another thing, you know? And also it is this ‘co’, like we’re all generating different ideas; we’re all ‘generating’, not different viewpoints…

It appears that the potential of cogenerative dialogues can only be realized if individuals are willing to enter the field with others so that the possibilities for engagement (since structure and agency mutually construct each other continually and indefinitely) may be experienced first-hand. For teachers who actively seek productive and meaningful ways in which to engage with parents, coteaching/ cogenerative dialoguing appears to provide them with a structure for action, the benefits of which for teachers, parents, and students this study has only begun to scratch the surface.

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Further analysis of the data beyond the first unit (i.e., 10 weeks) soon will be scrutinized to determine whether the benefits we have attributed to the coteaching/ cogenerative dialoguing with parents can be sustained for longer periods, and to explore any change in dynamics as Linda’s participation is deliberately faded out. This will help us to consider how coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing may assist parents to become coteachers of science and technology in the classroom, and how the phenomenon may allow parents to position themselves in new spaces for meaningful school engagement.

References Bourdieu, P. (1984 [1979]). Distinction (R. Nice, Trans.). Oxford: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. (1992). The purpose of reflexive sociology (The Chicago Workshop). In P. Bourdieu & L. J. D. Wacquant (Eds.), An invitation to reflexive sociology (pp. 61–216). Chicago: University Press. Collins, R. (2004). Interaction ritual chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Delgado-Gaitan, C. (1992). School matters in the Mexican-American home: Socialising children to education. American Educational Research Journal, 29(3), 495–513. Desforges, C., & Abouchaar, A. (2003). The impact of parental involvement, parental support and family education on pupil achievements and adjustment: A literature review. Retrieved December 11, 2006, from http://www.familiesmatter.org.au/dfesrr433.pdf Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Outline of the theory of structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. Grenfell, M. J. (2007). Pierre Bourdieu: Education and training. London: Continuum. Harris, A. & Goodall, J. (2008). Do parents know they matter? Engaging all parents in learning. Educational Research, 50(3), 277–289. Henderson, A. T., Mapp, K. L., Johnson, V. R., & Davies, D. (2007). Beyond the bake sale – The essential guide to family-school partnerships. New York: New Press. Hoover-Dempsey, K. V. & Sandler, H. M. (1997). Why do parents become involved in their children’s education? Review of Educational Research, 67(1), 3–42. Johnson, L., Pagach, M., & Hawkins, A. (2004). School-family collaboration: A partnership. Focus On Exceptional Children, 36(5), 1–12. Kress, T. M. (2006). Through the revolving door: Re-examining technology integration and teacher identity in urban schools viv-a-vis the agency|structure dialectic. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The City University of New York. LaVan, S. K. (2004). Cogenerating fluency in urban science classrooms. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Levinas, E. (1998). Otherwise than being or beyond essence (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press. (First published in 1978) Masters, G. (2004). Beyond political rhetoric: The research on what makes a school good. Retrieved December 21, 2007, from http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article = 2100 McConchie, R. (2004). Family-school partnerships: Issues paper. Retrieved December 11, 2006, from http://www.acsso.org.au/fspissuespaper.doc Ritchie, S. M., Kidman, G., & Vaughan, T. (2007). Professional learning opportunities from uncovering cover stories of science and science teaching for a scientist-in-transition. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2(1), 225–242. Roth, W.-M. (2005). Doing qualitative research: Praxis of method. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Roth, W.-M. (2007). Theorising passivity. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2(1), 1–8.

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Roth, W.-M. & Tobin, K. (2002). At the elbow of another: Learning to teach by coteaching. New York: Peter Lang. Sewell, W. H. (1992). A theory of structure: Duality, agency and transformation. American Journal of Sociology, 98(1), 1–29. Swartz, D. (1997). Culture and power: The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tobin, K. (2006). New teachers and resident teachers collaborating in coteaching and research on enacted science curricula. Conference paper for the International Conference on Science Teachers’ Professional Development – Perspectives of Supervision and Mentoring, National Taipei University of Education, Taipei, Taiwan, February 10–11, 2006. Tobin, K. (2007). Collaborating with students to produce success in science. The Journal of Science and Mathematics in South East Asia, 30(2), 1–44. Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Part IV

Cogenerative Dialogues

As coteaching in science evolved from a structure used for introducing beginning teachers into teaching science in urban settings to include multiple approaches to reframe how science was taught in diverse settings, cogenerative dialogues (cogens) were developed initially to support coteachers. The first cogens started by teachers and researchers asking students who were culturally different (that is, AfricanAmerican students in American urban schools being taught by middle class White and culturally other teachers) the question “what science would interest you?” However, the cogens also examined the responsibilities of individuals and the collective with regard to the teaching and learning of science. When they moved from a coteaching arrangement to one where they had sole responsibility for the teaching, several teachers restructured their classes and proposed that their students were also coteachers. The structure of cogens attempts to reduce or minimize the power hierarchy that can exist in a class between the teacher and students. Furthermore, cogens assume that all participants are interested in improving the teaching and learning experienced and that everyone has a responsibility for that to occur. In the chapters in this section, researchers use second-generation cogens to examine learning and teaching in science and mathematics classes located in middle or high schools, and within an adult education program. Grimes examines the use of cogens in New York City public schools and expands this research by describing her research on cogens in a private school. The chapter examines how tenth-grade students cotaught sixth-grade science classes with Grimes that provided the girls opportunities to develop their science identities. Wharton and Pitts introduced cogens to adult learners of mathematics. These students often had “failed” mathematics when first in school and had dropped out. This study focused on adult learners studying mathematics to obtain a high-school diploma. Cogens provided the structure for students and teacher to articulate and address learning issues, such as solving word problems in a low-stakes setting. Adult learners often struggle with shame and embarrassment and are unwilling to articulate their learning needs. Cogens provided these learners with the opportunity to restructure the learning environment to align with their needs and to educate their teacher to the unique challenges adult learners face. Jackson and Phillips examine the use of cogens in teaching math by engaging two students in coteaching. When the

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teacher, Jackson, asked Bebe and Cece to coteach their peers, the girls’ identities as math learners changed from being unable to succeed in the subject to being confident learners. Woodburn’s chapter describes her research in a mathematics class within a high school with underrepresented students. The study examined equity issues associated with teaching students for a high stakes New York’s Regent’s exam. Through cogens, the participants utilized coteaching as a method for improving their understanding of mathematics. Through the examination of videotapes of their classes and cogens, Woodburn and her students established a collegiality, developed their social capital, and identified the strategies and practices that enable students to successfully engage in mathematics. Cogens are a powerful pedagogical strategy to engage disenfranchised students. Through cogens, students attain power over their learning, their classroom experiences, and develop a sense of individual responsibility. For teachers, cogens provide a structure to engage in a dialogue with their students that focuses on learning and an examination of sociocultural setting. Further, cogens are also a research tool as participants generate an understanding of local culture and can use theories to understand learner and teacher needs.

Chapter 15

Exploring Multiple Outcomes: Using Cogenerative Dialogues and Coteaching in a Middle School Science Classroom Nicole K. Grimes

15.1 Introduction Increasing complexities due to racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, religious, and language differences has long beset science education in urban settings. These issues have contemporarily grown to become the central foci of research in the field. Cogenerative dialogues, or cogens, have become new methodologies in the field of science education to combat these issues and their adverse impact on science achievement. There exists a great deal of research spanning from elementary to the university level, which supports using cogens in educational settings. Ken Tobin and Wolff-Michael Roth first used cogens in 1998 while conducting research in the classrooms of a large comprehensive urban high school in Philadelphia. Since then, numerous peer-reviewed books and articles have shared research from the United States, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, and Taiwan (Tobin and Roth 2006), which report on the benefits of using cogens. Key precursors to the research presented in this chapter are found in the work produced by the team of education researchers led by Ken Tobin (Tobin et al. 2005) in City High School in Philadelphia and more recently in several New York City (NYC) schools (Bayne 2007). I decided to build on their work, which explores the significant benefits of integrating cogens in the science classroom. While working in an independent NYC school, I conducted an ethnographic study in an attempt to illuminate the structures that were mediating the way in which my students were learning science in my classroom. As a result of creating a cogen-based science course with three tenth-grade students, coteaching emerged. During the academic year, we cotaught several lessons across various science disciplines in one of my sixth-grade classrooms. Consequently, a plethora of key additional outcomes emerged with farreaching implications for improving the teaching and learning of science. Some of the observed transformations include identity shifts, changes in students’ classroom practices, and science fluency. In line with a modern adaptation of Guba and Lincoln’s (1989) research authenticity criteria, this paper attempts to utilize multivalent approaches to make sense of the practices of all stakeholders involved in this year-long research. These criteria will then be used to evaluate the cogens that we

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participated in and critically explore the numerous transformations that occurred for the participants in various fields.

15.2 Success at Home: Recent Successes in Science Education Using Cogenerative Dialogues 15.2.1 Research Authenticity and the Cogenerative Dialogue Cogens are presented by Roth and Tobin (2006) as a way to improve the teaching and learning of science. Cogens are conversations among participants of a shared experience where the goal of the participants is to collectively agree on the ways to acquire capital that will facilitate increased learning of students in the classroom field. These conversations are aimed at identifying and reviewing what seems to work and what does not, especially the schema and practices that disadvantage certain students and truncate their agencies (p. 81). Cogens work best when all participants, especially students, feel that by participating they are provided with opportunities to actively change their life conditions, both inside and outside the classroom. The cogen was originally a method that was gradually theorized and currently operates as a theory of method (i.e., a methodology). In many respects, it shares the underlying beliefs of critical pedagogy, which is a teaching approach to help students question and challenge dominating beliefs and practices. In other words, it is a theory and practice of helping students achieve critical consciousness. The current conception of a cogen is one largely derived from the intersection of cultural sociology and science education. Cultural sociology continues to provide insights into the ways of rethinking the teaching and learning of science. In alignment with good professional practice, the central question that should govern any science educator’s practice is how to create classroom culture that will improve the science achievement of the students. I define culture as the practices that are enacted in a field by its participants (Tobin et  al. 2005). Similarly, fields are theoretical spaces that are defined by the activities that occur there, where such activities are governed by an individual’s goals and the motives of the collective. For example, the science classroom is a field where students act in ways that are aligned with their personal goals (for example, to earn a B, to make new friends, etc.). However, despite these individual ambitions, there are structures in place in the classroom field that either afford or hinder achievement of these goals. These structures can be either material (the arrangement of desks, the whiteboard, etc.) or nonmaterial (classroom rules, the instructor’s dialect/accent) in nature. Consequently, the purpose of the cogen was to create a new field where students could share their voices and openly discuss which structures, tangible and subtle, were hindering their achievement in the science classroom and how they could attain their own individual goals. The research authenticity criteria as described by Lincoln and Guba (1989) present a system for judging interpretive ethnographic research and overall, they stress that

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the importance of conducting research must benefit those who are involved. These proposed criteria are as follows: ontological, educative, catalytic, and tactical authenticity. Ontological authenticity refers to the ways in which participants enhance their own constructions of social life as it relates to what they have learned from a study. Educative authenticity represents the extent to which stakeholders, particularly those outside the research group, understand the implications and nuances that emerge from the study and the standpoints of key stakeholders. Catalytic authenticity relates to the obligation of the research and researchers to create ways to expand the agency and catalyze positive changes of all stakeholders involved in the research. Finally, tactical authenticity refers to the extent to which stakeholders have agency to bring about the change they desire and benefit from what has been learned from the research. These criteria have been widely used for judging the quality of inquiry and have been important constructs for guiding early cogen work. However, as cogen-based research expanded, these criteria have been adapted and its theoretical basis has expanded appreciably. The cogen presents itself as a methodology that meets the described criteria and more, and understanding its theoretical framework provides strong reasoning to support authencity ­criteria. For one, its very structure encourages authentic research since numerous voices are included in the cogen. The credibility of cogen-based research is strengthened by the fact that any assertions are co-constructed by multiple participants, and the fact that these dialogues occur regularly and over a prolonged period of time reduces the possibility of misinformation and misconstructions of social life. Peer debriefing at weekly research group seminars also allows for analysis of evolving constructions. Discourse with colleagues also engaged in similar research aims to illuminate both methodological and analytical shifts and further strengthen our understanding of the cogen. Generally, cogen-based research is focused on positive social transformation and expanded agency with the necessary mechanisms for such shifts well embedded in its design. At the time when I was first introduced to the history of cogens, I was a science educator facing some difficulties in my own middle school classrooms. I had a class of sixth-graders displaying a large disparity in ability, focus, and interest. I began to think critically about what structures I had possibly imposed that were affecting learning. The following section is a brief overview of the most recent work produced in New York City and the significant outcomes for science education found using cogens. These outcomes greatly solidified my own interests in using cogens to improve my own practices.

15.2.2 Cogen-Based Work in NYC, 2006–2008 Chris Emdin’s work in New York High School (NYHS), a small Empowerment Zone school in the Bronx, centered on the use of cogens to improve the science experiences to conceptual physical science students. In his work at NYHS, a school geared toward nursing and the health profession, cogens became a new way to

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afford opportunities for students’ voices to be heard. Emdin (2007) argued that owing to frequent cultural misalignments in urban schools, and in many academic classes, there are too many instances where students are unable to engage in the science classroom. The cogen then becomes a critical entry point to initiate discourse between students and teachers that aims to derive ways to increase learning back in the classroom field. Emdin introduced weekly cogens with willing students during lunchtime. These discussions around Emdin’s teaching practices illuminated the complexity of social life in his classroom, and at times, even the current science material being covered. Students shared how they felt about particular lessons, situations that unfolded during class and comments Emdin made during classroom instruction. However, a central theme that emerged was a group longing for the valuing of differences. These students, from diverse ethnic backgrounds, expressed a desire for solidarity, not just because they were forced to exist in a classroom with each other, but rather they articulated a desire to build an affiliation around science learning. Overall, Emdin used cogens to foster greater student interest in science achievement and to encourage what he defined as cosmopolitanism, an affiliation around the valuing and acceptance of difference. Emdin suggested that the cogens were arguably necessary breaks in the traditional classroom practice that ultimately significantly transformed the culture in his classroom. Through cogens, he argues that he and his students were able to co-construct new classroom culture, build solidarity, and thus raise the level of interest and achievement in the larger classroom. Wesley Pitts also worked with students at NYHS in a chemistry classroom that also produced similar results (Pitts 2007). After becoming highly interested in a female peer group that formed in the chemistry class of a colleague, Pitts used cogens to develop insight into the face-to-face encounters among the students of this group as well as how this group interacted with their Filipino American teacher. The group consisted of four female second-generation immigrants of Jamaican, Puerto Rican, and Dominican heritage. The chemistry teacher had complained that this female group was not using their time together constructively. However what Pitts observed, both in the chemistry lab and through the use of cogens, was that these females, despite their differences, developed a strong sense of solidarity that was grounded in positive emotional energy. The interactions within the group that were formerly regarded by the teacher as negative and disapproving were now realized to be consistent with the actions of a group of students strongly bonded and invested in the achievement of the collective. What his study showed was that when given the opportunity, students will access and enact new culture in ways that create solidarity and success in the teaching and learning of chemistry across the boundaries of difference. Another teacher-researcher, Gillian Bayne, while working at Collaborative School, used cogens in her science classrooms for 3 years. Each year that followed, more students became willing participants in her lunchtime cogens where students’ perceptions and experiences were shared. Students were involved in discussions centered on planning and critiquing lab activities and co-constructed better ways to allow all class participants to create and access the resources needed to achieve in the class. However, one of the key outcomes of her work was the emergence of student leadership. Bayne’s research (2007) largely focuses on one ninth-grade student,

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Theo, who experienced an identity shift. Theo was a student who initially felt his voice was marginalized in the classroom and participated minimally. After deciding to participate in class cogens, Theo slowly became more fluent in science content, participated more actively, and expanded his role as someone who was always willing to help his classmates when needed. The following year, after no longer having Bayne as a teacher, Theo successfully introduced the idea of cogens to another class he was enrolled in. In his final high-school years, he had become a popular and active figure in the Collaborative community. He spearheaded a major curriculum planning project between the middle and upper school and was a strong student representative on many other fronts. Theo’s actions were well aligned with what was learned through participation in cogens. He became a student, not merely considered with his own goals, but one who was dedicated to improving the learning of all students. Ed Lehner was also a teacher-researcher who worked with at-risk students of color in a New York City High School Suspension Center. The students at this school have all committed violent offenses and have poor achievement and attendance records. Lehner’s students also came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds in the African Diaspora while he was a White male, raised in an upstate NY suburb and from a higher socioeconomic background. Initially, Lehner encountered tremendous difficulty mediating these differences within his classrooms and creating a classroom culture supportive of learning. Through participation in cogens, Lehner (2007) and his students conferred on issues related to their differences. In time, the participants in Lehner’s classes began to understand each other with a higher valuing of difference in the group. There was a significant shift away from the individual to the collective and thus cogen participation catalyzed the formation of solidarity within each class. Together, students created an agreed upon list of expectations to improve classroom behavior. The practices employed within the cogens were reproduced in the classroom and were the antecedents to the emergence of a new culture, which was grounded in positive emotional energy and solidarity within the class. With this new outlook, students were able to participate in Lehner’s science class in ways that were more meaningful to them. Due to cultural misalignments, Ashraf Shady also initially experienced difficulties in teaching science at a Queens High School. Shady was an immigrant science teacher from Egypt also working with predominantly Black and Hispanic students. Ashraf attempted to foster successful science interactions across differences in race, ethnicity, age, gender, language, and socioeconomic class but with little success. Shady tried to use cultural cues belonging to his students to engage them in science, but soon realized that the laughter that frequently resulted from the students was not a sign of acceptance, but rather of ridicule of him as a teacher. Shady’s initial negative encounters cultivated an interest in ways to create a new culture in his classroom. Cogens between Shady and two students, Star and Steve (2008), served to facilitate much needed change back in the classroom field. Star and Steve were students Shady perceived to possess social capital in the classroom-individuals whom other students looked to and emulated their practices, both negative and positive. As a result of participating in this small group cogen, Shady and the students developed an understanding of each other’s culture and contempt

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was replaced by a respect for difference. These initial cogens centered on difference but soon grew to include discussions of science content and Shady’s scienceteaching practices. The solidarity that emerged within the group became apparent to others when Star and Steve reproduced in the science classroom the practices they enacted in the cogen. Other class participants noticed and reproduced such changes and soon their own practices transformed. Not only did Shady’s students perform successfully in his science class, but also his work has huge implications for teacher education. Cogens were used as a way to transcend difference between immigrant teachers and students from divergent backgrounds.

15.2.3 Overview of Past Research Outcomes Each of the scholars mentioned above used cogens as a means to encourage students to assume increased responsibility for their science learning through examining the ways both the teachers and the students in a classroom can alter their practices to improve teaching and learning overall. With the existence of a plethora of structures that can diminish the power of a student or the entire class to be successful, a cogen becomes another field where new culture can be produced. Students engaged in conversations where they shared their ideas, concerns, and suggestions to improve social life in the classroom. Thus, participation in cogens allowed opportunities for students to become more agentic – having the power to act in ways to achieve their individual goals. In the above work, each teacher-researcher chose the method, but it was their students who decided what aspects of classroom life to discuss. Once these students returned to the classroom, they enacted the new culture that was created in the original cogen and slowly transformed the classroom field. All the students who were consistently involved in cogens at their schools engaged in a democratic process of being valued and learning to value difference. These differences in race, ethnicity, age gender, social class, and language were not solely between students but also existed between students and teachers, like in Lehner’s and Shady’s classrooms. Cogens allowed participants to better understand and learn from each other. Not only were these students involved in discourses in the science classroom and other fields that they formerly did not engage in, but over time, students began to focus on the motives of the larger collective. These were shifts from a pursuit of individual achievement to a focus on the ways to improve science learning of the entire class. Solidarity that emerged within cogen groups forged friendships, collaboration, and in some cases like Theo, ripple effects in other fields. Not only were there attitude shifts in participants, the data also show that there was increased science fluency in these science classrooms. There was increased student participation as well as improved understanding of science concepts as demonstrated through the written work of cogen participants. Notably, these teachers also showed their students that they were willing to listen to them, and make the necessary changes to improve learning. Collectively, the work described above makes a strong case for the continual use of cogens and the need for unbroken sharing of cogen-based research not just to other science educators, but also to educators in an array of disciplines.

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15.3 Significance of Current Research 15.3.1 Illuminating the Private School Experience Each of the studies above uses theoretical frameworks to support cogens and provides useful insights into how teacher-researchers used these dialogues to catalyze positive transformations of the science classroom and changed the roles and interactions between teachers and students. As a result, I decided to incorporate these ideas into my own classroom practices to observe possible transformations. Beyond simply adopting cogens as a panacea, I saw the opportunity to implement these ideas into a setting that does not typically get placed under the urban umbrella. Previously described research was largely based in NYC public schools with a student body that was largely either African-American, immigrant, or from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Hence, the existing research has focused on the use of cogens to improve the science participation and performance of arguably similar populations of students. I became interested in the ways in which cogens could benefit a sometimes forgotten populace of urban centers – the students attending small independent schools. Alongside the 1,400 New York City public schools are several small privately run schools spread across the five boroughs. ISAAGNY Schools (Independent School Admission Association of Greater New York) include programs from early childhood to high school, of which there are 127 of these schools in New York City. Within these schools, there are huge differences in student population, the faculty and staff, tuition fees, and academic, athletic, and support services. While a graduate student at Teacher’s College, I worked in several ISAAGNY schools as a substitute teacher. Through my interactions with students in several of these independent schools, my experiences showed that there are numerous students who are not representative of stereotypical private school students – White and members of high social class. Contrary to the popular belief, in these schools there is great diversity in race, ethnicity, religion, language, sexual orientation, family structure, student learning ability, and socioeconomic status. Many ISAAGNY students, because of their diagnosed learning disabilities and/or socioeconomic status, have their tuition subsidized by the State of New York after legally proving that their neighborhood public school lacked the resources to address their educational needs.

15.3.2 A Quality Science Education for All My current standpoint places me at a point where I deem a quality science education as a right to all students, regardless of socially constructed differences. As a science teacher, I am dedicated to providing opportunities for students to become engaged in the field of science and show them that, if they want to, they can be successful in the discipline. While the population of students in ISAAGNY schools is considerably outweighed by New York City’s 1.1 million public school attendees, why do we typically ignore the private sector of schooling? What classifies one

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student as more representative of the urban experience than another? Many will readily argue that public school students are in schools that are failing to educate them due to the confluence of many political, economical, and social problems. Thus, they deserve our full attention, as we should be focused on how to provide these children with the education they rightfully deserve. In the same light, these individuals would quickly contend that private school students are wealthy and attend “better schools with better teachers, better resources, and will certainly enter better colleges and obtain better jobs.” I have become increasingly concerned about the way in which many have characterized what it means to be an urban student and decide which populations of students are more important to educate/research than others. I consider it as important to illuminate the complexities of many current private-school students’ diverse lives and how families, peers, teachers, nannies, and other specialists (therapists, psychologists, etc.) all affect the educational experiences of private-school students. Paradoxically, I have discovered that many students attending independent schools can be as needy as many of their publicschool counterparts. Similarly, they face grave issues that disadvantage their achievement in the classroom: drug addiction, eating disorders, absentee guardians, feuding parents, adoption adjustment-related issues, and being diagnosed as learning-disabled. Therefore, research in private-school classrooms can illuminate the stories of these students who fall outside the stereotypical lines of what it means to be an urban student. Consequently, I felt that I was in a special position to examine these complexities, complexities that eventually trickle down into the science classroom and affect the teaching and learning that occurs there.

15.4 Research Setting and Context Pay Prep is a small, co-educational ISAAGNY school that is a recognized collegepreparatory school. For the academic year in which this research was conducted, there were 330 students enrolled with an ethnic breakdown as follows: 86% White, 8% Black, 5% Asian, 2% Hispanic, and <1% Other. Many of Pay Prep’s students typically come from families with high socioeconomic status. A small percentage of the student body that does not fall into this category receives tuition assistance through other means. This includes tuition subsidizing by the state, academic scholarships, or anonymous sponsorship by another family of a currently enrolled student. There were approximately 70 faculty members with 85% possessing Master’s degrees. The ethnic breakdown of the faculty was also similar to that of the student body with about 21% from non-Caucasian backgrounds. At Pay Prep, in both the middle and the upper schools, academic programs are organized according to a tracking system: Honors, Level I, Level II, and Level III1.

The existence of the Level III track is contingent upon the number of students in the grade level each year.

1 

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Placement is typically mediated by past performance and through standardized test scores (especially the ISEE2). Class size varies greatly ranging anywhere from 2 to 20 students. There is also subject differentiation in the high school. For example, 11th-grade students in the Honors and Level I classes are tracked for Chemistry, while Level II and Level III juniors are enrolled in either Environmental Science or Zoology. A little more than one-third of the student population is learning-disabled and possess Individualized Educational Programs (IEPs3). The school is fully mainstreamed, which means that there are learning-disabled students present in each grade and each class. Most diagnosed learning-disabled students are enrolled in the Help Program. This is an in-house academic support program that works collaboratively with classroom teachers, parents, and other professionals to assist students with specific learning disabilities to function successfully in the mainstream setting. To apply to Pay Prep’s Help Program, an applicant has to submit several pieces of documentation, including his/her IEP (if one exists), a privately administered neuropsychological evaluation, and WISC4 test results. For the academic year 2007–2008, there were 109 Help Program students. A great majority of admitted students have difficulties that place them in one of the following categories: • • • • • • • • • •

LD (Learning-Disabled) NVLD (Non-Verbal LD) Receptive and Expressive Language Disorder Central Auditory Processing ADD/ADHD (Attention-Deficit Disorder/Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) Dyslexia Discalcia Disgraphia Autism (including Asperger’s Syndrome) Poor Organizational Skills

On acceptance into the program, each student is matched with a Help Program specialist whose experience and expertise is best suited to his/her needs. Likewise, Pay Prep also attempts to provide gifted students with several opportunities to enrich their educational experiences. The school has a Smart Program that addresses the needs of the most academically able students through a rigorous curriculum. The Smart Program is a 3-year sequence leading to a Pay Prep Diploma with Honors.

The Independent School Entrance Examination (ISEE) is a standardized 3 h admission test for entrance into most private schools. 3 An IEP is a legal document that states a child’s present level of functioning; specific areas that need special services; annual goals; short-term objectives; services to be provided; and the method of evaluation to be implemented for children 3–21 years of age who have been determined eligible for special education. 4 The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) is the most commonly used IQ test for US children between ages six to 17. 2

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The program is very selective with only 10–15% of all 10th, 11th, and 12th graders being invited to join. These students attend two special seminars each week where they are introduced to advanced material not covered in the regular curriculum. For those students who qualify, independent study and advanced placement courses are also offered. In general, Pay Prep has a diverse student population and has a variety of programs in place that reflects the institution’s attempts to cope with the differences in its student body.

15.5 Research Design 15.5.1 A Seedbed for New Research The year in which my research evolved, I taught two sixth-grade science classes and two ninth-grade physical science courses. At the beginning of the year, the principal approached me about teaching a fifth course. There were three female students, all first-year transfers into Pay Prep who needed a special course in science. At their respective schools, they had completed Biology in the ninth grade and earned stellar grades. Not wanting these students to repeat a course unnecessarily (Biology is the only offered science course in the tenth grade at Pay Prep), the principal asked me to meet the youth to generate a list of advanced topics in science that I could teach them. The young women were allowed exemption from attendance for three periods each week from their chosen nonacademic electives (drama, music, art, or physical education) and it was during these periods that we agreed that we would have our to-be-designed science course. At our first meeting, introductions were made. Leslie is a second-generation immigrant from a middle-class Dominican family who transferred from an NYC Catholic school. Rebecka is a Finnish first-generation immigrant from a family of high socioeconomic status. She had previously attended a competitive high-performing ISAAGNY school. Ashley is an African-American female from a single-parent household. She transferred from another ISAAGNY school and was granted a scholarship to partially subsidize Pay Prep’s tuition. Each student shared with me a list of science topics they were interested in. I also shared a little about myself, including my childhood experiences in Trinidad, my early experiences as an immigrant in a Jersey City public school, my engineering years and graduate work in science education, my teaching experiences, and my current studies as a doctoral student in an urban education program. All three students expressed great interest in education and working with children. At the close of our first conversation, there was a consensus that our new course would center on science education and working in my sixth-grade classes. After our first meeting together, it was decided that there would be informal observations made of both my sixth-grade classes (a 6-1 and a lower-tracked 6-2 class). Thus, the tenth-grade girls visited both classes several times before we met officially as a group again. This 6-2 class comprised ten students – six boys and four girls, all White. Nine of these ten students were enrolled in the school’s Help Program.

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According to their IEPs, they were diagnosed mainly with ADHD and LD. Observations of the class revealed some of the difficulties that were hindering success: disinterest in science, hyperactivity, poor written expression, and poor reading comprehension. In contrast, the students in the higher-tracked 6-1 class appeared to be more interested in science and could be characterized as more focused, and more determined to excel. These observations were discussed, and collectively, it was decided that it was urgent for us to employ new structures to transform the existing learning environment of the 6-2 classroom. They were assigned selected readings on cogens and coteaching, and as a group, agreed that they were authentic ideas that could possibly transform the science classroom. As my tenth graders and I saw it, the infusion of cogens held the potential to catalyze and radically transform this class. It was decided that we would spend two periods each week having cogens and that a third period would be spent in the sixth-grade classroom coteaching as a group of four. The first cogen would serve as a period to engage in coplanning; the second day, we would coteach together, and on the last day, we would hold a cogen to debrief about our weekly experiences together. The decision to coteach thus emerged as a principal outcome of our initial cogens together. Coteaching is the practice of teaching with more than one teacher and by doing so, each learns from the other and reproduces certain teaching practices (Tobin and Roth 2006). Coteachers are co-present and there is a shared responsibility among coteachers as lessons are enacted. The idea of coteaching was introduced in a cogen with the tenth-grade students as a way to ensure collaboration through coplanning and working at the elbows of each other while in the sixth-grade classroom. It was also presented as a way to have a shared responsibility in the classroom through capitalizing on each of our individual strengths. The students were very receptive to the idea of coteaching in the class because it was an opportunity to integrate their own ideas in the sixth-grade classroom but doing so with each other’s support and shared responsibility. Hence, from the very beginning, cogens and coteaching emerged as complementary methodologies that would serve as the basis of our work together.

15.5.2 Data Analysis The decision to use cogens in the sixth-grade classroom came as a result of a collective desire for positive change. However, the question of how these changes were going to be evaluated was initially left unanswered. Responsible research and good analysis should ensure that a series of questions are consistently being generated during the course of the study. The following questions should serve as guidelines for evaluation of cogen-based work: 1. What was cogenerated? 2. To what extent were the motives of the group accomplished? 3. To what extent were the individual goals of each participant achieved? 4. Was there an emergence of emotional solidarity? 5. Were the authenticity criteria met?

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• Are participants experiencing changing perspectives? • Is there a growing understanding of different viewpoints within the group? • What are the changes that are happening in the cogen? Are there changes in other fields? • Is there equity within the cogen? Has participation become more equal? When the idea of a cogen is introduced, students should be provided with sufficient understanding of the rules of cogens and the desired outcomes. They should also have a central role in any interpretation of their participation and in characterizations of larger science classroom. What this accomplishes is a dismissal of any possible claims by others pertaining to researcher subjectivity in the research. It also encourages a shift from students merely being participants to students becoming student-researchers. As a result of participation in weekly cogens with my three tenth-grade students, we cotaught several lessons across various science disciplines in my 6-2 class for one academic year. There has been a plethora of key outcomes as a result of the work done with these student-researchers with far-reaching implications for teaching and learning science. Never did we anticipate the extent to which we would observe changes in all of who were involved. In line with research criteria described previously, the final sections attempt to take a closer look at the transformations experienced by the participants involved in this year-long research both in and out of the science classroom field. Additionally, I use the guiding questions presented above to evaluate the research that evolved at my school.

15.6 Multiple Outcomes of Cogenerative Dialogues 15.6.1 Coteaching and the Development of a Student-Researcher Identity Coteaching to me means working together with peers to create a better learning experience for students. Coteaching also means looking at clips of film we have taped and learning from our mistakes. Coteaching helps us improve our attitude, the way we interact with others, and teaches us how to work cooperatively with others.(Ashley, Essay, December 2007)

During the academic year, the student-researchers and I participated in numerous cogens that centered on our work in my 6-2 class. Their initial experiences were largely observation-based but with the girls freely engaging with the six graders and acting in supportive capacities. Future lessons cotaught were all their own ideas. Each future lesson had each student take turns at serving as a cogen leader with the responsibility of presenting a lesson idea to the group. The other cogen participants would then provide feedback and offer additional ideas to improve each lesson. Each cogen participant would assume responsibility of some aspect of the implementation of the lesson. Therefore, even though there was a cogen leader for each lesson, we each had roles in the design, implementation, and assessment of each lesson.

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The complementary practices of cogens and coteaching permitted new culture to be produced, reproduced in the cogen field and also in the sixth-grade science classroom. The use of cogens was a giant step forward as students listened and learned from other participants. Once we accept that students are capable of understanding and applying theory and methods, we can make significant progress in creating research designs in which students’ voices inform what was studied, how we study it, and what we learned. Weekly cogens with the tenth-graders revealed that they were undergoing significant transformations during the course of this study. Leslie and Ashley, two formerly shy students, both experienced a gradual surge in confidence as indicative through their increased participation in cogens and also during coteaching. A striking moment that has remained with me was an occasion when Leslie, usually less participatory during cogens, directed a question at me during a cogen. This particular cogen was a debriefing on a cotaught lesson together 2 days before. I had asked the students what their thoughts were on how the lesson unfolded. Rebecka had responded at length while her peers listened. The following transcript describes what happened: Speaker

Leslie:

Rebecka: Leslie:

Me

Video Transcript Silence for 2.0 s. My arms are folded across my chest. Ashley is seated upright, leaning forward with hands outstretched on the table directly facing Rebecka across the table. Rebecka has her elbows on the table with her hands on her face. Leslie also has her elbows on the table and hands positioned on each cheek. Yeah (Short nervous laugh with elbows on table and hands positioned on each cheek. Ashley turns to look at her briefly before turning her head back to focus on Rebecka). So like … (Elbows on table with hands positioned high on each cheek. Silence for 3.0 s) What do you think? (Fixes hair with both hands and then returns elbows to the table with hands back to their original position on her face. Group collectively laughs nervously for 2.0 s) Ashley looks up and over to Leslie and then turns her focus to me. She tilts her head downward while laughing at the question. Putting me on the spot? (Question is overlapped by collective student laughter) Yes.

Leslie’s actions were very surprising to me. When I first viewed this vignette, I interpreted in a way that supported my understanding that Leslie was the type of student who was very “right/wrong”-oriented. I had perceived her to be a student who was most concerned with “what’s the right answer” and she desired these right answers from an authority figure/teacher. However, when I asked her about this episode at a later date, I was pleasantly surprised. Leslie stated that since it was a cogen, each participant’s voice mattered, including mine. This incident critically highlights the importance of not privileging one interpretation of an event. It also demonstrates that Leslie had a better understanding of the rules that govern cogens than I had understood, even though her actions had appeared contradictory. By asking this question, she had also demonstrated that she was beginning to enact practices that suggested role-switching from student to student-researcher.

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During the course of our work together, my students were asked to write and respond to several questions in the form of short essays. These essay assignments were to serve a dual purpose. One, to learn more directly about the ways in which they were experiencing ontological shifts and two, as one form of assessment, as I would have to assign grades for our co-constructed science course. These essays formed the basis of their grades during the year. The following is a list of some of the questions that were asked across different assignments: 1. What have you learned about yourself thus far? Think about your role in the classroom and in our cogens. Identify both good and bad. How can you improve? 2. Give suggestions for improving our work together as a coteaching team. 3. What changes or accommodations do we need to make to better serve or instruct our students? My experience with coteaching has been very insightful as to how teachers operate. Coteaching takes a lot of patience and teamwork, two things I have learned with this science class. Ever since we have started, I have paid a lot more attention to my teachers in a different way, examining their technique and sometimes criticizing it. Coteaching also has definitely made me a lot more sympathetic towards teachers and educators. (Leslie, Essay, December 2007)

The above quote is a good example of the reflective practices of the students during their experience in coteaching. This also was apparent in their lesson ideas. The actual content of their lessons also became more substantive as they have articulated an increased appreciation for lesson planning that had to take into consideration student ability, time, and resources among other variables. A critical part of being a researcher entails sharing your ideas in a professional setting so that others can learn about your work. Near the end of our year together, I presented to the students the idea of sharing our experiences using cogens and coteaching at a professional science-education conference. The idea of meeting other students and educators using these methodologies evoked nervous excitement from the group. We participated in two cogens in preparation for our very first presentation together. We decided that for the presentation, it would be important to share how they each had changed from the beginning of the experience. It was decided that our slideshow should contain key pictures that would offer rich examples of the identified shifts. For example, in Fig. 15.1, Ashley is discussing her experiences coteaching and the bond she formed working with two sixth-grade girls in particular who appear in the photographs with her. While they spoke to the audience about their own personal growths, I included an insight into the perceived changes of the 6-2 students we worked with. The presentation took place at New York University (NYU) in early May. At the end, the students received positive feedback from other science educators who congratulated them on their work and their willingness to share what they had learned. The following expresses how Ashley felt after this conference: We also had the wonderful opportunity of talking about our science coteaching class to a group of people at New York University. It was a wonderful experience, although I was scared at first. When we got up and started talking, all my fears went away and I found the

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Fig. 15.1  Student-researchers with me, presenting our work together at a 2008 science education conference in NYC courage to talk. We started explaining how Rebecka, Leslie, and I became coteachers in the first place. We also spoke about our changing ontology and how I changed from a shy and timid person to a more outgoing and talkative person.(Ashley, Essay, June 2008)

These students were not required to participate in the conference but chose to. They did so despite having to sacrifice their personal time to co-plan, and arrive at NYU early the next morning in order to attend the conference. Rebecka’s father also attended the presentation as well as another classmate of theirs. This dedication to our work is an indicator of a major shift from completing tasks for a course, being students, to a collective desire to learn and share their experience of being researchers.

15.6.2 Video as a Reflective Tool and Implications for Science Teaching One of the primary topics that surfaced during an early cogen was the issue of filming and the potential benefits and harms it may pose on all involved. The studentresearchers admitted to feeling uncomfortable during the first few video-recordings and reviews, but felt that it was an element that would become less intrusive as our work continued. In time, their views on filming our cogens and coteaching changed. A key benefit of filming as realized by the student-researchers themselves was that review of video allowed them to observe aspects of their practices that were both positive and negative. As one of them shared in an essay:

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The filming of our cogens and lessons provides us with a tool to see things we missed during the actual lesson. By watching the cogens and lessons later, you point out your flaws and learn to not repeat the same mistakes. But it also shows the things you should repeat, the good points you brought up or the way you said or did something. You can also see students that needed help but none was given or a situation that could have been easily avoided. Filming the lessons help the students indirectly by showing us, the coteachers, how to further help them. As everyone learns from their mistakes and polishes their good talents, the lessons will go easier and better.(Leslie, Essay, December 2007)

Video analysis was particularly powerful for Rebecka who began the experience as an assertive and confident student. Working with Leslie and Ashley, two very quiet and less-expressive students, forced her to realize that in line with the rules of cogens and good coteaching, she could not dominate all discourses. Rebecka seeing herself on video being dominant in the 6-2 class and acting similarly during early cogens allowed her to become more conscious of her talk time. She also created ways to effectively weave the voices of her peers into our cogens by directing questions at them or providing commentary about their practices to stimulate conversation from them. Video analysis also made her aware of certain negative practices that she was enacting in the classroom. Rebecka was particularly impatient with a student who by most measures would be considered a difficult student in the classroom. He was usually very unfocused, at times disruptive to the flow of class and rarely completed the required assignments. After video review of an early lesson for a paper, Rebecka realized the need to find new ways to interact with this student so as to improve both his behavior and his performance in the class. This vignette has the whole class, Ashley, Ms. Grimes, and me in it. When I first viewed this lesson I did not like the way I reacted to Zev at all. My problem is that I get very easily annoyed with him even when he isn’t really doing anything particularly bad just talking a little loud or standing up. Actually, after I watched this I have been trying to make an effort to, when I see him, be a little warmer so he isn’t as scared of me and so that I don’t get annoyed as quickly with him. In this clip, I don’t like in particular how I go straight to sit by him (though I think I went there because I like the seat) because he might get the impression that I’m there to keep tabs on his behavior alone.(Rebecka, Essay, December 2007)

Through video reviews, Ashley realized after watching numerous experiences in the 6-2 classroom that she continuously found herself working with the same two students, Crystal and Janet. On review of both digital pictures and video, we confirmed that this was indeed true. Both Figs. 15.2a and b indicate such practices. Figure  15.2a is a photograph of Ashley assisting the two students, with a fish dissection. This was a lesson that was planned by me and was one of the early activities that were observation-based (coteaching was not enacted). Figure 15.2b shows Ashley again working with the two students during a later cotaught lesson that was led by Rebecka. The students were asked to review a slide show depicting animals endemic to the Galapagos Islands. They were then required to answer follow-up questions on what they had learned. These handouts are on Crystal’s desk and partially concealed by her leaning toward the laptop. With further discussion during a later cogen, we realized that Ashley had very similar personalities to both Crystal and Janet. They were all soft-spoken,

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Fig. 15.2  Evidence of student-researcher Ashley naturally gravitating toward Crystal and Janet during two different lessons in two different classrooms weeks apart

shy students who lacked confidence in the classroom. Hence, such actions indicated that there was a solidarity that emerged among this group. With this realization, Ashley decided that during her future experiences in the classroom, she would make concerted efforts to work with other students besides Crystal and Janet. However, she remained very interested in working closely with Crystal and observing the ways she changed as a student during the year. For her final project, she chose to write a paper that chronicled the noticeable shifts in her own actions and those of Crystal. She used conversation analysis of several vignettes from different coteaching experiences to show how they were both growing as a result of the experience. In another essay, Ashley also advocated for the idea of having the sixth-graders review the coteaching lessons that were filmed. She explained why as follows: We can increase the students’ benefit of filming by showing them clips of the film and asking what they thought was significant in that specific piece. This can also show them what they can change about themselves, like we do when we watch the clips. Maybe someone could tell them that they can participate more while the other needs to focus more on their work, instead of distracting the class.(Ashley, Essay, December 2007)

Leslie also learned a great deal through reviewing our filmed work together and cogens where we shared our own interpretations of each other’s practices. She was able to reflect on her own transformative practices in the classroom toward the end of the year. I have learned a lot about myself thus far. I have learned that I think too much and decide to keep it in when I could possibly be adding a good asset to the conversation and even lesson. In the beginning, I was very quiet and not participating as much as I should have. Towards the present, I have talked more and helped the students with their assignments and questions. I can improve by speaking up more, arriving more prepared, and really becoming a coteacher with the others.(Leslie, Essay, December 2007)

Being involved in research should advantage its participants appreciably. Leslie, Rebecka, and Ashley all expressed how much the experience had benefited them.

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They each initially thought that using video was slightly awkward but later became strong advocates of filming our work. As Tobin suggests, involving both teachers and students in video analyses can be viewed as emancipatory and what is learned can be used as a basis for dialogue about the quality of interactions and transactions and possible ways of increasing levels of success (2007). Not only do students learn more about teaching and learning but also expand their identities to include doing research and becoming educators. If more teachers make the professional decision to videotape their practices and analyze data for their own professional purposes, videotaping becomes a part of normal classroom practice. Using video data for research, however, is a concern of the IRB (Institutional Review Board). If more educators became involved in using video analysis to improve their professional practice and their work shows that there are more obvious benefits than harms to being filmed, then the IRB will finally begin to concentrate less energy on being highly critical of such empirical work like the type that has emerged through using cogens. Hopefully in the near future, no longer will educators have to work tirelessly to obtain permission to use the data resources in research.

15.7 Through the Looking Glass: Cogen Evaluation À La Guba and Lincoln Previous discussion in this chapter spoke to the need to question whether cogenerative dialogues in a study are indeed true cogens through using the authenticity criteria of Guba and Lincoln. These criteria ask researchers to ensure that participants in their work experience ontological, educative, catalytic, and tactical shifts as a result of their involvement. As described in the previous section, cogens produced numerous outcomes in my research, outcomes that were far beyond those my student-researchers and I anticipated. The aspects of these authenticity criteria are well documented in the data presented in this paper. Most critically, cogens provided a space where each studentresearcher could freely express herself. Throughout this paper, I felt that it was important to incorporate as much of their voices so as not to privilege my own interpretations of our experience together. These pieces of data were chosen to present a case that not only showed that the views expressed in this piece belonged to the collective and were not just my own. Hooks (1994) earnestly calls on teachers to detach themselves from their roles as educator to critique the teaching and learning that unfolds in the classroom. She also asks that educators think critically about why they think and teach in the ways they do. Hooks believes that teachers must be actively committed to a process of self-actualization that promotes their own well-being if they are to teach in a manner that empowers students. Hooks’ ideas on teaching and learning are well aligned with the rules of cogens. Not only did the student-researchers continuously think critically about their own ideas about good teaching and learning, but I too engaged in constant reflection of my own practices. Their ideas made me repeatedly think about ways I would design my own lessons and the reasons I planned in these ways. Through cogens, we each explained our own ideas and perspectives about the way a lesson should be

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implemented. Likewise, cogens encouraged participants to become both reflective and reflexive about their work with the sixth-graders. The following excerpt from an essay written by Ashley during the year indicates her changing ontologies: In this coteaching experience, I have learned that I am a very shy person. I speak with a low voice and that I also don’t share my opinions during the cogen due to my fear of sounding “stupid.” When I am speaking to the 6-2 class I also sound unsure of myself, which probably causes the class to doubt everything I say. I look down a lot while I’m talking in class and during the cogen and that is where I need to improve. I also need to speak louder and make myself known in class, instead of being quiet and letting Rebecka do all the talking.(Ashley, Essay, December 2007)

Cogens also catalyzed many changes in other social fields. The experience created a close friendship among the student-researchers in fields outside of the cogen and also forged amicable relationships between students in the 6-2 class. It can also be argued that this social bond was critical to helping these tenth-graders adjust to their new high school. Cogens also initiated the coteaching that transpired in the 6-2 classroom. My student-researchers developed co-responsibility during their practices. Coplanning and coteaching both encouraged their working at the elbows of each other, with constant reinforcement of what it meant to be a coteacher. At the same time, it encouraged the acquisition of leadership skills through our method of rotating lesson responsibility. Co-responsibility also played out in the equity of participation. Through video review, student-researchers were also to observe how much they were/were not participating equally in cogens. They articulated these observations in essays, and at times, even developed the skill to ensure that all voices were being heard during our meetings. Cogens were additionally used as means to assess the science knowledge of the student-researchers as they engaged in coplanning. Not only was lesson co-planning occurring, but the student-researchers were also actively learning science and sharing scientific knowledge, an outcome that was also prevalent in other cogen-based work (Roth and Tobin 2001). Our work together also served as an introduction to science education. The student-researchers learnt how their own perceptions about teaching were introduced in the classroom. This was illuminated through video analysis and discussion of our practices during cogens. They expressed an increased understanding of the difficulties associated with teaching and articulated a renewed valuing of what educators do each day.

15.8 Research Implications Much of the already published empirical work in science education that incorporated the use of cogens to address the complexities that exist in the urban science classroom was done by the very classroom teachers or rather teacher-researchers who in turn shared their findings about their own classroom experiences. The notion of a teacher as a researcher is not a new one, yet it continues to invite criticism from individuals who argue that there should not exist such a blurring of knower and practitioner (Cochran-Smith and Lytle 1999). However, the promising

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results of the work of recent science educators to improve the teaching and learning of science in their own classes cannot be easily cast aside. Rather than a return to traditional beliefs about the roles of teachers and continuing to devalue the extraordinary work being done by such educators, we should be leaning toward an overarching acceptance of teachers as change agents, and that their doing research in their own classes should be regarded as good professional practice. As a result of my work, I have learned that students themselves have strong perceptions of what “good” teaching looks like, but through the use of cogenerative dialogues and coteaching, they were able to realize the potentials for improvement and learning that exist in the classroom. Employing cogens is one way to engage with students on a more extensive basis and touch at the heart of the individual experience. Despite the obvious larger similarities that may exist among certain groups of students, it remains the case where a tiny slice of information about a student’s life can possess more significant value and consequently impact both the teaching and learning of science. As a result of my experiences, I believe that it is critical to produce inviting spaces where students feel humanized within the science curriculum and believe that their own questions, comments, objections, and ideas are indeed welcomed and an integral and component of the science experience. A large part of becoming fluent in science involves knowing and understanding shared values and accepted practices within the scientific community. However, attaining such fluency should not have to occur at the cost of exiling positive emotional energy and activity that I argue should run prevalent in the science classroom. There needs to be a significant shift away, for both students and instructors alike, from dated ideologies that science classes should be places that are devoid of student input. I do not intend to impart a positivistic feel onto the discussion of how to improve science learning. However, the outcomes of my own research combined with those produced in past cogen-based ethnographic work show that there should be real considerations made on the part of implementing cogens. These significant outcomes cannot be ignored. However, fields, like the classroom, are not deterministic and we cannot attempt to apply a one-size-fits-all solution to the difficulties that are encountered in these social spaces. I argue that we should not render cogens to be a sophisticated tool that can easily repair the typical problems associated with social life in the urban classroom. Rather, there needs to be a shift away from viewing cogens as a means to solve such problems and more as good professional practice. The benefits of cogens extend to schools, classes, and individual participants, including students and teachers. This and past research shows that teachers who were struggling to work with students learned to teach in ways to build curricula around students’ cultural capital. Students also learned to speak respectfully to their teacher, listen attentively, and change their roles in class. Key benefits for the students in my research include changes in identity, acceptance of a wider set of roles including coteaching with other students and the teacher, accepting responsibility for the quality of learning and teaching, co-responsibility, friendship, and exposure to the discipline of science education. Thus, cogens continue to be highly effective with different urban subpopulations of students and it is critical that these numerous success stories are shared not just within the science education community, but enter into other educational discourses.

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References Bayne, G. (2007). Identity, culture and shared experiences: The power of cogenerative dialogues in urban science education. Doctoral dissertation, The Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York, New York. Bayne, G. (2009). Cogenerative dialogues: The creation of interstitial culture in the New York metropolis. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), World of science education: North America (pp. 513–528). The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. (1999). The teacher research movement: A decade later. Educational Researcher, 28(7), 15–25. Emdin, C. (2007). Exploring the contexts of urban science classrooms: Cogenerative dialogues, coteaching and cosmopolitanism. Doctoral dissertation, The Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York, New York. Guba, E. & Lincoln, Y. S. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. hooks, bl. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge. Independent School Admission Association of Greater New York. About ISAAGNY. Retrieved October 8, 2008 from http://www.isaagny.org/about_isaagny/index.aspx Lehner, E. (2007). Cogenerative dialogues and coteaching as fields for transforming urban teaching and learning. Doctoral dissertation, The Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York, New York. Pitts, W. (2007). Being, becoming, and belonging: Improving science fluency during laboratory activities in urban education. Doctoral dissertation, The Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York, New York. Roth, W.-M. & Tobin, K. (2001). Learning to teach science as praxis. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(7), 741–762. Shady, A. (2008). Immigrant science teachers and identity formation/reformation. Doctoral dissertation, The Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York, New York. Tobin, K. (2007). Research with human participants. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 2, 703–710. Tobin, K., Elmesky, R., & Seiler, G. (eds). (2005). Improving urban science education: New roles for teachers, students and researchers. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Tobin, K. & Roth, W.-M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam: Sense Publishing.

Chapter 16

Cogenerative Dialogues: Improving Mathematics Instruction in an Adult Basic Education Program Felicia Wharton and Wesley Pitts

16.1 Introduction: Adult Basic Education and Mathematics Adult learners in the United States are returning to the mathematics classroom in overwhelming numbers to prove that they can learn the mathematics that they were unsuccessful at during their prior schooling experience (Ginsburg 2005). On entering these classrooms, many adults realize that academic history often repeats itself as the same curricula and teaching methods found in traditional K-12 educational settings are being used. A “one size fits all” approach to teaching and learning is being applied in the Adult Basic Education (ABE) classroom. In a study of 271 adult literacy programs, Amstutz and Sheared (2000) found that 73% of ABE programs serving adult learners were described as using activities and materials that were not related to their students’ lives. Additionally, Amstutz and Sheared (2000) found that instruction in the ABE programs was typically teacher-directed and -controlled rather than collaboratively planned and directed. Viewed from these perspectives, students in ABE classrooms were placed in positions where they must reject their cultural knowledge and ways of knowing to be successful in school. Yet, adult learners bring a wealth of knowledge to the ABE classroom, regardless of how much time they spent in prior school settings. These students bring powerful images of the culture of schooling, which can be instrumental in the education/re-education or training/retraining of adult learners. Students use their experiences, prior knowledge, and perceptions as well as their physical and interpersonal environments to construct knowledge, which affects their thinking and learning. Students’ worldview highly influences their learning processes. As students produce practices and schema (culture), they act on and with their environment in strategic ways to make meaning and meet their goals. These strategies provide meaningful learning experiences for adult learners who foster critical thinking and its associated process skills. As such, adult learners construct knowledge in their preferred ways mediated by their culture, particularly their prior experiences and embedded worldviews. This chapter focuses on the mathematical dispositions of myelf and four ABE students who participated in cogenerative dialogues (cogens). Throughout the chapter,

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personal pronouns are used to represent Felicia Wharton’s voice while collective pronouns are used to represent both authors’ voices. The four students featured in this chapter came into the ABE program at different entry points and academic levels but enrolled in the same General Educational Development (GED) mathematics class in the Spring 2008 semester. All four students self-selected to join this collaborative research involving cogens to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics in an urban ABE program. A priority of the research featured in this chapter is to understand how adult learners construct mathematical knowledge and develop the necessary process skills (e.g., practicing and assessing answer choices) for critical thinking and problem-solving activities to gain a better understanding of domain knowledge and to pass the General Educational Development (GED) mathematics test. Students’ participation within cogens enhanced my teaching practice of mathematics in which I have gained a better understanding of how adult learners approach, enact, and learn the mathematics necessary to achieve their goals of passing the mathematics section on the GED examination. The cogens, which ensued every week, focused on ways to enhance the current teaching and learning practices within the mathematics classroom. In this chapter, we analyze vignette from a cogen session in the Spring semester of 2008 to provide empirical evidence illustrating how adult learners understand, negotiate, and develop the necessary process skills for enacting mathematics. This particular cogen took place in the fourth week of the Spring semester in which the students had recently returned to school after a one-week break. The vignette is divided into four related episodes that are analyzed individually, but together they cohere and connect to illustrate salient themes for the improvement of mathematics teaching and learning in a GED classroom. We draw on theoretical frames from cultural sociology, sociology of emotions, and use conversation and prosodic analyses to describe students’ experiences with mathematics in addition to the developmental shifts, which occurred among the participants, as they cogenerate a central site for coteaching and learning mathematics. Evidence shows that cogen participants constructed a better understanding of how they learn mathematics and essentially became advocates for each other as they communicated, collaborated, cotaught, and implemented positive changes in their learning environment. Thus, as active coparticipants in the planning, implementation, and informal assessment of their own learning and the mathematics curriculum, cogen participants began to enact culture to create a successful learning environment that met their goals and motives.

16.2 Adult Basic Education and the General Educational Development (GED) Exam ABE programs in the United States provide services and instruction for adult learners who are below postsecondary level of education. These programs have assisted many adult learners, aged 16 years and older, to develop their literacy and numeracy

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skills, improve their chances of obtaining employment, and provide students the essential foundation necessary to participate in higher education (Amstutz and Sheared 2000). Many of the students who enroll within ABE programs do not possess a traditional high-school diploma. Hence, many students enroll within ABE programs to become prepared to take five-part battery tests to obtain their GED credentials. For many students, obtaining their GED is imperative if they are to remain employed, have the opportunity to further their educational or career goals, or gain personal satisfaction from their success in passing this high-stakes test. The GED test currently comprises five subject tests: social studies, science, mathematics, reading, and writing. To receive a passing score on the GED test, students need to receive a minimum score of 410 on each subject test and a combined score of 2,250. However, out of the five subject tests, mathematics plays a central role. It is the subject area where students fail the most in addition to the writing test (GED Testing Program Statistical Report 2007). In 2006, the GED testing service reported that more candidates achieved the standard score of 410 or better in the subject areas of science, reading, and social studies while they struggled to achieve the minimum score in the mathematics and writing test sections of the GED. The candidates who succeeded in passing the mathematics test achieved a median score of 470 (GED Testing Program Statistical Report 2007). To help students achieve a passing score on the GED test, a new approach to mathematics education in GED institutions is required. Students should be central participants within the planning and implementation stages of curriculum and assessment processes, which provide students with experience of what it entails to be and become a mathematics learner and teacher. Below, we advocate and show that the enactment of cogens has become a vital and productive approach to mathematics education in a GED program.

16.3 Computer-Assisted Instruction and Getting Started with Cogens In 2006, I was hired as a mathematics instructor at the Downtown Center,1 an ABE program located in New York City. As a newly hired mathematics lecturer, my first assignment was to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics within the GED department. Prior to my arrival, only a few students were nominated and successful in obtaining their GED credentials. The majority of students were failing the GED mathematics test. The GED department at the Downtown Center comprised three 10-week programs, the Basic Literacy, the Pre-GED, and the GED programs in which students can spend a minimum of 10 weeks to a maximum of 30 weeks depending on their entry point in the GED department. For instance, if a

 Pseudonyms will be used throughout replacing the names of the ABE program and research participants

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student entered the department in the Basic Literacy program and progressed to Pre-GED and then GED, they would have spent a maximum of 30 weeks in the department. The Basic Literacy program was designed to help students acquire the necessary skills to advance to the Pre-GED or GED level. Students were placed within one of the three programs based on their entrance score on the official predictor test in the subject areas of mathematics, social studies, and writing. Incoming students qualified for the Basic Literacy program if their score on each part the official predictor test fell in the range 320–360. A minimum score of 370 on each of the official predictor tests qualifies students for the Pre-GED program while students with scores of 400 and above on each of the official predictor test qualified for the GED program. In my first semester at the Downtown Center, I was able to raise the GED completions to approximately 75%. However, with each semester that followed, the number of students passing the GED examination decreased. The teaching strategies employed were not enhancing students’ understanding of the mathematics required to be successful in the test. The teaching strategies I employed within the classroom had a “shelf life” of 10 weeks and could not be utilized in the following semester. Fewer students were obtaining their GED credentials and mathematics was again the nemesis. The faculty and administration at the Downtown Center decided that an additional mathematics class was needed to improve the students’ chances of passing the GED mathematics test. In the fall of 2007, a Computer-Assisted Instruction mathematics class (CAI) was added to the GED program. The CAI became a supplement to the teacher-led instructed classes, and met once per week for 3 h. Sara, a mathematics instructor, implemented the curriculum that was prepared by me and provided students with assistance in the lab using traditional and computer-assisted teaching methods. The CAI course offered students an additional 3 h of mathematics instruction in which the students reviewed what was taught in the teacher-led classes at their own pace utilizing the drill and practice exercises and the tutorial instruction from two computerized mathematics programs (McGraw-Hill Contemporary (MHC) GED Interactive (2002) and Houghton Mifflin’s (2009) SkillsTutor). As a leading advocate of the CAI class and the creator of the CAI curriculum, I was surprised that many of my students in the pilot stage did not believe that the CAI class could improve their chances of passing the GED mathematics test. The students conveyed their unfamiliarity with utilizing technology such as a mathematics-computerized program to enhance the learning of mathematics, as “it was not human.” The computerized program was viewed as a virtual mathematics textbook instead of a resource to improve learning. In addition, my students perceived my role as the instructor of the teacher-led class as that of the authoritarian in which I held the most power with regard to instruction and curriculum, while Sara was perceived as a monitor instead of a teacher to “watch over” students making weekly reports regarding the completion of the weekly assignment. There was also an interesting parallel regarding the students’ perceptions of themselves as powerless and any suggestions they made regarding both classes would not be taken into consideration given their prior experiences within a school setting.

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My students’ questions, actions, and perceptions of my identity and the curriculum I created bothered me. I was angry, hurt, and disappointed since I was a leading advocate for the additional class and wrote the curriculum, which the students obviously disliked. Listening to the students’ fears, concerns, and assumptions regarding the CAI, I understood their resistance for not wanting to attend class. However, I observed that the impromptu forum that took place contained many essential elements of cogens discussed in the following section. The dialogue between me and the students became a rich resource that utilized students’ understanding of the current-shared classroom experience affording the reform of the classroom environment. From that initial discussion, cogens became a pedagogical tool to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics, as it provided a forum that reflected students’ experiences of mathematics and the classroom culture where they were the central participants. Because of scheduling and administrative conflicts, I met with Sara in one-on-one cogens and the group cogens with the students at different time slots during the semester. Three students self-selected to participate in cogens and referred to themselves as the “debate squad.” To the students, this metaphor for cogens symbolized their understanding of cogens and the approach we took in our weekly sessions where we discussed, evaluated, and cogenerated strategies to enhance the learning environment for the entire class. There were many beneficial characteristics that emerged from this initial application of cogens in which students enhanced their mathematical knowledge from actively being coparticipants in the planning, implementation, and assessment of the curriculum. The rippling effects ultimately lead to the majority of those nominated to take the official GED examination acquiring their GED credentials and enrolling in future mathematics courses. As such, the debate squad meetings became a metaphor for our first successful series of cogens at Downtown Center in the fall of 2007. Building on these experiences, I chose to enact cogen in all my GED mathematics classes.

16.4 Cogenerative Dialogues (Cogens) Cogens have become an essential pedagogical tool in a variety of formal learning settings (public, private, urban, suburban, K-12, and college) for the improvement of the quality of teaching and learning within science and mathematics classrooms (Martin and Scantlebury 2008). Tobin and Roth (2006) describe cogens as discussions among participants about shared experiences, such as learning mathematics, to identify and review what types of encounters and accompanying structures seems to work and what do not. We theorize encounters as sites for face-to-face interactions composed of structures where participants interact and also transact by appropriating cultural resources (Pitts 2007). As such, the main idea of cogens is that all participants are provided with productive opportunities to help cogenerate and enact forms of culture that will improve encounters and structures that support teaching and learning. These characteristics of cogens exemplify elements of critical pedagogy.

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Critical pedagogy attempts to minimize power differentials in shared conversation that facilitates while interrogating and reconceiving the structures of social life in an emancipatory manner (Tobin and Roth 2006). In particular, the power-sharing characteristics increase the potential to reconceive and reconstruct; (1) the authority of all cogen participants, (2) the teaching and learning environment, and (3) the agency and roles of both students and teacher. The changes made within cogens are agreed by the participants, those who are immediate stakeholders, rather than waiting for recommendations from educators, administrators, researchers, or policy-makers. Accordingly, teachers and students benefit from these dialogues as students gain a sense of ownership in their education in which teachers listen attentively to students’ understanding of their learning environment. Additionally, teachers provide students with their perspective of what is occurring within the classroom, whereby the culture and resources of the encounter is utilized to make positive changes with the learning environment (Bayne 2009). As in the case of the first series of cogen at the Downtown Center, students identify their teaching and learning needs by means of self-reflection of their prior-shared experiences in the classroom and other settings. The insights teachers and students obtain provide valuable feedback, which could help to increase chains of successful encounters within the learning environment. Cogens allow student voices to be heard, resolutions to be cogenerated within the learning environment offering a plethora of possibilities for the improvement of teaching and learning. An important ripple effect is that mutual respect is established between the teacher(s) and the students as they work collaboratively to improve achievement trends, the curriculum, and other related cogen and classroom structures. Thus, collaboration among math teachers and their students in cogens regarding each participant’s lived experiences are utilized to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics to inform classroom practices.

16.5 Continuing with Cogens (Spring 2008) Despite differences in age, gender, ethnicity, educational background, and social experiences, students enroll in ABE programs across the United States with the intent of obtaining their GED credentials. The main purpose of the GED examination is to certify that students aged 16 years and older have achieved the academic skills of a typical high-school student. However, many adult learners struggle to achieve their GED credentials because of the mathematics test on the GED examination. Thus, ABE programs have become popular with adult learners, as it represents their last hope to acquire their GED credentials. ABE programs have become social spaces that bring students together across boundaries of difference and shared interest to become high-school graduates by means of an alternative certification. These are the students I encounter each semester whose collective histories represent the images of today’s ABE students. Students from my Spring 2008 GED classes (day and night program) took part in cogens in addition to the CAI instructor. I chose to introduce cogens in the CAI

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because it was important to have all the students present including the CAI instructor and myself. At this point, a new CAI instructor replaced Sara. In a typical semester, four to eight students participate in cogens. However, in this chapter, we will focus on the four students enrolled in the GED day program who self-selected to be participants within this research. The four students were Jacinth, Janice, Cathy, and Saul in addition to myself (Fig.  16.1). We attended weekly cogens where we worked in a collaborative setting, to improve the teacher-led class, structuring the curriculum for Caiman identified the supports that were needed to help students learn and enact mathematics successfully. Jacinth, the youngest participant, was a 20-year-old female identified as African-American. Jacinth was tenacious with regard to attaining her GED credentials. Initially, she studied and registered for the exam on her own without enrolling in a GED preparation program. Her first attempt resulted in passing scores in the sections of social studies, science, reading, and writing, but failed the mathematics section with a score of 330, which prompted her to enroll in the Downtown Center. When Jacinth was accepted at the center in the winter 2008 semester, her entrance scores on the official practice test qualified her for the PreGED program. After successfully completing the Pre-GED program, Jacinth advanced to the GED day program. Jacinth is the only participant in the cogen group who took the official GED examination and brought a distinctive capital (human and material resources) to the cogen, which was appropriated to meet her goals in addition to the collective motives. However, Jacinth positions herself as a weak student in mathematics, which will be explored in the following section. At the time of the research, Jacinth was unemployed but her goal was to obtain admission to college and secure employment. Janice, the second participant, was a 36-year-old African-American female who worked as a security guard at the Downtown Center. Before enrolling in the GED program at the center, Janice was enrolled in a GED program offered by a

Fig. 16.1  Acrogens–Jacinth begins to talk about her problem in multistep word problems

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local public library. However, after securing employment as a security guard at the Downtown Center and assessing the programs offered, Janice enrolled in the GED program in the fall of 2007. Janice began her academic career in the Basic Literacy program, an introductory literacy service created for students who did not initially qualify for the pre-GED or GED programs. Janice advanced to the pre-GED day program in the 2008 winter semester followed by the GED program in the Spring 2008 semester. Janice and Jacinth were acquainted with each other, as both students were enrolled in the same Pre-GED class in which I taught mathematics. Janice, like Cathy, wanted to obtain her GED credential to increase her employment options. The third participant, Cathy, a home aide attendant was a 50-year-old female of Jamaican descent who enrolled in the ABE program in the fall of 2007. Cathy received most of her formal academic training in Jamaica and immigrated to the United States in 2004. As a new immigrant to the United States, it was essential for Cathy to obtain her GED credential because certain employers may not consider her high-school diploma from Jamaica valid. Cathy’s low entrance scores on the official predictor test qualified her for the Basic Literacy night program. On successful completion of this program, Cathy was promoted to the Pre-GED night program followed by the GED program in the Spring 2008 semester. I also taught Cathy mathematics in the Pre-GED program. Subsequently, in the fear of not being assigned to my GED mathematics class, Cathy got transferred to the GED day program. Saul, the fourth student participant in the cogen, was a licensed real-estate agent. Saul was the only male in the group and was 52 years old. Saul identified himself as Black; however, when one hears Saul speaking, he has a noticeable Jamaican accent. Saul was born and grew up in Jamaica where he also received his elementary and high-school education. In his early 20s, he moved to Canada where he resided for 27 years before relocating to the United States. Saul enrolled in the ABE program in the 2008 Spring semester and, at that time, was the newest member to the Downtown Center. His entrance predictor scores were above 400 allowing him to register for the GED day program. Saul’s long-term goal was to obtain a college degree and a GED credential would be considered legally acceptable than Saul’s high-school diploma from Jamaica, a situation similar to Cathy’s. As the fifth cogen participant in the initial role of teacher-researcher, I also brought my cultural background and associated dispositions to the cogen. I am a Black female of Barbadian nationality in my early 30s. I obtained the majority of my academic socialization in Barbados from primary school to university level, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. As in the case of Saul and Cathy who came from Jamaica, a former British colony, I received my initial experiences with learning mathematics under the postcolonial educational system inherited from Britain. Immediately after receiving my bachelor’s degree, I immigrated to the United States and in 2002 obtained my master’s degree in pure mathematics from Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY). In that same year, I began teaching math at the Downtown Center and in 2003 began to teach highschool math while still working at the Downtown Center. Currently, I am still teaching at Downtown Center and pursuing a doctorate in Urban Education specializing in

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mathematics education. As a current student and also a teacher, I understand my students’ struggles, as I have experienced the mathematics classroom from a postcolonial Caribbean nation and American viewpoint. As such, I strive to help students become more mathematically confident and explore mathematics through culturally adaptive lenses. Although each participant in the cogen entered the Downtown Center at different academic levels and institutional entry points (e.g., I as a university lecturer/ GED instructor while Jacinth, Janice, Cathy, and Saul entered as students), they all participated in the 2008 Spring GED day class and its associated cogen. Each of the participants within the cogen group brought a different perspective and unique forms of capital to the sessions as they presented diverse educational experiences within the Downtown Center, educational backgrounds (African-American and Afro-Caribbean), cultures, social experiences, ages, gender, socio-economic status, and ethnicity. However, all the student participants needed their GED credential for economic stability, social mobility, to enter higher education institution and, most importantly, to increase their life chances for success.

16.6 Key Approaches to Data Resources Below, we present a vignette from a cogen session, which illustrates key outcomes when enacting cogens to augment teaching and learning of mathematics in a GED program. This vignette was purposefully selected because it exemplified important challenges adult learners face while solving multistep word problems. According to the GED testing service, problem-solving and mathematical reasoning is one of the areas in the GED mathematics test that cause students the most difficulty. Thus, a central focus of this study was to explore how adult learners participating in a cogen appropriated and enacted process skills to help them improve solving mathematics word problems and meet their goals and motives associated with passing the GED mathematics test. The vignette selected from the cogen was approximately 1 min in length and was divided into four episodes that were analyzed individually, but together the episodes connect to illustrate salient and compelling themes to improve the teaching of mathematics word problems in the GED programs. This particular cogen took place in the fourth week of the 2008 Spring semester in which the students had recently returned to school after a 1-week break. The analytical framework we use incorporates the standpoint that teaching and learning mathematics, including process skills, is a form of cultural production. As such, the sociology of emotion and cultural sociology are used as interpretive frames to inform this standpoint. But more specifically, we theorize cogens as a site for the enactment of mathematics that allows access to participants’ dispositions as they enact culture obtained in the classroom and other related fields. Encounters during the cogens provided participants additional means to build solidarity across boundaries of difference while co-constructing knowledge about their mathematics learning in

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relation to shared experiences. Here, solidarity is theorized in this chapter as a sense of belonging and affiliation imbued with emotional energy, which scaffolds encounters during the teaching and learning of mathematics. Cogens also provide opportunities for participants to gain fluency while enacting mathematics in a timely, anticipatory, and appropriate way. We recorded the cogen and use iMovie to process and view the videos at varying speeds. This facilitates a method in which researchers can access and review dispositions including the production of fluency, solidarity, speech, and the associated physical movements that would not normally be available for analyses. We use the alignment and misalignment of body gestures and prosodic markers, such as intensity (amplitude) changes, the production of pauses, and overlapping speech, to illustrate fluency and solidarity (Tobin and Roth 2006) and emotional energy (Scherer 1989) within the vignette. Computer program known as PRATT used to analyze participants’ utterances and their associated silence in which information regarding pitch and intensity were measured. Procedurally, we analyzed the vignette by playing the video at normal (or realtime speed) to conduct mesolevel analysis and, where appropriate, speed up or slow down the video to conduct microlevel analysis. We also conduct macroanalysis by analyzing research participants across multiple fields where the associated forms of culture are enacted. The CAI and classroom became closely related and salient fields that were associated with and interpenetrated the cogen field. Together, meso, micro, macro, and prosodic analyses were coordinated with the production of transcripts2 from interviews and cogens to provide evidence for our claims.

16.7 Addressing Difficulties with Word Problems In the vignette analyzed below, the conversation began with me asking Jacinth, Saul, Cathy, and Janice their perspectives on the test that was administered before Spring break. The test focused on data analysis in which students had to read and interpret line, bar, and circle graphs, use statistical data, calculate probability, solve one-step and multi-step word and percent problems. Cathy, Janice, and Saul passed

 We use transcription conventions employed by Roth (2005) [beginning of overlapping talk or gesture; = equal sign at the beginning of a turn indicates no appreciable gab between two speakers; (2.5) elapsed time in tenths of a second; :: colons indicate lengthening of the preceding phoneme, approximately one tenth of a second for each colon used; (db) sound intensity measured in units of decibel; – a dash indicates sudden stop in talk; (()) double parentheses (italicized) are used to enclose comments and descriptions.

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the test and were pleased with their scores but indicated that they could have achieved better scores after reviewing their test. Jacinth was absent on the day of the test; however, a make-up test was scheduled in the CAI. The shared discussion among the cogen participants regarding their test scores, the type of questions on the test, and the mistakes made afforded a meaningful conversation and a relaxed atmosphere observed by students’ body orientation, eye contact, head movements, and emotional energy. As a result, Jacinth felt comfortable to expand her agency as she appropriated the first turn at talk in the vignette to express the difficulties she has been having solving multi-step word problems. Episode 1

01 Jacinth: You know what I think I have a problem with. Like um... (66.4 db; range 52.3–74.3) (0.54) 02 Jacinth: It will be a question and it would tell me to do one thing.(0.45) I don’t know how to (73.4 db; range 53.4–80.9)((cogen participants begin to turn a focus on Jacinth)) (0.93) 03 Jacinth continue the operation like the like the (69.7 db; range 56.5–75.5) (0.51) 04 Janice: The two step. (75.8 db; range 58.7–83.8) (0.05) 05 Jacinth: Yeah like the step process.(77.1 db, range 59.0–87.2) 06 Wharton: =Oh you mean when its [more than one step.](74.8,range 60.3–83.2) 07 Jacinth: =[more than one step.].Yeah (75.8 db; range 53.4–83.7) 08 Wharton: Okay you’re you’re having a problem umm ok what should I do first and what should I do [second.] (70.9 db, range 57.8–84.6) 09 =Like (74.8 db, range 60.0–79.3) 10 Janice: =[Yeah.] (82.7 db, range 70.1–86.3) 11 Jacinth: =[I would know what to do] first but second and third it would be a blur to me. (77.2 db, range 54.9–86.4) In this episode, Jacinth leads the conversation with a soft voice, as she positioned herself as the weaker student in the area of solving multi-step word problems. In turns 01 to 04, Jacinth utters “I have a problem with… how to continue the operation like the like the two step.” However, Jacinth’s voice progressively becomes confident, controlled, and louder increasing from 66.4 db in turn 01 to 73.4 db in turn 02 as she begins to explain the difficulties she has encountered when solving multi-step word problems. As the episode progressed, the loudness of Jacinth’s voice moved into a higher range from 56.5–75.5 db in turn 03 to 54.9– 86.4 db in turn 11 signaling confidence in her interaction with the other cogen participants. According to Scherer (1989), emotions with high arousal and associated activity, in this case conversation about enacting mathematics, are characterized by increased variability and increased mean intensity (loudness). The structure of the

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overprovided Jacinth and the other participants with a safe space to talk about the difficulties they have encountered with solving mathematics word problems. For instance, during the first three turns at talk, Jacinth’s three pauses created resources of ³0.5 s between turns at talk affording others the opportunity to appropriate additional turns at talk; however, she was not interrupted. According to Tobin (2006), pauses in speech production of 0.5 s or more provide resources to change speakers. Cogen participants are able to build trust and solidarity by easily retaining and also appropriating turns at talk without being interrupted. Jacinth’s difficulties with solving multi-step word problems became a common point of reference, and helped to initiate a rich discussion about problem-solving. Jacinth’s issue provided a topic for mutual focus among the cogen participants. This is evident by the attentiveness, synchronous eye focus, body orientation, and the sequential overlapping speech patterns among myself, Jacinth, and Janice in turn 08 to 10. As Jacinth begins to talk, Janice focused the camera on Jacinth and Saul, Cathy and me (as Althea) seated cogen participants simultaneously began to turned their heads and shifted their bodies to focus on Jacinth (see Fig.  16.1). Jacinth’s description of her lived experiences when solving mathematics problems resonated with Janice, which was evident by her interjection of “yeah” in turn 10. Janice’s agreement and identification with the concerns Jacinth explained to the group that there may be other students within the class experiencing similar difficulties with word problems. Janice’s verbal agreement with Jacinth’s perspective promoted solidarity and entrainment (widespread mutual focus) within the cogen group in episode 1. Entrainment occurred from the shared interest for Jacinth’s perspectives regarding mathematics problem-solving, which promoted a chain of successful encounters and talks about shared goals in episode 1. Thus, the cogen became a site where students could display their vulnerability when they encounter problems with any mathematical activity in the classroom, CAI, and homework assignments. As I listened to Jacinth’s and Janice’s shared concerns regarding solving word problems, I realized that I was initially unaware of the contradictions brought up in the conversation. From my point of view, solving word problems should not be an issue for the students at this point in the course. At the beginning of the semester, I dedicated approximately 490 min class sessions for deconstructing and solving single- and multi-step word problems both in the teacher-led class and CAI. The students were taught the four-step problem-solving techniques developed by George Polya (1988). I modified Polya’s technique by splitting his step 2 (devise a plan) into steps 2 and 3. These modified steps included: (1) understand the problem, (2) select the appropriate information, (3) choose an operation, (4) carry out the mathematical computation, and (5) check answer for reasonableness given the situation described. These steps provided students with a consistent methodology for solving word problems in a low-risk environment that allows students to make and learn from their mistakes in the problem-solving process. Consequently, during each class session, I often asked students if there were any issues or problems with the content area. However, students never articulate having any difficulties. One of the reasons I believe that students may not have indicated their continuing difficulties with solving word problems could be attributed to the large size of the class.

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This particular GED mathematics class had an enrollment of 36 students; one of the largest GED class I have taught at the Downtown Center. With a class this large in addition to having met for a period of six class sessions, students may have feared the reactions of their peers, perceived the classroom atmosphere as relatively new, and were adjusting to being in school after a long hiatus while also adjusting to my teaching practice. As an instructor in an ABE program, I have heard students’ articulate feelings of shame and embarrassment when relearning the mathematics they believed they should have learnt during high school. However, shame also allowed students to try harder, to make amends, as they tried to meet society’s normative expectations such as attaining their high-school credentials (Turner 2002). Therefore, adult basic education learners’ motivation to return to school is the first step in the confrontation of their academic fears as they prove that they can truly learn the mathematics they found difficulty in high school. Employing cogens within the GED classroom provided me with an insider’s view of what was occurring within the classroom environment. Changes were made to the teacher-led class and the CAI curriculum to address the contradictions, which occurred in episode 1. A higher emphasis was placed on helping students improve their problem-solving skills throughout the remainder of the semester in both teacher-led classes, CAI, and on homework assignments. The curriculum utilized within both classes was developed by me (Wharton) and was not prescribed by the ABE program. Therefore, the curriculum was altered to remedy contradictions that occurred during the semester.

16.8 Mathematical Dispositions In episode 2, Saul introduces the participants to the mathematical dispositions he used such as how he makes sense of a particular procedure, concept, or the methods he used to remember specific rules. One of the mathematical depositions that Saul utilized in this episode was practicing (i.e., performing an activity repeatedly for the purpose of mastering or improving his mathematics process skills). Practicing helped Saul hone his problem-solving skill to minimize careless mistakes, omissions, and oversight when solving word problems. This enabled Saul to take risks when solving challenging problems in the teacher-led class, the CAI, and on homework assignments. Saul developed a work ethic that utilized practicing his mathematics, which led to his success in mathematics. Saul’s sharing of the work ethic he employed along with the process skills he used provided him with symbolic capital (status). Accordingly, the capital Saul appropriated afforded his new identity and associated role as coteacher within cogens. Episode 2

12 Wharton: Okay. 13 Saul: You know what. You know what is good for you. Try this. Try practicing it. Now practice don’t make you better. Practice does make you better. It just make you [much better]

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=[F.a.s.t] At what you’re doing Umumm Understand? It does not make you. Practice practice not perfect. Umumm It does not make you perfect it just make you better. Umum

After Jacinth’s turn at talk (turn 11) in episode 1, I looked at the group and uttered, “okay” in turn 12. This became a verbal structure to exchange speakers in which Saul appropriated the next turn at talk. In turn 13 (episode 2), Saul appropriated the role of coteacher and turned to Jacinth to explain how practicing more word problems could increase her process skills in mathematics. At first, Saul suggests, “Try this. Try practicing it. Now practice does not make you better.” Saul quickly becomes aware of the contradiction in the semantics of his utterances and repairs the flow of dialogue by specifying, “Practice does make you better. It just makes you much better.” In turn 14, Cathy entered the conversation with overlapping speech by uttering the word “F.a.s.t.,” which helped to clarify and reinforced Saul’s explanation. By “F.a.s.t.,” Cathy agrees and identifies with Saul’s explanation that practice improves process skills when solving mathematical word problems. Saul proceeds to ask Jacinth in turn 17 “understand?” accessing if Jacinth comprehended or followed his method of thinking about how he learns mathematics, Jacinth responded by uttering “umumm” (turn 19) indicating agreement. This episode revealed several outcomes of cogens regarding the teaching and learning of GED mathematics. Cogens provided a complimentary model for coteaching. Coteaching enables teachers and students the ability to become closer to the praxis of another (Tobin and Roth 2006). Thus, it is a teaching and research method that provides coteachers and other participants the ability to access and evaluate the teaching and learning experiences of their peers. In episode 2, cogens became a site for coteaching where participants gained agency and understanding as they appropriated the role of coteacher. Saul appropriated a lead role as coteacher whereas Cathy adopted a complementary role assisting the group in understanding how to develop the process skills necessary for solving word problems. This became evident as Saul expressed his thinking (schema) and the associated repertoire of teaching practices. By sharing with the group his experiences and culture used to in enacting mathematical practices, Saul was simultaneously attending to the motives of the group. This is evident in turn 13 where Saul repaired his thought processes and in turn 17 when he inquired if Jacinth understood. Both Saul and Cathy grew up with similar academic socializations in the 1960s during the beginning of the British postcolonial era in Jamaica, which allowed both students to engage in similar practices leading to success in problem-solving in the mathematics classroom. As a national from a British postcolonial island (Barbados), I also appropriated many of the dispositions that Saul and Cathy understood. As a coteacher, Saul also provided the group with access to his schema and practices that allowed him to achieve his goals in the classroom. By appropriating the turn 13 at

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talk, Saul felt a sense of being and belonging with his peers as he exhibited concern for the participants in cogens to attain success in mathematics. As coteachers, Saul and Cathy complemented each other by using verbal reinforcements such as “F.a.s.t” and associated nonverbal gestures such as attentiveness, which provide mutual focus and new knowledge for the participants in the cogen when Saul articulated his practices on how he learns and produces mathematics. Coteaching enabled a collective action in which students became closer to each others’ disposition as they made assessments and evaluations on the teaching and learning practices of the other (Pitts 2007). This division of labor changed the dynamics of cogens physically, socially, and individually in which the students did not position me with the sole responsibility of providing answers to their questions but permitted different perspectives from their peers who were familiar with the shared experience. In other words, Saul created structures in the cogen that allowed other participants to talk about the way they use and develop process skill (see episode 4). Interestingly, I observed that within the cogens, Saul and Cathy exhibited similar ways of knowing and achieving fluency in mathematics such as utilizing rote practicing, which was taught to them in the school system in Jamaica. These practices and dispositions, which were generated without consciousness allowed Saul and Cathy to act and react in certain ways when engaged in mathematical activities. Rote practicing to learn mathematics was ingrained in the national academic mathematics curriculum in many Caribbean countries that were colonized by the British. Pierre Bourdieu’s (1986) refers to this form of behavior and disposition as the concept of habitus (disposition to act). Saul and Cathy’s disposition is partly generated from their shared nationality, early academic socializations, beliefs, and perceptions regarding academics, particularly mathematics. The dispositions and behaviors that Saul and Cathy brought to the classroom and the cogen field were mutually and historically constitutive from their prior-lived experiences in addition to the formation of new practices. Saul and Cathy’s experiences enabled them to co-construct a mathematical disposition derived from their ways of interpreting, thinking, and enacting mathematics constituted from their prior and current practices within the classroom that provided success for solving word problems. Hence, Saul and Cathy’s mathematical disposition played an influential role on their mathematical practices and schemas within the classroom and cogen field. In all, Saul and Cathy provided the cogen group and their peers within the classroom with epistemologies that could enhance their success in mathematics. Accordingly, cogens can provide participants with access to different ways of being and enacting mathematics from being with the other as participants meet their individual goals as well as collective motives.

16.9 Intersection of Fields In this episode, we explore how other fields, such as the classroom, CAI, and the homework field, interpretated the cogen to assist students in understanding how the practices enacted in the classroom could be modified to afford agency in other fields. From a sociocultural perspective, fields are social spaces where students can

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learn and enact mathematics any time. These learning environments are structured temporally and spatially providing resources that are material, human, social, and schematic in nature that can be beneficial to students. These fields are nested, interwoven, and have borderless boundaries allowing other fields such as the classroom the ability to penetrate, in this case the cogen field, at any time and vice versa. These interwoven and nested fields are structures that come to hand as participants tune in and out to appropriate different field structures. Thus, as students enact mathematics, they travel within multiple fields such as the classroom, CAI, homework assignments, cogen, and as in episode 2, past childhood learning experiences. These fields intersect each other either in a one-to-one scenario or at times in a many-to-one scenario to afford students’ agency in which they can access and appropriate new capital for immediate or future uses. Evident in turns 22, 24, and 26, in episode 3 (below), Saul replicated the teaching method of solving problems from the classroom within the cogen field to help his peers understand how he became fluent in solving word problems. The intersection of these two fields served as a resource to examine how students utilized the culture from the classroom to improve their fluency in mathematics. As I am a central participant within both these fields, Saul’s reflection provided a critical assessment and evaluation opportunity of how the strategies, which I employed in the GED classroom, afford student agency. The mathematics classroom is composed of students at different levels; hence, it is of utmost importance to create an equitable learning environment for every student in the class. Each mathematical concept is introduced with a set of descriptive steps appropriate for each student mathematical entry point within the class. Students have the option to utilize the steps, as they are predefined or modify to fit their current style of learning and enacting mathematics such as Saul outlined in episode 3. Episode 3

22 Saul: So if you do it like. If like when I get Ms. Wharton give me a certain ammm formula. 23 Jacinth: Umumm 24: Saul: And I use it one time. 25 Jacinth: Umumm 26 Saul: I try to use it two and three times. 27 Jacinth: …..Yeah. 28 Saul: And try to get it down. I try to do it another way then. So… if I can always turn it around. Saul’s strategies for learning and enacting mathematics provided his peers with new tools and resources for negotiating new ways of teaching and learning mathematics in other fields. In turn 22, Saul states, “when I get Ms. Wharton give me a certain amm formula…And I use it one time… I try to use it two and three times… And try to get it down. I try to do it another way…I can always turn it around.” The process skills that Saul acquired from the classroom field provided the mathematical disposition and associated fluency needed for developing a good work ethic towards learning and enacting mathematics evident in turns 26 and 28. Saul’s strategies

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provided the participants with access tone resources as process skills that could be reproduced, and transformed to improve their fluency in mathematics. The mathematical knowledge and practices that Saul shared within the cogen demonstrated his creative skills of altering the knowledge gained in the classroom to solidify his understanding of the mathematics he was currently learning. Thus, the process skills and other resources within the cogen field provided the participants the opportunity to shape their practices of how they enact mathematics. Saul’s role within the cogen was transformed into that of a change agent. As such, he shared with the group the successful strategies that allowed him to achieve fluency in mathematics. As a change agent, Saul illustrates how the culture obtained from the classroom can be modified to catalyze each students’ personal style of learning, which can be applied for immediate and future use in other fields. The process skills that Saul appropriated from the classroom field allowed him to verify and co-construct his identity as a successful mathematics student in which he felt at ease conveying his strategies to the group. As Saul shared his strategies, he also demonstrated his collegiality with his peers as they collaborated as equals on a shared goal to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics within the GED classroom. Cogens are rich fields that provided an alternative forum, to identify contradictions and patterns of coherence that occurred within the classroom. An immediate insight in the production, reproduction, transformation, and enactment of mathematics was provided creating an alternative framework for assessing and evaluating students’ understanding of mathematics. In real time during the cogen, I obtained an informal assessment of students’ practices and schema based on the resources and associated culture experienced in the cogen; that is, an interplay of observations, inferences, social signs, and emotions. As students described and presented their mathematical knowledge within this forum, I was able to make pedagogical decisions about students’ mathematical thinking and practices instead of relying only on traditional assessment practices. The numerical grades students received on test, quizzes, or homework assignments have the opportunity to motivate or limit students’ learning of mathematics and at times most often open to abuse and negligence (Gates and Vistro-Yu 2003). Thus, grades have the potential to inscribe mathematical identities on students implying who is a better mathematics student and who is not. The application of cogens in ABE classroom provided access to students’ mathematically thinking as well as providing a holistic picture of each student’s ability illuminating how students learn or do not learn mathematics within the classroom environment and other closely related fields.

16.10 Checking Answers In the ABE mathematics classroom, students often fail to check their answers – the final step of problem-solving activities. Numerous times on tests and assignments, students would present unrealistic answers derived from automatic computation without consideration of the real-life aspects of the situation or word problem.

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Palm (2008) argues that students provide these unrealistic answers owing to the sociocultural norms of schooling in which they consciously decide not to consider the realities of the situation described within the word problem, misinterpretation of the word problem, and at times students may not possess the disposition and real-world knowledge necessary to acquire the correct or realistic answer to the problem. In episode 4, Jacinth shares with the participants that she now checks her answers when solving word problems to make sure it is the correct choice, a process skill that was taught in class. For Jacinth, this process skill that she did not utilize before has currently proven to be a viable strategy in helping acquire the correct answer. As Jacinth continues to check her answers, she will improve her fluency in mathematical problem-solving. Episode 4

29 Jacinth: Yeah you rea you taught you know what you taught me Ms. Wharton. You taught me how to like, like check my answers. To make see if there is right. To see if it’s right. 30 Jacinth: And you’re a good teacher 31 Group laughter In the final episode of the vignette, Jacinth proudly articulates to the group that she now checks her answer “To see if it’s right” (turn 29), a response that was triggered from Saul’s previous explanation of how he has become fluent in problemsolving in episode 3. Jacinth has utilized an essential skill of problem-solving, assessing her answer choices to determine its applicability to the problem, instead of hastily choosing an answer based on mathematical computations. The process of assessing the final answer choice is a proven strategy for Jacinth, which was underutilized when she solved word problems. Thus, Jacinth now uses and applies the complete sequence of procedures for problem-solving, enhancing her understanding of how to solve word problems. From episode 4, it became apparent that Jacinth only utilized the first four steps of problem-solving: (1) understanding what she is being asked to find; (2) selecting the appropriate information needed to solve the problem; (3) choosing the appropriate operation; and (4) doing the computation. Although step 3 presented Jacinth with difficulties (evident from episode 1), step 5 of the problem-solving, process assessing the answer choice, gave Jacinth the information necessary to acquire the correct answer choice in some of her problemsolving activities. Jacinth will improve her problem-solving skills as she monitors the process skills being utilized during problem-solving providing essential feedback to enhance her performance. According to Schoenfeld (1992), developing process skills such as monitoring and evaluating strategies used in problem-solving is a difficult process for both students and teachers. Students and teachers must be open to unlearning associated methods and strategies from prior learning experiences, which are grounded within their historical, social, and cultural ways of enacting mathematics. Teachers have an additional responsibility of teaching these essential skills to students in which they must unpack the complexities of problem-solving for students’ understanding

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and utilization of the procedures and process skills. These small changes in students’ problem-solving activities create opportunities for students to enhance their mathematical skills. Thus, as Jacinth continues to check her answers to mathematical problems, she will deepen her understanding of problem-solving and the process skills necessary for learning mathematics, an important component of the learning process. In this episode, Jacinth took a moment to indicate to the group that I was a good teacher (turn 30) supported by group laughter (turn 31), which indicated a release of positive emotional energy among the participants. Jacinth’s acknowledgment was also supported by the simultaneous and synchronous group laughter indicating agreement and solidarity from all participants. The group laughter indicated that sentiments of solidarity and cheerful feelings helped to co-construct my identity as a good mathematics teacher. As the cogen proceeded, Jacinth indicated that her previous mathematics teachers “never took time out to come around to each student to see what kinda level they were on or how they were progressing.” Whereas I took time within my lessons to find out how each student was progressing in addition to teaching the problem-solving techniques and strategies students needed to be familiar with to be successful on the GED mathematics section. These characteristics of my identity influenced Jacinth’s assessment of my teacher identity as she began to make sense of the mathematics she was learning, for example checking her answers for reasonableness. Cogens helped to engage students in the process of evaluating, analyzing, and interpreting their mathematical knowledge from sharing, coteaching, and helping each other understand ideas regarding problem-solving in a collaborative setting. As each participant shared his/her knowledge and experiences about word problems, structures such as utterances, prosodic makers, and emotions were created that afforded opportunities to co-construct knowledge and identity with other members of the cogen. For instance, in episode 1 (turns 3 and 4), Janice helped Jacinth co-construct her explanation of the difficulties she was experiencing with two-step word problems as Jacinth simultaneously positioned her identity as a weak student in this area of mathematics. Jacinth’s repetitive utterances of the phrase “the like” directly following a pause of 0.51 s created a structure, in this case containing utterances, intensity, and a pause ³0.5 as a resource to exchange speaker, that afforded an opportunity for Janice to co-construct knowledge and agreement about prior experiences with word problems. Janice uttered the words “the two step” in overlapping intensity range while looking directly at Jacinth indicated mutual focus and synchrony during the encounter. Similarly, in turns 26 and 28 (episode 3), Saul indicated how he uses the procedures explained in the math class to solve word problems and once he mastered these procedures, he deliberately approaches these problems differently to gain additional insights. At the beginning of episode 4, Jacinth then appropriates the next turn at talk and agrees with Saul and also indicated that she now checks her answer. Accordingly, students made sense of the mathematical knowledge shared from reflexivity and mutual interdependence given the interactive nature of cogens. From the perspective in which mathematical learning is considered as cultural production, learning transpired from student’s individual construction of mathematical knowledge in tandem with their collective

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understanding of their peer’s mathematical dispositions. As such, students’ disposition to enact new and successful forms of mathematics culture fluently (e.g. Jacinth now checks her answers after completing word problems and Saul attempts to find new ways to solve mathematics problems when he masters canonical forms) are embedded in the process skills they appropriate and practice. In other words, students’ agency to enact mathematics successfully has increased.

16.11 What Was Learnt from Cogens In the initial stages of the research, cogens were employed to improve student achievement in the GED mathematics class at the Downtown Center. However, the use of cogens evolved into helping participants assess and evaluate how they interpreted the mathematics being taught, in addition to how the mathematical culture of the classroom was appropriated in meaningful ways to learn mathematics. The shared experiences, which the students brought to the forum, were utilized to identify patterns of coherence and associated contradictions that allow students and teachers the ability to cogenerate and afford new roles and division of labor that reduced or eliminated unsuccessful encounters within the learning environment. This chapter addressed the viable outcomes prompted from a cogen for the improvement of teaching and learning of mathematics in an ABE classroom. Each of the participants in the cogen experienced the events that occurred in the classroom in different ways. For example, as I cotaught with Saulin this cogens, I became aware of the perspectives of other participants regarding the concepts they were learning and their ability to access, appropriate, and realign available resources from the learning environment for successful teaching and learning of mathematics. In particular, I experienced how Saul accessed prior and unfolding educational experiences to enact cultural resources, such as prosody, utterances, emotions, and body gestures, that afforded theca/construction of process skills associated with teaching and learning and how to solve word problems. Similarly, as I assumed the role of classroom instructor, I obtained an insider’s view of the contradictions that occurred in the learning environment rather than assessing students’ understanding solely with exams or quizzes. In addition, the structure of the cogen provided an environment where students felt comfortable to discuss their difficulties across age, gender, culture, socio-economic status, ethnicity, and prior academic socialization. For example, Jacinth, the youngest participant who received all her education in the United States and identified as an African-American female, was receptive to the strategies and process skills shared by Saul who received most of his initial academic socialization in postcolonial Jamaica. Although Saul and Jacinth differed in age by 32 years, gender, and initial academic socialization, they co-construct culture along with other participants in the cogen to learn mathematics; however, as contradictions emerged, such as Jacinth’s ongoing difficulties with word problems, tactical alterations were made to

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the curriculum for the next CAI class session in which extra mathematical reasoning and word problems review sessions were scheduled to help all students in the class become better problem-solvers. As mentioned earlier, a complementary model of coteaching emerged from cogens, which provided another form of assessment and evaluation. Instead of numerical grades, I was able to access my students’ process skills in real time as they shared the strategies and techniques that allowed them to learn and enact mathematics fluently. As participants shared their strategies and experiences while enacting mathematics, a sense of emancipator practice emerged among the students and myself in the form of trust, respect, and collective responsibility. A priority was to access mathematics culture enacted in the classroom and other fields that penetrate the cogen to evaluate the teaching and learning practices enacted to minimize those structures, which truncated agency and participation and placed students at an oppressive disadvantage in learning mathematics. From participating in and co-analyzing the cogen, it was evident that students felt positive about the transformative practices enacted in the cogen and classroom (e.g., assuming the role of a coteacher, checking answers, fluently appropriating more time at talk to explain mathematics, completing ideas in mathematics with overlapping speech, and participating in synchronous group laughter). Students also exhibited expanded agency as they shared strategies and resources from the classroom and enacted roles to appropriate new and existing cultural forms to become successful mathematics students and teachers.

References Amstutz, D. D. & Sheared, V. (2000). The crisis in adult basic education. Education and Urban Society, 32, 155–166. Bayne, G. (2009). Cogenerative dialogues: The creation of interstitial culture in the New York metropolis. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), World of science education: North America (pp. 513–527). The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. New York: Greenwood Press. Gates, P. & Vistro-Yu, C. (2003). Is mathematics for all? In A. J. Bishop, M. A. Clements, C. Keitel, J. Kilpatrick & F. K. S. Leung (Eds.), Second international handbook of mathematics education (Vol. 1, pp. 31–73). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. General Educational Development Testing Service. (2007). The 2006 GED testing program statistical report. Washington, DC: ACE Fulfillment Service. Ginsburg, L. (2005). Using EFF to bring math research into adult ed classroom. EFF Hot Topics: Strategies and Tools for Teaching with EFF, 4, 1–16. Houghton-Mifflin (2009). Skillstutor [computer software]. Martin, S. N., & Scantlebury, K. (2008). More than a conversation: Using cogenerative dialogues in the professional development of high school chemistry teacher. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, available in online first publication format, from http://www. springerlink.com/content/y28uj38x130m07h2 McGraw-Hill (2002). MCH interactive GED [computer software]. Palm, T. (2008). Impact of authenticity on sense making in word problem solving. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 67, 37–58.

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Pitts, W. (2007). Being, becoming, and belonging: Improving science fluency during laboratory activities in urban education. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Graduate School and University Center, The City University of New York. Polya, G. (1988). How to solve it. A new aspect of mathematical method. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Roth, W.-M. (2005). Doing quantitative research: Praxis of method. Rotterdam: Sense Publishing. Scherer, K. R. (1989). Vocal correlates of emotional arousal and effective disturbance. In Handbook of psychophysiology: Emotions and social behavior (pp. 165–197). London: Wiley. Schoenfeld, A. H. (1992). Learning to think mathematically: Problem solving, metacognition, and sense-making in mathematics. In D. Grouws (Ed.), Handbook for research on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 334–370). New York: MacMillan. Tobin, K. (2006). Aligning the cultures of teaching and learning science in urban high schools. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 1, 219–252. Tobin, K. & Roth, W. M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam/Taipei: Sense Publishers. Turner, J. (2002). Face to face: Towards a sociological theory of interpersonal behavior. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Chapter 17

Constructing Mathematical Knowledge in Urban Schools: Using Cogenerative Dialogue and Coteaching to Transform the Teaching and Learning Experiences of Minority Students Samuel E. Jackson and Karen E. S. Phillips

17.1 On the Matter of Voice This chapter is presented from the perspective of the first author as one teacher’s view of the impact of coteaching and cogenerative dialogues on an urban mathematics class and, more particularly, on two of its students. However, his voice is, in part, supported by the words of these same students in an effort to more directly convey how their attitudes, opinions, and identities have shaped his teaching and research praxis. Although the voice of the second author is not heard directly in the way the chapter has been presented, this polyphonic piece is also rendered polysemic by interweaving her ideas and interpretations throughout.

17.2 Introduction In urban schools, minority students are being educated in settings that are severely lacking in resources and teaching practices needed to support their academic success. In addition, students’ life experiences predispose them to complex social, cultural, and emotional issues. This chapter presents, examines, and interprets the achievement of minority students through the sociocultural theoretical frameworks of cogenerative dialogue and coteaching, using students’ life experiences to improve mathematics teaching and learning practices. An ethnomethodological standpoint provides the lens to examine and explore the ways of connecting mathematics to students’ everyday lives. Through a hybridized and multilayered approach, using cogenerative dialogue within the classroom, critical discourse becomes an important structure, which affords students’ agency and opportunities to interact, coconstruct, and enact new culture that improves classroom practices. The result is a transformation of the students’ individual and collective identities, capital production, and the development of new approaches to the teaching and learning of

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mathematics, which align and take advantage of their cultural differences to produce higher levels of success in urban mathematics.

17.3 Background In this chapter, I1 present information from a hermeneutic phenomenological standpoint. I am a minority male teacher who grew up in a poor, rural part of Jamaica. Although this was not an urban environment, it had much in common with the sociocultural and economic conditions in the homes of the minority students whom I teach. This positions me in many respects as an insider and a participant in their culture and everyday experiences and has afforded me a unique position to describe and discuss the teaching and learning of mathematics in New York City’s urban high schools. While there is much sameness in race, culture, and economic status between most of my students and me, there are also fundamental differences in perceptions, attitudes, age, and expectations across gender and within-group diversity. Shared cultural resources make it easier for me to teach this population of students and to enact new cultural practices that I believe will afford students agency to transform their own mathematical success. This chapter focuses on the mathematical experiences of two of my students, Bebe and Cece, who are typical urban high-school non-dominant students in my mathematics class. The term non-dominant is used here to denote minorities who typically lack power in relation to other dominant or mainstream groups. Bebe is a 15-year-old girl of South-Asian/Indian descent from Guyana and Cece is a 16-year-old second-generation Caribbean-American girl who was born in the United States. These students represent some of the complexity with regard to ethnicity and culture that are present in the minority student populations of typical New York City high schools. They are usually be grouped together under one umbrella of race by being inscribed as either Black or African-American. However, their living worlds outside the school as well as the cultural and national origins of their families might have a profound impact on their relationship to the culture in which they now coexist and their approaches to their own education (Waters 1999). These two students were chosen because they are both from poor families, and while they have similar educational ambitions, they approach those goals from completely different standpoints. Thus, they represent two basic groups of students in my mathematics class. Bebe takes a very serious approach to her schoolwork. When asked about her work ethic, she replied, “My parents are very strict, I have no other choice but to do well in school.” However, she also stated that they are very supportive and help her with her homework. Cece, on the other hand, lives with her father and stepmother. She remarked that she and her stepmother do not get along very well.

1 The “I” used here refers to Samuel E. Jackson, the narrator and first author of this chapter, who is also a high-school mathematics teacher and mathematics education researcher in New York City.

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Neither of her parents can help her with mathematics as they lack mathematical knowledge and skills beyond the elementary school level. Cece has also failed in mathematics in most of her middle-school classes and is now struggling in her high-school mathematics classes. Cece noted that even though both the students are at different levels in their mathematical development, they share commonality in their everyday experiences, as they belong to the same community, are both poor, and are both vulnerable to the same forms of peer pressure. Both the students have unique similarities in that they like to talk, help others, and are immersed in the present youth culture, which, from what I observe, is the characteristic of most of the minority students in my classes. In selecting a methodological framework to accurately examine, explore, and understand learning experiences of disadvantaged minority urban youths, I found cogenerative dialogue, coteaching, and ethnomethodology ideally suited the task. During my 20 years of teaching minority students in various urban settings, I have tried many different teaching strategies, but none have produced my desired successful learning outcomes. It was not until 2006 when I first learned about cogenerative dialogue and coteaching as research methodologies and teaching strategies that I found a way to better understand the teaching and learning experiences of minority students. As a teacher-researcher in my own classroom and a member of a research team using these strategies to study the teaching and learning practices in urban schools in New York and other cities, I have access to data that inform my understanding of minority students’ learning experiences.

17.4 What Is Cogenerative Dialogue? Cogenerative dialogues (hereafter, cogens) are part of a theoretical framework that provides students with opportunities to make their voices heard. Cogens afford structures that allow students and teacher(s) to discuss what is working and what is not working in relation to teaching and learning in the classroom. More importantly, they also provide solutions to the problems that are partly cogenerated by the students themselves. Kenneth Tobin (2005) described a cogen as a conversation that participants have about a shared educational experience. In my mathematics classroom, cogens are student–student and student–teacher discourses about what is working and what is not working, designed to aid students’ understandings of mathematics. A cogen creates a social space to talk across ethnic, cultural, social, and educational differences and build solidarity for the good of the collective. Cogens have been used successfully in New York City’s urban public schools, especially in science classrooms (Bayne 2009). It has also been used in a few instances in special education. Only recently have cogens been applied and studied in mathematics classes in urban schools (see, e.g., chapters in this volume by Woodburn and Wharton and Pitts). There are several ways in which I relate to and identify myself with the experiences of the two girls described earlier. Like Bebe, I migrated to the United States from

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another country, and like both the girls, my cultural and national identity is connected with the Caribbean. I also came from a very poor family, and although my mother did not understand the mathematics that I was doing in school, she would sit with me as I did my homework and took great interest in seeing that I did it neatly and well. Through her actions, she instilled in me a very strong appreciation for education and an equally strong ambition to make something of my life by focusing on my schoolwork. Her support turned out to be critical in my life, as many children in the rural Jamaican community where I grew up did not have the opportunity to go to school. My mother also introduced me to aspects of our culture that continue to influence me to this day. Cultural expressions of Jamaican life that depicted the struggles of the underprivileged, particularly, the music and lyrics of Bob Marley, have been incredibly important in shaping my identity. Both my mother and I continually drew on the words in Marley’s songs, such as “Get up, stand up, don’t give up the fight,” and “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds,” as tools to motivate and inspire me toward academic excellence or comfort me in times when I felt discouraged. These words and sounds rang in my head when I was a boy in Jamaica and still reverberate in me today in ways that are steeped with meaning and emotion. Although we may not come from the same places or listen to the same music, these influences on my life have helped me to recognize and appreciate the importance of music and other elements of the present youth culture to my students, especially those who, like myself, are from the African Diaspora (Hall 1990). These are very powerful lenses through which I feel I can gain a better understanding of their lives and connect with them in the classroom. I always hoped to draw upon these common threads in creating a more inclusive learning environment, while nurturing mutual respect for all the things that make us different, but never knew quite how to effectively incorporate this in my teaching. Cogens provide a structure in which this can occur, building cultural, social, and symbolic capital between the participants, while informing both the research that they are a part of and the teaching environment around which they are created. Research has provided evidence that coteaching and cogens are forms of cultural enactment that have produced remarkable improvement in minority students’ learning (Tobin and Roth 2006). Once Cece boldly refused to copy two-thirds of a 14-ft long chalkboard of notes that I. coming early, had painstakingly put up in a very neat and logically organized manner. Instead, she turned on her cell phone and started sending text messages. She was not the only one who was avoiding the assignment. As I waited for them to copy the material, more than half of the students were talking about other things or were otherwise occupied. This made it obvious that I had not connected with my students. Cece asked me, “Mr. J., do you really expect us to copy down all that stuff you put on the board? I’m sorry I can’t do that! Can I go to the bathroom?” “Yes, you can,” I replied. Most of the students were moving at a snail’s pace, and even the normally compliant students joined in solidarity with their peers to protest. I realized that I was enacting a practice that I had engaged in many times before when I thought that the students’ background knowledge was weak. Invariably, I felt that I should try to deposit as much knowledge

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as I could in them so that they would be better able to understand the topic being taught and have their notes for future reference. I have employed cogens and coteaching as tools of my everyday pedagogical practices for the past 2 years. In an ethnographic study of my own mathematics classes as a teacher-researcher, conducted during that same period, one of the central themes that emerged, affecting the minority students’ learning of mathematics, was that the students’ perspectives and attitudes changed during the course of the research. By this, I mean that at the onset of the study, the students did not place much value on learning any mathematics that went beyond the very basic arithmetic required for business transactions in everyday life, such as counting their money. Not many of these students believed that they would make it to college, and those who thought they would, did not believe that they would take courses that required much mathematical knowledge. After introducing cogens and coteaching as part of my research and teaching praxis, the culture in the classroom, related to these same students’ attitudes about mathematics, was transformed.

17.5 Minority Students’ Voices in Mathematics Education According to Lattimore (2005), “Listening to African-American and minority students’ voices is essential in identifying those vital teaching and learning environments that contribute to these students succeeding in mathematics” (p. 268). Students’ voice provides another lens, and a valuable resource through which teachers can be made aware of what is important, what is working, and what is not working for students in the teaching and learning process. In my research, the valuing and privileging of students’ voice in every area of classroom practice has greatly increased their agency and productivity. Lattimore stated that students’ voice can provide insight into teaching strategies that motivate them to learn mathematics, and can add to the repertoire of methodologies that are pertinent to improving the mathematics education of African-American and minority students (Lattimore 2005). The metaphor of voice according to Secada, refers to “the discourse that is created when people define their own issues in their own words, from their own perspective, using their own terms, and in a word, speak for themselves” (Secada 1995, p. 156). Later in this chapter, Bebe and Cece speak for themselves as well as their classmates, as representatives of a growing population of urban minority students who are afforded the opportunity to contribute to their teaching and learning experiences. Research in mathematics education indicates that collaboration and peer support play a critical role in supporting students’ mathematical understandings. According to Walker, “When describing ethnic differences in achievement in mathematics, researchers suggest that one reason for continued performance gaps in mathematics favoring Asian American students (on average) is the focus on collaboration within many groups in the Asian American community and particularly the fact that students frequently work in groups on academic tasks outside of schools” (Walker 2006, p. 44).

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Although the cultural influences on Asian students’ learning might differ from those of other minority groups, patterns related to the potential benefits of group-learning strategies are likely to hold true for all students. In mathematics, collaboration among students is particularly useful in that learning to communicate mathematical ideas, gaining insight from peers while completing problem-solving activities, and discussing mathematical reasoning, proof, and justification are all important components of developing quantitative ability (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM] 2000). In this study, the traditional pattern of urban mathematics classroom discourse is disrupted. Instead, students are allowed to enact their own form of socio-mathematical learning in conjunction with the theoretical framework of coteaching and cogens, going beyond mere preparation for State Examinations. By considering the voices of all the students, attention has been given to details including physical space, arrangement of furniture, language usage, study materials, types of presentation, curriculum, assessment, and artifacts that may be of importance to even a single student’s success. This attention to the needs of all students, by listening and valuing what each has to contribute, has supported the building of solidarity and the production of a new successful mathematics culture among minority students. This does not mean that we have found the answers to all of our problems. I still struggle to find ways to deal with students who fail to get their homework assignments done or students who are having a bad day and refuse to work. However, coteaching and cogens have helped to focus most of the students’ attention on classroom activities that serve to construct successful mathematical learning. Students began to show evidence of deeper conceptual understanding, improved logical thinking, and reasoning skills, and some were learning to apply the mathematics learned to solve problems in other subject areas, such as social studies and the sciences. This shows that most students were connecting mathematics to real-life events in ways that make sense and serve useful purposes.

17.6 Understanding Minority Students’ Ethnomethodological Perspectives Some students have a very disquieting sense of their mathematical abilities that is evident in the brittleness of their understanding and problem-solving skills. On the first day of my ninth-grade algebra class, Cece came to my desk at the end of the class and introduced herself. She had a big wonderful smile but a very small school bag, almost like a lady’s pocket book. She was well-dressed in blue jeans and jacket, designer’s sneakers, a fine-braided hairstyle, and lots of jewelry around her neck, on her arms, and in her ears. She asked boldly, “Do you give math homework Mr. J., and is high-school math very difficult?” I told her I do give homework, but not too much, and that high-school math requires a lot of work. She looked up at the ceiling, gave a loud laugh, and then said, “math is not my favorite subject,

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you mustn’t make it too hard.” I asked her, “how was today’s class?” To which she replied, “I didn’t get a thing!” Before I could say anything else to her, she said, “see you tomorrow!” and left the room in a hurry. In reflecting on this event, I realized that Cece was trying to tell me how unprepared she was for high-school math. Perhaps, even more importantly, she was reaching out to me from the very first day to let me know that I will have to find a way to understand, connect with, and help students like her who do not have the prerequisites for high-school mathematics. To adequately address the learning needs of minority students, teachers must become aware of a multiplicity of ways to structure the learning fields. They also require the knowledge on the required practices that are essential, from a cultural perspective, to support students’ learning and the valuing of mathematics in their present life and future careers. Opportunities must be created to help these students learn mathematics and see themselves as capable of becoming academics, such as teachers, engineers, doctors, and accountants, instead of aspiring to become security guards, waitresses, hairdressers, supermarket cashiers, and carwash attendants. In subsequent conversations with Cece, I inquired about the reasons for her not doing well in mathematics. Among the reasons that she gave for her past failure were peer pressure, having a boyfriend, lack of parental support or supervision, low expectations from herself and teachers, and spending too much time on her cell phone or the Internet. She also described how her middle-school classrooms were out of control, and that most of the teachers did not seem to care enough or know how to deal with out of control students. She said that most days they did absolutely no classwork or homework, they just sat and talked to each other, doing whatever they felt like doing. Cece’s account of what goes on in her mathematics classroom was confirmed by many other students as common practice in some middle schools, which has produced many mathematically illiterate ninth graders. Based on this evidence, it seems that there is a need for more teachers to find ways to structure the learning environment so that improved learning opportunities are created for the diversity of learners they teach. Also, exploring ways to understand and connect with students’ culture and everyday real-world experiences would better equip more teachers to succeed in educating minority students.

17.7 Connecting with Students’ Culture Ethnomethodology is the study of the ways in which people make sense of their everyday lives and social worlds (Garfinkel 1967). Students need to know that learning mathematics can affect their everyday lives in positive ways. It is therefore important for teachers of minority students to be able to contextualize the subject so that it has meaning for students belonging to ethnic minority groups. I asked Bebe and Cece if the learning of mathematics does or would play an important role in their present lives and future careers. Both said maybe. Bebe explained that mathematics was helping her do well in living environments and social studies,

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especially in understanding how to read graphs. Cece, on the other hand, commented that she was doing badly in the sections of both the courses that have a lot of mathematics, but that she was doing alright in the other areas. Bebe interrupted Cece at this point, and said that mathematics once helped her win a $50 prize at an amusement park, so it is useful to know mathematics. She also told us a story about how she used her math skills in ratio and proportion, to help her mother figure out how much ingredients were needed to make three times the number of Christmas cakes from a recipe. Cece was impressed, and remarked that Bebe is so smart, but that she never gets involved, at home or anywhere else, in such challenges, as she would only embarrass herself. She said that she was not happy about that, and felt a sense of shame, especially in the presence of kids who were in lower grades than her. She blamed her dysfunction and lack of mathematical skills on the public school system, which she says did not provide good teachers in poor, bad neighborhood schools. She was very angry about this, and wished she had teachers who disciplined their overcrowded class, affording her the opportunity to learn more and succeed in school. Her greatest fear was that she might not graduate from high school in 4 years with her friends, as she is so far behind in her knowledge level and understanding in every subject. Teaching and learning, when viewed from a cultural perspective, requires close attention to the established learning patterns, students’ perceptions, and the developed knowledge structures (Shaw 1993). A large part of New York City’s urban high-school population consists of immigrant West Indians, Hispanics, and secondgeneration minority students born to Caribbean parents. These students have been raised in a different culture from the majority of their teachers who are White middle class, and who are not familiar with the minority culture that has produced students whose attitudes and learning styles are completely different from what is taught in most teacher preparation programs. The major problem faced by minority students is how to adjust their learning styles to learn effectively from the Eurocentric perspectives of their predominantly White teachers. An equally difficult task is for the teachers to find effective ways to teach these students. Cece’s recollection of her seventh-grade mathematics experience provides us with insights into Shaw’s claim that teaching strategies should align with and incorporate students’ preferred learning styles. She vividly recalled that Ms. Lue, her mathematics teacher, was no more than 4 ft tall and weighed about 90 pounds. Her presentation of the English language was more Chinese than English, and she was barely audible beyond the third row of desks in the classroom. Students were asked to copy pages of notes from the chalkboard, which they never did. Despite this lack of response, Ms. Lue continued with her practice day after day. Students got bored easily in the seventh grade, and every class seemed to produce more frustration for them. According to Cece, Ms. Lue cared about their learning mathematics, however, she expected students to sit quietly and copy lots of work from the board, do lots of classwork, and a few pages of homework. She often got confrontational with students, and Cece found herself in trouble several times for yelling and refusing to do work. She got so many detentions that, after a while, it did not matter to her anymore. Cece said that she tried telling Ms. Lue that Black students are different

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from Chinese students. She explained that Black students prefer to work with their friends and that if she stopped putting so much work on the board for students to copy, students would like her class more and do the work. Cece said that Ms. Lue refused to listen to the students’ suggestions and acted mean at all times. As a result, some students, including Cece, constantly threw paper-balls around, sang, shouted at each other, and would do all sorts of mischievous acts to disrupt the class. She noted that students in the class were not learning anything, did not care anymore, and saw the class as just a place to hang out, accepting the fact that they were not going to pass mathematics. For Cece, the seventh grade was the class that destroyed her mathematically, all because of one teacher who did not understand her culture, and who refused to change her practices to meet the learning needs of her students. From Cece’s account of what happened in her seventh grade mathematics class, it is clear that there were many things that went wrong. However, Ms. Lue is not the only person to be blamed for this. Cece and her classmates were equally responsible for not taking the initiative to ensure that classroom discipline was satisfactory and that everyone was on task, as they were supposed to be, during the learning period. Even though peer pressure may have been great, Cece could have decided to act differently in class by copying the notes from the chalkboard, going to Ms. Lue or to someone else for help to ensure her personal success. Students must also be taught that their education is as much, or even more so, their own responsibility as it is their teacher’s.

17.8 Bebe and Cece’s Voice After learning about Cece’s seventh grade mathematical experience, and discussing it with the rest of the class, I became interested in finding out how both Bebe and Cece felt about the mathematical knowledge of students in the class, and what they think should be done to improve it. I posed the following questions and asked both the students to provide a written response, either individually or as a team: How do you think students’ mathematical knowledge can be improved? What should government, schools, parents, and teachers do? What should students do? The following is an edited transcription of the written response submitted by both students: How do you think students’ mathematical knowledge can be improved? “Students’ mathematical knowledge can be improved by applying mathematics to the real world. When students are exposed to mathematics at the beginning, they apply it to the real world by counting or adding up different number of items. By being able to do this, the students understand the material better because they are exposed to it every day. Mathematical reasoning can be applied to help solve everyday problems, as well. For example, if someone wanted to get somewhere in a certain amount of time, they would be able to calculate it mentally and decide which sort of transportation they should take. Students should also understand that they can improve if they practice and challenge themselves. When students practice, they stimulate the brain to think logically and figure out the answers to different problems. It helps them have different approaches to different situations

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in life because they are able to think about things in a more mathematical way. Overall, students should try to apply the math they learn to the world around them; this way, it benefits their overall knowledge.” What should government, schools, and math teachers do? What should students do? “All these people should allow students to explore math and the mathematical approach to a real life situation. Sometimes math can be combined with science. This allows students to see how math can really be applied to anything that goes on around them. Math could also be taught in different levels and students should be able to find out what type of math they enjoy learning and applying to their world the most. For me (Bebe), personally, I enjoy geometry because I love thinking about shapes and how you can figure out problems by taking different steps. I also love to prove how shapes exist in a certain way or form. It helps me to understand how things like bridges and buildings are able to exist. Teachers should get to know their students’ abilities to solve problems, therefore, they can show them a more simple or difficult approach to solve a certain type of mathematical problem. Reviewing different types of mathematical problems will also allow students to explore the world around them and challenge their minds. Math can be found in many different aspects of one’s life. From numbers, digits, and cubes to concepts like infinity. Different people enjoy different things, just like different people enjoy different types of math. However, to become successful in thinking mathematically you need to have a good foundation and know the basics. You can’t add numbers, if you don’t understand how to count, and you can’t interpret graphs if you don’t know what a graph includes. Math is a development of concepts that takes time to learn. Students and teachers should take this into consideration when they are teaching a new concept because if they don’t understand one thing, they won’t understand another. Math is also connected to other subjects like learning languages. Language is a way to communicate with one another and allows us to express our ideas in different ways. But when you think about it, math is like a universal language, it lets us communicate by solving similar problems. Once you know the basics, you could possibly end up anywhere later on. Teachers and students should always keep this concept in mind because it allows them to see math as a medium to communicate with the world, or maybe even other worlds.”

Finding a common ground and ways for bridging the gap between the culture and learning are not easy in urban schools that are severely lacking in resources. African-American and minority students are academically disadvantaged as a result of teachers’ ineptness in relation to diverse cultures, improper attitudes, and differential behaviors (Nieto 1992). The schooling of minority students can be improved if teacher education programs excel in preparing teachers and administrators who have greater knowledge of minority students’ cultures and a deeper understanding of the impact that this and their life experiences have on their behavior, learning styles, and preferred teaching styles (Ford et  al. 1995). Too often, we get complaints from minority students that their teachers are very biased, unfair, and simply do not understand them. This is something that needs to change. After a few weeks with my class, in which we had a couple of quizzes and several individual and whole-class discussions, I gathered enough evidence to conclude that more than 80% of my students were severely lacking in the required skills and knowledge to succeed in ninth-grade algebra. As a result, the students were not

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participating in class discussions, classwork was not being done to any respectable level, homework was not attempted on many occasions, and students’ morale was low while their frustration was increasing. I realized that I needed to do something quickly to save my class from going under. I decided to capitalize on my sameness as a minority with my students, and to approach teaching from a cultural perspective, much in concert with Margaret Shaw’s beliefs about how African-American and minority students should be taught (Shaw 1993). The only problem I had was how to structure the learning environment to afford all the students the kinds of opportunity that could transform their learning, and to do so, immediately. I could think of no other teaching methodologies that could accomplish this more effectively than cogens and coteaching. Cogens and coteaching afford students the opportunity to promote a culture of sharing, communicating, collaborating, talking, and discussing their thinking and ideas with each other. According to Freire, “The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication” (Freire 1970, p. 58). In cogens and coteaching, students get the chance to communicate openly and honestly, about what they are thinking, and to co-construct and re-design new pedagogical strategies that connect with others’ lifeworlds and learning needs.

17.9 Gaining Authentic Classroom Knowledge To begin the process of gaining authentic knowledge and a deeper understanding of the different perspectives affecting learning in urban mathematics classrooms, one can simply ask, what the students want for themselves and what the teachers want for the students from these mathematics lessons. All participants should then provide answers, followed by a detailed analysis and discussion of the information presented. The objective is for both the teachers and students to know what’s important to the other, based on how they experienced and contributed to the lesson. Tobin and Roth inform us that, “The very essence of knowing and learning only reveals itself when persons are acting in praxis as it is only here that their participative thinking deals with the once-occurent nature of every act” (Tobin and Roth 2006, p. vii). Learning from others can be greatly enhanced if participants in an event talk about it immediately after it occurred. Bebe has shown great interest in her work and has a strong desire to help her classmates. As such, she made a lot of effort each day to understand the content, and then to become a peer tutor and an instructor to the whole class. She noticeably commanded the respect of her peers, and has developed a likeness and confidence in using the chalkboard to explain and share her group’s work on a daily basis. For this accomplishment, she was unanimously elected by her classmates to be the first coteacher with me, and later to coteach with Cece. An example that illuminates the important idea of acting in praxis occurs during student coteaching. Bebe was well into presenting her lesson on how to find

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the slope of a straight line joining two points. She was interchanging the use of the words slope, incline, and rise-over-run. It became obvious that some students were becoming confused, and were not following her presentation. Others became distracted, and she was quickly losing control of the class. Sensing what was happening, her coteacher Cece, announced that it was time for group practice. To address the situation in praxis, I called time-out for a whole-class cogen. One of the students sitting at the back of the class was first to speak. The following is a transcript of a portion of the interaction that took place: Student X: I am confused because Bebe used too many different words that I don’t know the meaning of. Bebe: Like what? Student X: Like incline! Student X: Why do you use all those words, instead of just slope? Bebe: Because they mean the same thing. Student X: But that only confuse people. In my country, (Haiti) the teacher use just one word. Not three and four and five different words for the same thing. One word make it more easy to remember. Too many words for the same thing only confuse the math. Bebe: Sorry (Student X)! I do it because I feel like it would help you guys. Some people might know one word, and not another. That is why I use them. Student X: It is not working for me! Teacher: Time out! I understand what you are saying (Student X). But I also see where Bebe is coming from too. Both of you have valid points. Sometimes I use different words because you may see them in different text, and you need to know that they are referring to the same thing. Student X: That maybe true, but students like me get it better if you guys only use one simple word at a time. Bebe: Sorry (Student X). You really have a good point. Next time I teach I will try not to to confuse you. Teacher: (Student X), thanks for raising such an important point. Did anyone else have the same problem? Some students: Yes! Teacher: For your reflection today, write how you feel about the coteaching, and describe any problems that you had. Students: OK!, Yes Mr. J., Alright!

Here, we see the value of acting in praxis. It allows us the opportunity to deal with issues as they occur, which if left for a later time, might never address the real problem, as participants may not remember all the factors that mediated against their learning when they experienced the difficulty. Bebe explained to the student that she never intended to confuse him, but rather, she thought that by using three synonyms, they could choose the word that they like best, or find easier to remember or relate to. The majority of the class thought that Bebe’s approach was good. However, the student still maintained that he did not like it, as it only created confusion for him. Bebe then offered to work with the student on a one-on-one basis in the next class to help him get a better understanding of the concept. The student accepted. The rest of the class continued to work on assigned problems in their groups and I spent time with each group, clearing-up any misunderstandings or difficulties they may have.

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That situation also highlighted the differences in cultural upbringing and how they can mediate students’ ability to learn. During the discussion, other students expressed their points of view, and while they all liked and appreciated Bebe’s helpfulness, they mentioned such things as her tendency to go too fast, and her American accent, as factors that sometimes prevented them from following along during her presentations. These hindrances were well received by Bebe, who thanked the class for pointing them out, and promised to take corrective measures, so that her classmates would benefit more from her coteaching efforts. The impromptu cogen ended after 6 min, and everyone went back to work. The immediate action taken to address a problem faced by individuals and the collective validates for the students that their learning is of utmost importance. Students were very grateful for this prompt intervention, and it would have been difficult not to notice the display of solidarity and collaboration that ensued. Every action of a student or group of students in the learning environment either enhances or hinders the learning of the individual as well as the collective. It is therefore advantageous to all participants that value-laden relationships be coconstructed to give a distinct shape and pattern to choices and the creation of knowledge. Issues are to be discussed as they occur in praxis before individuals forget the context and circumstance in which the action took place.

17.10 The Genesis of Cogenerative Dialogue in My Pedagogy Armed with the knowledge of knowing what needs to be done, and the methodologies that I believed could accomplish it, I moved swiftly to conduct a trial experiment with Bebe and Cece. Bebe was passing all her quizzes and had a positive attitude toward her work. Cece had not passed any of her quizzes and seemed to be on the verge of giving up. I conducted cogens with both the students and began an experiment in which Cece was assigned to sit in Bebe’s group and Bebe was assigned to tutor her. I gave instructions that they were also to plan and coteach lessons together. Cece was to take an active part in the planning, preparation, and class presentation. The idea behind this was that by pairing up a strong and a weak student and requiring that they construct, plan, prepare, and present, Cece’s (the weaker student) self-esteem and self-worth would increase. At the same time, this in-depth involvement and increased responsibility would help her own learning as she prepared for her new role with the support of a well-disciplined higher achieving peer. They were also to have cogens between themselves to discuss how each lesson went and to construct ways of addressing any concerns expressed by the class or that they may have with each other. The first attempt was very difficult for both Cece and Bebe. Even though they had practiced coteaching together, their presentation had a lot of problems. To begin with, Cece had to overcome nervousness and the tendency of her classmates to direct every question to her because of the deficit perspective they held of her mathematical abilities. However, she had her share of supporters and Bebe was definitely covering her back. They were also unable to anticipate each

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other’s actions and speech, so there were numerous pauses in which neither of them spoke, expecting that the other would. On a few occasions, they verbally asked each other to speak or used gesture to signal for each other to take turns at talk. Synchrony and entrainment, the ability to smoothly transition and appropriate turns at talk, is difficult to achieve in coteaching, even among experienced teachers. When they were not pausing for too long, waiting for each other, they were overlapping each other’s speech. This overlapping speech is a unique feature of interactions among African-Americans and other ethnic minorities, which can sometimes be misinterpreted. Oftentimes, teenagers who identify themselves as minorities tend to speak and overlap each other to show solidarity in supporting each other’s points of view and to build confidence (Seiler and Elmesky 2007). Evidence of this occurrence also has to be interpreted in the context of student discourse. There were some content errors, hesitations, and unclear questions on the part of both student coteachers. However, while the students were coteaching, I also assisted them by helping them to reform questions, reinterpret concepts, and clarify any other critical areas that warrant immediate attention, so as to ensure that mathematics instruction and content presented to the class is of a high quality. These issues were discussed and further clarified during the after-class cogen. In fact, students’ mistakes, as well as good practices, are all discussed in cogens, and I make every effort to highlight, praise, and affirm positive areas of students’ participation. There were many outstanding accomplishments. Most importantly, the class showed tremendous respect toward Bebe and Cece. I had given them tips on how to present a lesson, and as a result, they used the chalkboard very effectively for presenting notes and demonstrating problem-solving strategies, as well as for class participation during their presentation. They were well organized. They also used a wide range of simple problems in their demonstration to systematically and incrementally develop students’ understandings of the subject matter. One notable outcome, which the whole class valued, was the patient manner in which Cece would go over a problem, or try to find ways of explaining something, in accessible language, so that a better understanding and clarification was achieved. Another student, Charles, remarked at the end of the first coteaching session, “Mr. J, you might lose your job soon.” This was his way of saying that Bebe and Cece did an excellent job. The entire class applauded Bebe and Cece at the end of the lesson. It is clear from their response that they enjoyed the class and felt that they learned a lot from it.

17.11 Understanding and Using Outcomes of Coteaching The experiment produced successful outcomes, so much so that cogens and coteaching were institutionalized immediately throughout the whole class. I used both cogens and coteaching as a praxis of method and way to dismantle the power differential that existed between teachers and students. From my research,

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I have shown that coteaching allows for the productive use of differences in students’ personality, culture, and mathematical abilities. In the case of Cece, a very weak mathematics student who had given up on passing mathematics, I have seen the transformation that coteaching has brought to her learning by providing her with the space, the support needed, and the opportunity to interact more intimately with mathematics. She has stated in cogens that coteaching has given her a satisfying reason to try to deepen her understanding of mathematics. She admitted that it has also made her feel important and that she could get attention (which she confessed that she loves) for doing something positive in school. In the past, she got a lot of attention, but it was for reasons that often got her into trouble. Other students have also benefited from her transformation, as they see the possibility for their mathematics success as well. They also get first-hand insights into what it means for the students to learn mathematics and how they can be productive members of the class. Cece has become a role model and her excellent performance in coteaching and her improved class grades have helped to encourage and inspire other students. Coteaching has also helped students to demonstrate their knowledge and have misunderstandings clarified by other supporting members of the class. It is believed that if you can teach what you know to others in a way that they can understand, it will increase your own understanding and improve your learning at the same time. All the coteachers and peer tutors have stated that they benefited tremendously, deepening their own understanding as a result of their participation in coteaching. A new capital, in the form of improved attitudes and more meaningful participation in the classroom mathematical activities, is produced as a result of this structure. This, in turn, produces more capital in the classroom through the agency structure dialectical relationship that operates there. Non-dominant students, such as Cece, were very passive during the mathematics discourses in class before participating in cogens and coteaching. Through her collaboration with Bebe as a coteacher, Cece has had her identity transformed by conscious and unconscious actions, facilitated by the agency passivity dialectic. This has helped her to gain both practical knowledge and a different voice, which is something that others in the class could appropriate if they choose to. Bebe accomplished something similar by making a conscious decision to take responsibility for her learning, and to actually change her attitude and work ethic. On the other hand, by being with Bebe, Cece was unconsciously influenced by Bebe’s dedication to her work, which Cece adopted and practiced as evidenced by the longer amount of time she sat and worked without complaining. The relationship between Bebe and Cece continued to be the main object of study, and the results obtained so far have confirmed Tobin’s and Roth’s claim that every action of a student or group of students in the learning environment either enhances or hinders the learning for the individual as well as the collective. When Cece passed her first mathematics quiz in more than 2 years, she could not contain her emotions. She was so excited and happy that she screamed, hugged Bebe, and ran around the room with her paper showing her 68% to everyone.

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I seized the opportunity to make it a teachable moment for the entire class, inspiring hope and possibility. I elaborated on the value of individuals making a commitment to succeed and for the strong students in the class to help the weak ones. Discussion vtures that I promote to ensure the transformation of students’ mathematical identity and success. I used cogens and coteaching as mirrors for students to see their own mathematical learning images, and to take action to modify their reflection if it is unsatisfactory. Unsatisfactory images may result from insufficient economic, social, cultural, or symbolic capital. One or a combination of any of these forms of capital can adversely retard the students’ academic development, so I use cogens and coteaching to help produce a new kind of social organization in my classroom, where students can feel free to talk about their problems, knowing that the classroom community is there to help them find solutions.

17.12 Effects of Cogens and Coteaching on My Teaching By enacting a classroom culture where the salient features of every lesson are collectively examined by all participants, more valuable insights are gained into the needs of all students as well as the teachers…Coteaching and cogens both are forms of praxis that set up and expose participants to learn and understand in and through the sharing of being in the classroom. (Tobin and Roth 2006, p. 4)

It is important to understand the ways in which students and teachers think about teaching and learning together, to discover how they consciously or unconsciously appropriate classroom structures to aide or disrupt normality in the teaching and learning process, and to learn why they tend to privilege certain ways of knowing and learning. Cogens and coteaching have become lenses and structures through which I access, examine, and mediate the educational achievement of my students. They accomplish this by forcing me to consider seriously the needs of individual students and implement cogenerated solutions in ways that are agreed upon, using practices that cut across boundaries between students and me, and between different levels of mathematical understanding or abilities among students. Not only do cogens and coteaching help me to address the needs of the students but also help me to address my own beliefs. They enable me to gain a better understanding of how students learn and to develop teaching practices that have been illuminated and critically examined by my students and myself. This has also highlighted patterns of coherence and contradiction in the more traditional way that I taught before, which did not support or enable students to achieve at their full potential. So, many things were incorrect with my traditional teacher-centered approach. Perhaps, the most significant problem with it was that my students equated it with a method that teachers used if they were too lazy or did not care enough about them. Cece stated that, in her experience, most of the mathematics teachers she has had did not provide the class with activities that would allow them to interact with mathematics and to construct meaning and understanding based on their own exploration and guided thinking. She went on to say that the only time her math

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teachers would bring in some kind of activities for the class was when the teacher was being observed by the principal or the assistant principal or if officials from the New York City Department of Education were visiting the school. Most of her classmates concur, and expressed their opinions in very strong terms. Students also expressed the view that copying large amounts of notes from the chalkboard was a boring exercise from which they would learn nothing as most of them do not read mathematics notes. They could not make sense of the notes as most of them lacked the basic mathematical prerequisites that mediate meaning making. Also, this activity went against the natural cultural practice of students who prefer to talk in class as they discuss ideas and work collaboratively in small groups. Consideration and discussion of these issues during cogens were central to my understanding of the needs of my students, creating opportunities for polyphonia and polysemia. In this instance, polyphonia refers to the multiple voices of my students, which provide structures for my classroom culture, making it more equitable. Polysemia refers to the different perspectives of all the participants in the learning environment. I have learned to value students’ perspectives and voice, and they, in turn, have developed greater respect for me and for each other and have learned to value each other’s points of view through our reflexive discourse and mathematical talk. I have learned to think with my students, not for them.

17.13 Promising Equitable Outcomes for Students’ Mathematics Education With the appropriation of cogens and coteaching methods in my mathematics classroom, I have found that, by aligning my practice with students’ points of view, there are many significant outcomes. These outcomes include remarkable personal growth, agency, and capital production for both students and me. There is evidence of increased collaboration, solidarity, and mathematics achievement as indicated by students coteaching, peer tutoring, and higher test scores on class tests and on State-mandated mathematics examinations. There has also been a transformation of individual and collective mathematical identities as evidence by the increase in the number of students who are consistently on task and participating in classroom activities. Bebe and Cece demonstrated that it is possible, through changes in classroom discourse, structures, and practices, to transform a learning community, if initiatives and practices take into consideration and use the social and cultural capital of all the participants. In developing what I consider as a sociomathematical learning environment and highlighting the experiences of Bebe and Cece, my research has identified ways to succeed in this mathematically diverse urban classroom. Bebe and Cece have not only been engaged in coteaching and peer-tutoring but have also found ways to re-shape the mathematics curriculum, making it more studentfriendly by modifying areas to incorporate the culture and life experiences of their peers without compromising on the essential concepts and diluting the rigor.

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One characteristic of Bebe and Cece’s coteaching practice is that they always provide several dimensions from which one can present their work. Cece remarked that she realized that not all the students learn the same way, and for her personally, she liked when things are explained to her in many different ways that make sense. As a result, she tried to have many different ways of explaining the same thing whenever she cotaught. In one of her coteaching sessions with Bebe, which covered the topic of “Transformation,” she brought in several pictures of examples from the Internet. They incorporated three-dimensional objects and shapes, and asked their classmates to participate in a live demonstration in which individuals were moved around to illustrate different kinds of transformations – linear, angular, and so on. The class was very interactive, and almost everyone enjoyed the activities. I also felt certain that students benefited from it and learned in a way that made sense to them. As one student stated in his reflection, “If mathematics could always be like this, it would be my favorite subject.” When I asked Bebe and Cece why they put so much effort into their coteaching, and presented their work like professionals, they looked at each other first, each telling the other to answer me. Bebe eventually spoke up, saying that they always argued about that too as Cece was never satisfied with using just one method of presentation. At this point, Cece cut into the conversation in her usual way by speaking over Bebe with a much louder voice, and said that she knew there were some students in the class who would not get it if they used only one method. She was calm for a moment, thinking carefully how to explain herself, and then said, “I know that the way we present our stuff, the class gets it, because they tell me. They are learning, and I don’t want to stop, as my friends and I are going to pass math and graduate on time.” I was very touched by her compassion and conviction. In her latest study of Railside High School, Boaler illustrates how the use of Complex Instruction, a multiple-ability treatment designed to rearrange status, in conjunction with reform mathematical practices, can create multidimensional mathematics classrooms that broaden what it means to be smart in that context (Boaler 2006). Nasir also wrote that students who worked in groups on group-worthy mathematical tasks, which were structured by broader classroom processes promoting explicit mathematical sense from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, not only pursued higher-level mathematics courses throughout high school, but also were more interested in the mathematics they were doing (Nasir 2002). Bebe stated that Cece was like their basketball coach, “she takes the coteaching very serious. She even calls me on Sundays to talk about it.” This for me points to the fact that it is crucial not to take a deficit view of any student. When I asked Cece if she believed that she could become a very good mathematics student like Bebe she laughed and said, “Of course, even better!” Then, she reached over to give Bebe a hug and burst into laughter. In turn, Bebe stated that if Cece continues to work as hard as she is working, she will definitely become a very good mathematics student. Cece then looked at the time on her cell phone, and screamed, “Got to go to Ms. X class before she goes crazy on us.” They both rushed off to class. My research suggests that it is, indeed, possible to transform the mathematical identities of students like Bebe and Cece by providing them with learning

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opportunities that will ensure collaboration, productivity, and engagement as mathematics learners. There are many ways in which, through coteaching and cogens, my own ethnic, and educational background, the way this converges with or diverges from that of my students, and the ways in which we learn from each others’ similarities and differences, helps to facilitate that transformation. One of the most important mathematical outcomes from this is the production and reproduction of successful classroom structures, practices, and learning environments, with the implication that there will be more opportunities for students from culturally diverse minority backgrounds to succeed in urban mathematics classrooms.

References Bayne, G. U. (2009). Cogenerative dialogues: The creation of interstitial culture in the New York metropolis. In W.-M. Roth & K. Tobin (Eds.), World of science education: North America (pp. 513–527). Rotterdam: Sense Publishing. Boaler, J. (2006). Urban success: A multidimensional mathematics approach with equitable outcomes. Phi Delta Kappan, 87(5), 364–369. Ford, B. A., Obiakor, F. E., & Patton, J. M. (1995). Effective education of African American exceptional learners: New perspectives. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Hall, S. (1990). Cultural identity and diaspora. In P. Williams & L. Chrisman (Eds.), Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory (pp. 392–403). New York: Columbia University Press. Lattimore, R. (2005). Harnessing and channeling African American children’s energy in the mathematics classroom. Journal of Black Studies, 35, 267–283. Nasir, N. (2002). Identity, goals, and learning: Mathematics in cultural practice. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 4, 213–248. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2000). Principles and standards. Reston, VA: Author. Nieto, S. (1992). We speak in many tongues: Language diversity and multicultural education. In C. P. Díaz (Ed.), Multicultural education for the twenty-first century (pp. 112–136). Washington, DC: National Education Association. Secada, W. G. (1995). Social and critical dimensions for equity in mathematics education. In W. G. Secada, E. Fennema & L. B. Adajian (Eds.), New directions for equity in mathematics education (pp. 146–164). New York: Cambridge University Press. Seiler, G. & Elmesky, R. (2007). The role of communal practices in the generation of capital and emotional energy among urban African American students in science classrooms. Teachers College Record, 109, 391–419. Shaw, M. A. (1993). African-American strategies of successful adaptation in response to diseducation: A phenomenological investigation. Doctoral dissertation, University of Northern Illinois. Tobin, K. (2005). Urban science as a culturally and socially adaptive practice. In K. Tobin, R. Elmesky & G. Seiler (Eds.), Improving urban science education: New roles for teachers, students and researchers (pp. 21–42). New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Tobin, K. & Roth, W. M. (2006). Teaching to learn: A view from the field. Rotterdam/Taipei: Sense Publishers. Walker, E. N. (2006). Urban high school students’ academic communities and their effects on mathematics success. American Educational Research Journal, 43, 43–73. Waters, M. C. (1999). Black identities: West Indian immigrant dreams and American realities. New York: Russell Sage Foundation/Harvard University Press.

Chapter 18

Students as Coteachers in an Urban High School Mathematics Class Carol A. Woodburn

18.1 Introduction During the last 2 decades, several national reports have documented the underachievement of American students in mathematics. Most, if not all, of these report that a change in the approach to teaching is a priority. In January 2008, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) published its position on excellence in mathematics. The vision of this position assumes that changes and improvements in teaching and learning will afford every child equal access to a substantive mathematics education. The NCTM also believes that schools in which teachers and students experience equitable practices afford greater opportunities to engage students with significant mathematical ideas while supporting the greater goal of helping students learn to care about others and treat all human beings with dignity and respect. The NCTM states: Excellence in mathematics education rests on equity—high expectations, respect, understanding, and strong support for all students. Policies, practices, attitudes, and beliefs related to mathematics teaching and learning must be assessed continually to ensure that all students have equal access to the resources with the greatest potential to promote learning. A culture of equity maximizes the learning potential of all students (p. 1).

A plethora of research underscores the lack of achievement in mathematics by African-American, Latino/as, Native American, and female students (National Research Council 2005). As I continue as a teacher/researcher, the mathematics education community in my organization is moving towards making changes in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. This move is intended to create equitable and high-quality learning opportunities for all students. Equity in mathematics education implies that all students are treated equally and fairly to achieve their full potential, regardless of gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or race. In this chapter, I explore the role of collaborative research that incorporates the uses of cogenerative dialogue and video analysis of lessons taught by students (coteachers) to create an equitable learning environment in which my students coteach with me to form praxis. Cogenerative dialogues are forms of discourses whereby students and myself engage in collaborative discussions to

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identify inequities and implement equitable practices in mathematics classroom teaching and learning. I used vignettes to tell the story, to emphasize the theory and methodology, and to discuss the outcomes from the study.

18.2 The Urgent Need for Equity in the Mathematics Classroom This research took place over the course of one semester in City Academy, a small parochial high school in New York. The school enrolls approximately 170 students. The school’s population consists of African-American, Africans, Latino/as, and students from the Caribbean. The study took place in a ninth-grade Integrated Algebra class and I was the teacher. Since the students came from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures, they differed greatly in the capital (social, human, and symbolic) that they could access to enhance their mathematical learning. Some students were underprepared and did not possess a solid foundation for learning mathematics, while a few had enough experience to master the learning of the course. My thought of the first meeting with my mathematics students at City Academy was, oh my God what did I get myself into. At the very start, I began assessing students in my mind. This one is going to be a problem; that one over there has a nasty attitude, and this other one I am unable to make out. By the end of the second week, I realized that I was having favorites, I was being sarcastic with some of the students, especially the females, and I was becoming frustrated because some of the students were not grasping concepts as quickly as I had hoped. At that time, I believed that if some students were able to grasp concepts with little or no difficulty, then all students should have been able to grasp concepts. I was unconscious of the fact that students learn at different paces and that no two individuals are alike. After my first 2 months at City Academy, I was ready to quit. One student, John was complaining that I did not like him. Another student, Sandra, said that she does not like me because I failed her on her test. However, there were the others who said, “Ms. Woodburn is nice, I like her.” I must confess that it was not very flattering to hear those comments about myself, especially when I thought that I was the model teacher. The following vignette is a conversation between Sandra, her mother, and myself. Sandra Miss, my mom wants to speak to you. Woodburn Okay, come on in. Good day Ms. Bush, how may I help you? Ms. Bush Well, Sandra told me that you don’t like her and I am here to discuss the problem with you. Woodburn Sandra, you really think I don’t like you? Sandra Yes Woodburn Why do you say that? Sandra Well, miss, you whenever I am talking and other people are talking you always only call to me.

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Woodburn Really, I am not aware of that. I usually call to anybody who is talking. So you really think that I don’t like you because I call to you when you are talking. Sandra But miss, you never see me when I am not talking and you really call out to the boys, I really think that you prefer the boys. Ms. Bush You know Ms. Woodburn, Sandra is accustomed to being the teacher’s pet and whenever she thinks that someone is more loved than her she reacts. Woodburn I am very sorry but I can’t have pets. If Sandra feels that I am treating her unfairly then I will check myself and will definitely improve my treatment. But if she thinks that I prefer someone to her and is acting up, I definitely will not accommodate that kind of behavior. Is there anything else I can help you with? Ms. Bush No, that will be all. I really think that Sandra is acting out because she believes that you prefer the boys to her. I will try and work with her. Woodburn You do that, and I will make sure that I don’t show favoritism in class.

Several more incidents occurred that led me to really believe that I was not practicing equity even though I thought I was. The following episode reflects what happened in one of my mathematics class. The lesson was about solving linear equations. Jim Teacher, I don’t understand how you got 3. Woodburn Okay Jim, the problem states 3 × −2 = 7, now we are solving for (pause) Jim × Woodburn Very good. So what do we need to do? Jim Isolate the term with the variable. Woodburn Excellent! What do I need to do next? Jim Add 2 to both sides of the equation. Woodburn Why? Jim Because the operation used on the term with the variable is subtraction and therefore we have to use the opposite operation which is addition and the number is 2. Woodburn Good job. So Jim what don’t you understand? Jim Ahh, I guess I was not paying attention. Woodburn So we will move on. Petal Not yet miss, I don’t understand. Woodburn (very frustrated) You students are getting on my nerves. What don’t you understand? I took the time to explain it to you all and you were there doing what I don’t know, now coming to tell me you don’t understand. Petal Miss, you are so unfair. You did not behave that way when Jim said he didn’t understand. I do understand but I was just trying to prove to Anna that you show partiality to some students.

After this particular lesson, I was very unhappy with myself and my behavior towards my students during instruction. What happened to Carol who was so adamant about practicing equity in her classroom? In my mind, I was treating all students fairly, but it was not so. In reality, some students saw me as an unfair teacher who showed preference to boys and students who were able to grasp concepts quicker than the rest. Not good! My different encounters with inequity on my part forced me to evaluate my teaching style, and the way I handled situations. I realized that I was really treating the boys differently than I was treating the girls. As a matter of fact, I discovered that I preferred to deal with the boys because they did not have the attitudes that the

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girls had, they did not ask stupid questions, and they were very respectful. Also, the boys did not talk back and they were willing to learn. I made a commitment that I will work on achieving equity in my classroom. I am now committed to providing my students with an equitable learning environment. In my classroom, all the students enrolled are from nondominant social groups and have issues with academic achievement. Demographic trends indicate that the majority of people entering the workforce will be female or from an ethnicminority group, and that half of the students in our nation’s schools will come from non-European-American backgrounds (Hodgkinson 1994). Of the 13 students who participated in the research, three were repeating because of their failure to master the course on previous attempts. One of the three was repeating the course for the third time. The lack of parental guidance, low self-esteem, trust, and misconceptions are possible causes for students’ mathematical struggles. The practice of tracking students into low-level classes on the basis of their perceived abilities may also contribute to their mathematical struggles. Some of the students in my class are from elementary schools whose policies allowed them to track students, especially in mathematics according to perceived abilities. Also, at the beginning of the semester, the administration at my school made provision for remedial mathematics classes. Students who were placed in these remedial classes are those who scored below 65% on the mathematics placement test. These students began to show negative emotions about the class as well as resistance to me. Their first impression was that if they were placed in my class, they were labeled as remedial not realizing that they had to attend both the regular class and the so-called remedial class. Their feelings are illustrated in the following excerpt from a conversation of a student researcher and myself. Budd Miss, are you the remedial math class teacher? Woodburn Why do you call it remedial? Budd That’s what the letter that my mom got calls it. Miss, you know I’m not stupid. Woodburn Well, I know you are not stupid, actually, on the contrary, I think you are quite smart. And incidentally, the ninth grade class is divided into two groups. I will teach one group and Mr. A will teach the other. Budd So miss, what about the remedial class in the evenings? Woodburn Oh, that’s what you are talking about. That’s not remedial class. It is extra classes to help those of you who had difficulty understanding the concepts during the regular classes. I call it after-school. Budd Miss, do I really have to come? Woodburn Ok, how about trying it out for a couple of evenings? Then we can take it from there. Budd What about my friends? Will you do the same for them? Woodburn We’ll see.

Little did the administration know that by naming the after-school program asremedial classes they were labeling these students and may have caused symbolic violence (Bourdieu 1992) to some students. This resulted in students showing frustration and sometimes animosity towards me, the teacher. During the first 2 weeks, many students showed resistance, and I, on the other hand, lost control. I also lost the social and symbolic capitals that were necessary to teach effectively.

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Students of mathematics must be afforded equal opportunity to learn mathematical concepts. Also, equitable treatment of all students requires that teachers devise strategies that support students’ involvement in mathematics instruction. I believe that equity in mathematics education can be achieved by participation during practice. Learners can produce knowledge in settings that are socially and culturally constituted (Boaler 2000). Lave and Wenger (1991) describes learning as participation in a community of practice, where novices take on more and more central roles in their community over time. In my quest to achieve equity in my mathematics classroom and to promote learning, this study seeks to address the following questions: • How can cogenerative dialogue and the use of students as coteachers enable a teacher to achieve equity in the mathematics classroom? • How can the use of videotape enable the teacher to transform his/her praxis? • How do students (coteachers) talk about mathematics, teaching, and learning while participating in instruction? • What does students’ talk reveal about the challenges and possibilities for students learning in such practice-based context?

18.3 Exploring Classroom Activities Students who are passive listeners and are not engaged in the learning process, are unable to effectively learn mathematics. Educators must afford students the opportunities to build their own understanding of mathematical concepts (NCTM 2008). Students who are engaged as active participants in mathematical instructions operate in an equitable learning environment. Teachers should provide learning situations and environments that will build on students’ prior knowledge and cultural backgrounds.

18.3.1 The Study and the Participants In this critical ethnography, my goal was to describe the participation of my students as coteachers with the intention of helping others (my coworkers) achieve equity in the classroom. The nature of the research required the inclusion of the voices of all the participants and activities in the classroom. It also required the division of labor and the distribution of power in the research as well as classroom activities. To conduct this study, a research team consisting of myself (the mathematics teacher) and my 13 student participants/researchers was created to inform the research and classroom activities by developing and analyzing data resources that included videotape of lesson studies, field notes, journal entries, interviews, and cogenerative dialogues. This study employs collaborative ethnography and video analysis to identify and examine patterns of coherence and to connect teaching and learning. Throughout

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the study, the coteachers (students) and I met and planned the course. I provided structures, including agendas, lesson goals and objectives, and assignment requirements, with the intention to challenge students to look more closely at mathematical concepts and issues of equity. Most importantly, I hoped that their participation in the lessons would develop their mathematical and equity skills, which they could bring into other fields. The research group consisted of 13 students from different cultures. There were African-Americans, Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Puerto Ricans/Dominicans, and Vincentians. Three out of the 12 students were very quiet and were given very little opportunity to participate in whole-class discussions. There were also two who tried to dominate the class with their excessive talking (not subject matter) as well as not giving other students chances to participate in the class. I adopted a hermeneutic-dialectical process in the selection of coteachers. I selected students from different economic and cultural backgrounds, who also differed in their orientation towards academic achievement. All my students were excited to participate in the research, in the regular cogenerative dialogues, in the examination of videotape of lessons, and most of the times, in reflection on our practices.

18.3.2 Videotaping Classroom Activities Videotaping is an effective, but limited, means of capturing relevant classroom interactions. The use of videotape is beneficial to researchers and teachers/students as a data resource because it allows participants to review and reflect on missed activities. Tobin and Roth (2001) point out that a number of science teachers and researchers have begun to understand the benefits of capturing and evaluating classroom activity through the use of videotape. I will take the initiative and include mathematics teachers and researchers in the number of people who are enjoying the benefits of using videotape to capture and evaluate classroom activity. Videotapes are effective tools in facilitating discussion during cogenerative dialogues and they also serve as references for enhancing classroom instructions and structure. Throughout the course of the research, the whole-class discussions were videotaped twice a week (85-min classes). Owing to the fact that this is a collaborative research, I wanted the students to coteach, and therefore, I usually recorded these sessions. I did this from different positions within the classroom. However, on occasions when I am assisting with a lesson, I assign a student from another group to videotape. With the use of the video-editing program, QuickTime, and the assistance of my squad teammates, I was able to identify practices at a meso-level and analyze the interactions at a micro-level. I played the video in episodes and slowed each episode to hundredths of a second to break down the practices and interactions as they were enacted. In this way, I was able to detect emergence of solidarity, body movements, gestures, verbal interactions, and interest displayed by the members of the class.

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18.4 The Road to Equity Initially, my main focus at City Academy was to teach mathematics. Getting through the material and preparing students for the Regents were of more importance to me than fostering a wholesome classroom where students were free to participate without being shut-down by me, the teacher, one that was not thought of as stupid or low by the students. As a high-school student, I was never the recipient of inequity and therefore, was not pleased with the fact that some of my students felt that I was treating them unfairly. I was faced with the challenge of practicing equity in my classroom. The million-dollar question was, how best can I achieve equity in my mathematics classroom? Creating equity in mathematics education may be deemed difficult or complex. However, I was determined to change my thinking and actions to move to a true equity model. I realized that changing my actions was not enough to bring about equity in my mathematics classroom. Other areas that needed attention were the social structure of the classroom and the curriculum. After careful evaluation, I decided that I could change the lens through which I look at every aspect of the classroom, by the way of cogenerative dialogue. I announced to the class that I would be working on a study that will help us all get along and in the long run, achieve equity. I explained to them that we will meet once per week to discuss various issues and concerns that we have been encountering. All 13 of them were willing to participate and said that they were happy that we were doing something to alleviate the tension that was in the classroom. We agreed on weekly sessions. The weeks seemed to be so long, and therefore, I decided that Fridays would be our chill day. Rather than having our cogens outside of class time, we decided to use Fridays’ class time. This arrangement was perfect because everyone was really tired by Friday and needed to unwind. I informed the students that the cogen sessions were not necessarily to discuss mathematics, but rather to discuss any issue that may be affecting them. Today I facilitated my first cogen. The first 40 minutes were focused us talking about my teaching style, the changes they have observed, and what we need to do to improve the atmosphere of the classroom. I let them know that the cogens were for us to discuss any issues they are facing especially those issues that impact our class and the school. I began the conversation by thanking everyone for agreeing to participate. I let them know that we will see changes. Ena was first to contribute. She had a problem with the length of the class. She said that the class period was too long and that she hated the fact that the class was at the end of the day. “No disrespect or anything miss, you are a good teacher and everything and you are nice but at the end of the day we be very tired and I just want to hear the bell rings to bolt.” Then, Leah and Milly both laughed and said simultaneously, “yo, do you see how Chrissy be standing at the door ready to bolt as the bell rings?” All 13 students started laughing and talking. I had to calm them down and remind them that there are other classes going on. I was reminded of the biases that I had when Zen said that at first I used to treat the boys very special, but of late she noticed that things are turning around and I am getting very warm. As a matter of fact, she said that she is beginning to like the class and the time doesn’t even matter to her. I was really encouraged by the comment she made about

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things getting better. Leah wanted to know what could be done to make the class more fun. Ronnie got up and said “you guys are bugging, why do you need to have more fun in class. You came to school to learn not to have fun.” He added, “when you want to have fun then go to the gym there is always something going on in there. These classes are for us to learn.” A few of his classmates were not in agreement with him, and so they voiced their displeasures. I believe Ronnie was trying to prevent his classmates from hurting my feelings. While I appreciate his support, I needed to hear all that the students had to say because I to want make a difference and I must achieve equity in my classroom. Mike and Zen are both very quiet but today they spoke up. Mike didn’t have a problem with the way the class was going but he wished that the girls would be more respectful. I almost agreed with him but I had to remind myself that my primary goal is to treat my students fairly and to provide instruction so that everyone can learn. In this cogen we planned the next classes. We decided that students would coteach lessons. We formed two groups of four and one group of five. Students are excited about coteaching. The first cogen went well. All the students enjoyed the conversation and said that they cannot wait for next Friday to continue. Ena said that she enjoyed the conversation and that she hoped that other teachers would think of something like this. I must confess that I was very pleased with the outcome of our first cogenerative dialogue at City Academy. It was very productive and I do believe that I am on track with my plans to achieve equity in my mathematics classroom. (Journal Entry ~ September 28, 2007)

During the first cogen, my students and I decided to have a change in instruction. Since my class is multicultural, I considered what Banks termed the transformation approach to multicultural education. This method called for changes in curriculum materials, teacher and students’ perspectives, and teaching styles. A number of important factors that influence instruction define the transformation approach. These factors are knowledge construction, which helps students understand multiple cultural perspectives as well as becoming knowledge constructors; prejudice reduction; equitable pedagogy, which modifies teaching approaches making them appropriate for students of different cultures; and school culture and social structure (Banks 1994). The culture at City Academy was oriented towards competitive individualism. Here, students work mostly by themselves on individual tasks, and doing well implies doing better than others. I contrast this model to my coteaching strategy where we all learn together and our primary task is to work collectively towards common goals, where all students are involved in everyone’s achievement. My algebra students said that it was a good idea to have them teach. What they especially liked about the notion of coteaching is that all of them will teach at some point. Also, they believed that the first cogenerative dialogue session was a success and that it will continue weekly. Ena Miss Woodburn, I liked the cogen. Thank you for caring. Woodburn Tell me Ena, exactly what did you about the cogen? Ena I liked the way we were able to discuss the things that were bothering us and that you were not offended by the things we said that we did not like about you. Woodburn Well, I am happy that it went well and I everybody to feel comfortable about talking to me. You know Ena, like you, I am really excited about this and I hope that we will be able to achieve our goals.

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Ena Miss, I heard my classmates saying that you have changed and that you are really cool. Woodburn Aw, thank you. Have a nice weekend. Ena Thank you and you have a nice weekend.

The responses I got from the first cogen were really encouraging. I had no doubt in my mind that I was on the path to achieving equity. The principal as well as other faculty members heard about our meeting and were curious to know what it was about.

18.5 Students Teaching to Learn Students who are accepted into City Academy are from low socio-economic status families. These students are often labeled as low achievers. Their mathematical knowledge was limited and thus, much work was required to bring them up to par with their public school counterparts. Also, extra preparation was necessary for them to take the New York state standardized Regents test and be successful. Having this group of students in my class made me realize that I had a big challenge to deal with. I had to think and act quickly as everybody was expecting me to create miracles. That is, no matter what the attitudes and aptitudes of the students were, it was my responsibility to ensure that each student did well on the mathematics Regents. At the beginning of the course, I faced students with various issues, such as low self-esteem, lack of respect (for self and others), overconfidence, and attitudes. I became very frustrated and decided to introduce cogenerative dialogue. About 2 weeks into the semester, my students and I started meeting to cogenerate dialogue. We met every Friday since the first meeting. From the cogenerative dialogues, I discovered that for instructions to be effective, the students needed to be more involved. I also remembered that as a high-school student in math class, I grasped concepts and learned content more when my teacher allowed me to tutor my peers. I immediately placed students in groups of four and each group was responsible for teaching one lesson per week. Students would prepare the lesson before hand and then meet me during their study hall to go over each topic. They were given the opportunity to model their lessons whichever way they wanted. The main intention was to give each student an opportunity to learn while teaching and to open doors to new ways of thinking about mathematics and how it is learned.

18.5.1 The Actual Lesson As a teacher, my focus was on each student grasping and understanding concepts and learning the materials taught, and therefore, I employed the use of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue. The following vignette is from a lesson taught by one of the groups. There were four students in this group. They were all from different ethnic groups. Each student in this group was responsible for teaching one section

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of the lesson. Two of the students in this group were the quieter ones in the class and they were the ones chosen to anchor the lesson. The topic taught was Solving and Graphing Inequalities. At the beginning of the lesson, the student-teachers told their classmates to close their textbooks. They did this because they wanted to ensure that every student was paying attention. As Mike (the only male in the group and one of the quiet ones) taught his section of the lesson, he commanded the attention of the other students. He elicited the participation of all the other students by asking relevant questions; the questions were not complex, but rather brought out thoughtful and interesting responses. Mike showed confidence as he taught. Because of his quiet demeanor, his classmates were very surprised, but pleased at the way he executed his teaching task.     Mike Now we are going to graph x ≥ 2 and x ≤ 6 (drawing a number line on the board)… How do we graph it?    Class no response    Mike How do we graph it?    Zen you put a closed circle on 2 and another closed circle on 6 and connect them. [applause] Zen never speaks in class.    Mike graphed the problem.    Mike Why a closed circle?    Zen because the problem says x greater than or equal to, if it was just greater than then we would have an opened circle. Woodburn Good job!

In teaching her section of the lesson, Leah, the other student-teacher, used a different approach from Mike. She explained the problem, did an example, and then allowed the students to come to the board to solve different problems. Leah was more alert than Mike in terms of classroom management. She saw two of her classmates sleeping and was brave enough to reprimand them. She told them that sleeping in class while instruction is going on is very disrespectful and she understood what the teachers are experiencing. Leah We will work on graphing compound inequalities dealing with OR. Unlike the AND, only one statement needs to be true. Two young ladies are sleeping. Leah Zen, can you please wake up those two? Zen wakes them. Leah How can you be sleeping when the lesson is going on? You are so disrespectful. Now I see what the teacher experiences when she is up here. The classroom gets extremely quiet and everybody started paying attention. Leah Now I will demonstrate how to graph a compound inequality dealing with OR. She graphed the inequality. Leah Jane and Joe please come to the board and do check it out 1 and 2.

The other two group members, Rachel and Sarah demonstrated the problem-solving aspects of the lesson. They explained to the students how important it is to read and understand mathematical problems involving real-world situations. Rachel read and explained a problem. Sarah showed the different steps to follow in problem-solving. At the end of the lesson, the students were asked to write a brief description of the lesson and evaluate the different sections. All the students wrote that they liked

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the instructions and that they would like an opportunity to teach. As the teacher, I was very pleased with my students’ performance. The following is an excerpt of a brief discussion I had with a student after the class. Woodburn So Chris, how do you think the class went? Chris It was fun, I really learned. You should do more of this. Woodburn What do you think of your classmates? Did they do a good job? Chris Oh yes Miss. Did you see how Zen answered up? I think Mike motivated her. Chris Miss, may I teach the next class? Woodburn Sure, but you have to prepare. I like when students want to teach.

18.5.2 Examining the Lesson As a mathematics student in high school, I used to prepare for the next lesson because I loved it when the teacher asked me to assist my classmates. In so doing, I learned more and had a better grasp of the subject matter. Moreover, I felt very proud when I was complimented on my mathematics knowledge and skills. It is for this reason that I introduced students as coteachers, which focused their attention on learning. Allowing the students to teach means that they (the students) have to be prepared. That is, they have to learn the lesson first, before they attempt to teach it. If they have difficulty with any section, then they have the opportunity of coming to me to explain it to them. It is my responsibility to make sure that they understand the concepts and content before teaching. Hence, the learning is the reward one gets from teaching. Also, they learn as they teach others. I was very impressed with the way each student executed his/her teaching task. They were all very excited about teaching and wanted to prove to me that they were capable of doing a good job. They all seem to emulate my style of teaching in some way. This was a bit flattering. During the course of the research, I realized that affording each student the opportunity to teach does promote learning and equity. Learning because no child wants to be labeled ‘stupid,’ neither do they want to mess up in front of their peers. Therefore, they will ensure that they master the subject matter before even attempting to teach. Equity occurred, because each student was able to participate in the class in ways that assisted them to achieve the learning goals for the mathematics course, and no one was hindered from participating because of the way the lessons were taught. Thus, my class became a level playing field. It was evident that learning was taking place because a comparison of the assessment scores showed that students were scoring higher in the third and fourth marking periods when compared with the first. I also noticed that students’ attitudes began to improve. There were no more complaints of wanting to be in another class, instead, I got kudos from my students. They tell me, “miss your class is the best!”

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18.5.3 Students’ Perspective My students were very excited about coteaching. They participated more in the lessons that their colleagues are teaching. The following is a journal entry from one of the students. Today I had the opportunity to coteach with Miss Woodburn. When I was up in front of the class I was very nervous and excited at the same time. I thought about how the class would react and what Miss Woodburn would say at the end. When we were teaching I felt that my friends were learning something and that I wasn’t up there for nothing. The enthusiasm that was in the room when we asked questions made me feel as if I was the real teacher. I had fun even though I couldn’t give homework. I think that letting students coteach is a very good idea and that it should be done in every class because when students teach they also learn what they are teaching at the same time, and if they know it already then they get a better understanding of what they taught. It makes learning fun and that’s the way learning should be. (Mike’s Journal Entry 10/15/2008)

18.5.4 Students and Teacher Producing Together My mother always used to say that “two heads are better than one.” I have proven this statement to be true since learning became more effective as my students and I work together (in cogenerative dialogues) for one common goal. Students were motivated by the whole idea of coteaching and therefore were willing to assist each other in class. Teaching is actually the process whereby an individual assists another in learning. Therefore, when my students coteach lessons they are actually maximizing their learning. This form of discourse made allowance for the highest level of mathematical achievement. Tobin and Roth (2001) premised coteaching on the concept that when teachers work together, they learn from each other without even thinking about what they are doing at the moment and why they are doing what they are doing. Hence, they coined the central motto: coteaching is colearning in praxis (p. 17). I have based my own research on this same idea. I have discovered that by coteaching, students’ behaviors improved, they respected each other, and the classroom environment became more conducive to learning.

18.6 Cogenerative Dialogue as a Classroom Management Tool In my algebra class, there were significant benefits in learning through the uses of cogenerative dialogue and coteaching. I have learned that to be effective, I had to establish a classroom environment that emphasized solidarity as well as to build social capital. As a teacher from a different culture, I had to understand and value the culture that my students brought to the classroom and in turn work on building social capital for the common goal of learning mathematics. By analyzing the

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videotapes (of students coteaching) during cogenerative dialogue sessions, the students were able to identify behaviors that they deemed unacceptable. Also, they were determined to change their behaviors to create a more productive and structured classroom, one that would enhance the learning of mathematics. Cogenerative dialogues provided my students and I opportunities to talk openly and comfortably. In these sessions, students discussed factors affecting their everyday lives. We also discussed ways to improve the learning of mathematics. During these dialogues, each participant was treated equally and every suggestion was reviewed. We were all able to communicate our views, ideas, and beliefs about teaching and learning of mathematics. These focused activities allowed us to develop a greater understanding of each other and to build solidarity and social capital as we developed the cultural capital that was associated with the teaching and learning of mathematics. The use of videotapes during cogenerative dialogues afforded us the opportunities of focusing coteachers’ attention on specific activities and providing concrete examples about shared practices and experiences from which to get understandings about present and future practices. As all the students analyzed, observed, and shared their experiences, ideas for improving behaviors in class were negotiated and it was evident that students were willing to assuming responsibilities for their own actions in the classroom. These activities proved to be of extreme importance because our practices were habitual and unintentional. These cogenerative dialogues sessions proved to be effective classroom management tool since students improved their behaviors during classroom instruction. One important thing to note is that the results from the cogenerative dialogues were not only evident in my class but also in other classes. The cogenerative dialogues served as resources to discuss teaching and learning and to illustrate that students needed to take responsibilities for their own activities in the environment and for changing the distribution of power and the roles of participants.

References Banks, J. A. (1994). Transforming the mainstream curriculum. Educational Leadership, 51(8), 4–8. Boaler, J. (2000). Introduction: Intricacies of knowledge, practice and theory. In J. Boaler (Ed.), Multiple perspectives on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 1–17). Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing. Bourdieu, P. (1992). The practice of reflexive sociology (The Paris workshop). In P. Bourdieu & L. J. D. Waquant (Eds.), An invitation to reflexive sociology (pp. 260–261). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hodgkinson, H. (1994). How we’re changing: The demographic state of the nation. In Demographics for decision makers 2 (pp. 1–3). Washington, DC: Center for Demographic Policy, Institute for Educational Leadership. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). (2008). Curriculum and evaluation standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. National Research Council. (2005). Adding it up: Helping children learn mathematics. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Tobin, K. & Roth, M. (2001). Teaching to learn. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Epilogue Kathryn Scantlebury and Colette Murphy

Ten years of research and development in coteaching in many different contexts has shown significant benefits to all participants in terms of student-learning and achievement. The coteaching learning environment is expanded to include more than one perspective on learning and teaching, leading to the development of more democratic and less hierarchical classrooms, laboratories, and/or lecture halls. These environments are more inclusive and engender a social situation in which it is easier for learners to participate and contribute. Learning ownership can therefore be more easily passed from teacher(s) to students. But does coteaching “work”? Policymakers will first of all be looking for evidence of impact on students’ learning in terms of achievement scores, understanding, enjoyment and engagement, and improved teaching. The studies in this book provide good evidence for such improvement in these measures as a result of coteaching. Also, the research demonstrates ways that coteaching provides for increased learning and confidence among participant coteachers in a variety of ways. In the epilogue, we will consider the implications of adopting coteaching for program developers and policymakers, including a discussion of the initial concerns of those not yet involved in coteaching and have voiced to us at conferences and other venues. We will suggest the way forward for the development and wider implementation of coteaching and cogenerative dialogue as an approach to improve learning and teaching in the twenty-first century classrooms, many of which differ greatly from those of the past.

1.1 Adopting Coteaching The reported benefits of coteaching are highly significant in a range of contexts. How, then, should the process be implemented for the first time? Most studies in this volume recommend an initial, nonteaching meeting between prospective coteachers where they are introduced to coteaching, via observation of recorded lessons and/or hearing from more experienced coteachers. Also at this meeting, coteachers might have opportunities to consider ways of working together and how C. Murphy and K. Scantlebury (eds.), Coteaching in International Contexts: Research and Practice, Cultural Studies of Science Education, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3707-7, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

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they might deal with potential contradictions or conflicts that may arise in their specific context. Preparation for coteaching during student-teacher school placements as part of preservice teacher education programs is described in many chapters in the book, particularly in those of Murphy and Beggs, and Bacharach et al. An excellent introduction to student-teacher–classroom-teacher coteaching is described in Kerr’s chapter, in which coteachers attended professional development courses together. Thus, they first learn together as well as get to know one another and then they implement aspects of that learning together in the classroom as coteachers during the subsequent school placement. An advantage of coattendance at professional development courses is that it enables coteachers to bring their different perspectives to the learning, expanding further the richness brought later to the coplanning, coteaching, and coevaluation. Coteachers can be apprised of benefits for themselves as well as for their learners. Gallo-Fox describes in her chapter the opportunities coteaching presents for teachers to take more risks with their pedagogical approaches, expanding their repertoires and experimenting with new ideas. O’Conaill’s chapter also highlights increased risk-taking by coteachers. His chapter, along with those of Carlisle, Kerr and Murphy, and Beggs, introduces a model for coteaching in which the student-teachers bring science subject expertise to share with classroom-teachers’ pedagogical know-how to enhance the teaching and learning of science in the primary school. In preparation for coteaching, it is useful to consider the criticisms raised by teachers, principals, and teacher-educators. Two of these criticisms specifically apply to preservice teacher-education programs. The first is that after coteaching, student-teachers will have become too dependent on support from their cooperating teacher and will not be able to “go it alone.” First, coteaching is rarely used as the only approach to teaching. Most of the preservice teacher-education coteaching programs described in this book provide for “solo” as well as coteaching experience at school placements. In some programs, there is more solo teaching than coteaching; others provide more coteaching than solo teaching. Another feature of some coteaching programs, which militates against student-teachers not being able to “go it alone,” is seen as the model in which student-teachers bring specific expertise to the partnership that is shared with the cooperating teacher. This ensures that at times the student-teacher is the “leader” in the partnership, with the classroom-teacher playing a leading role in other situations. Student-teachers may bring subject expertise (see chapters by Kerr, Carlisle, O’Conaill and Murphy, and Beggs) technological expertise, such as advanced web-based skills or perhaps the student-teacher may bring specific pedagogical expertise derived from previous teaching experience or from their teacher-education programs. A second concern about coteaching raised by those in preservice teacher-education programs is the potential for a student-teacher to become encultured into poor practice if they are coteaching with an ineffective classroom teacher. The studies in this book evidence the opposite effect. Each coteacher adopts teaching strategies of the other, which promote student-learning. Indeed, reflections from cooperating teachers suggest that sometimes they observe a student-teacher using a counter-productive

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strategy and realize that it could be the case that the more experienced teacher had modeled that practice. In the chapters by Gallo-Fox and Murphy, and Beggs, teacher reflections showed that they looked critically at their own teaching and made improvements as a result of engaging in coteaching. Indeed, some coteaching studies, in which teachers were invited to complete reflective diaries, showed that it was the process of reflecting on classroom practice, which cooperating teachers found to be one of the most valuable outcomes of their involvement in coteaching. In addition, working alongside a student-teacher gave some teachers opportunities to develop mentoring skills. Others reflected that they would sometimes “up their game” when working with student-teachers to help them experience the best practice. The coevaluation discussions provided opportunities for coteachers to reflect together on the relative success of different strategies they used, to be acted upon in subsequent coplanning and coteaching sessions. The adoption of coteaching in contexts other than preservice school placements is also described in this text. Coteaching between teacher-educators and classroomteachers brings the potential to offer student-teachers diverse perspectives to their preparation for teaching. Typically, teacher-educators stress the research perspective and classroom-teachers illustrate concepts and theoretical understandings from their direct experience. In many cases, teacher-educators have little recent full-time classroom-teaching experience and therefore learn from the classroom-teacher; classroom-teachers can contextualize aspects of their work in a broader framework as a result of working with the teacher-educators. Student-teachers benefit not just from the different perspectives, but from the dialogue that arises between themselves, the teacher-educator, the classroom–teacher, and in some circumstances the students. This context of coteaching has the very important advantage of lessening the theory–practice gap, a much criticized aspect of teacher-education. The chapters by Nilsson, Carambo and Blasie, and Siry and Martin show different contexts of coteaching. Nilsson provides a good example of addressing the theory–practice gap in the teaching of physics in primary school science. Physics teacher-educators and primary school teachers worked together to help increase the subject and pedagogical knowledge and confidence of prospective primary school teachers. Nilsson illustrates the enormous potential for learning between coteachers in this situation, as well as the learning for students. Carambo and Blasie’s chapter discusses a well-established partnership between a teacher-educator and classroom-teacher who have been coteaching for 4 years. Both coteachers have interrogated and subsequently improved their practice as a result of their coteaching experiences. In addition, they recognized that the most effective way to teach that particular course was via coteaching. Siry and Martin’s chapter illustrates how coteaching between teacher-educators, inservice teachers, and preservice teachers resulted in the development of a community in which all felt safe and validated. The experience was valued very highly by preservice teachers whose confidence increased as a consequence of their coteaching involvement in their own course. Coteaching provides peer teachers with expanded opportunities for learning and teaching in diverse classrooms. Coteachers of different genders, ages, ethnicities, and subject expertise can work together to engage more students than might be the

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case with a lone teacher. Upadhyay and Gifford’s chapter involved coteachers of different ethnicities working together to improve a learning environment in which one of the coteachers was ethnically and culturally different from the majority of the students. The coteachers developed a culturally responsive pedagogy (LadsonBillings 1995) in which students and coteachers became less isolated from each other and developed practices that enhanced meaningful learning. The authors suggest that coteaching in such contexts can reduce teacher burnout and teacher attrition rates. Juck, Scantlebury, and Gallo-Fox’s chapter reports on the experience of beginning teachers who used coteaching in their preservice teacher-education program. The first-year teachers each acted agentically to collaborate with new colleagues within their respective school communities as a means to improve their practices. This collaboration helped one to alleviate difficulties that are associated with the transition between preservice and inservice teaching. In Russia, examples of coteaching between classroom teachers from a Vygotskian perspective in Golden Key schools (see Holzman 1997, p. 83–93 for details about Golden Keys schools) involve one teacher acting as the “upper” and a second acting as “lower” than the students. The “lower” teacher is constantly asking for explanations from students and makes mistakes that they correct (almost playing the role of a “fool”). The teachers can assess students’ understanding by listening to them articulate concepts as they interact with the “lower” acting teacher, as well as by their written and other work. Vygotsky would argue that giving students with this space in which they are engaged in a dialogue with the “upper” and “lower” provides for a broadening of the zone of proximal development and help them work at a higher level (Kravtsova and Kravtsov, personal communication, 2009). Coteaching expands learning opportunities in classrooms by providing a wider range of expertise and resources for learners. A resource that has previously been appropriated mainly in nursery and primary schools is parents. Willis and Ritchie’s chapter illustrates the involvement of parents as coteachers in secondary science classes. The authors comment on the potential for coteaching to allow parents to position themselves in new spaces for meaningful school engagement. Such engagement can help to bridge the gap between students’ school work and learning experiences outside school.

1.2 Cogenerative Dialogues Cogenerative dialogues (cogens) provide an excellent vehicle through which teachers and students can affect transformation of the learning environment. Cogens include representatives of all participants in the activity, for example, students and coteachers. No voice is privileged in these discussions and the group’s function is to cogenerate “solutions” to critical issues of learning and teaching. For instance, a student might highlight a particular teaching approach that bothers her or him (and maybe others) and may suggest an alternative method for the teacher to adopt. Or, students may

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use cogens to brainstorm ways to work effectively in groups. Some of these dialogues are recorded and played back to the rest of the class who might then suggest refinements to the existing ideas or new possible solutions. Each suggestion can be tried and its relative success critiqued. Grimes, Jackson and Phillips, Wharton and Pitts, and Woodburn’s chapters provide examples of using cogens to improve teaching and learning. As Grimes notes, cogens began as a strategy to help teachers in American, urban schools bridge the cultural and racial differences between themselves and their students. For many students, it was the first time they had been asked – what interests you in science? How would you like to learn? And as their lifeworlds were so very different from their teachers, cogens also provided the opportunity for teachers to develop an understanding of their students’ experiences and the challenges they faced to learn. For example, a history of failing at math meant that Jackson, Phillips, and Wharton’s students had negative attitudes toward the subject. But through cogen, students and their teachers identified the successful strategies to learn math. While Grimes’ chapter illustrates how cogens are used in science with urban students enrolled in a private school, several tenth-grade students cotaught and engaged in cogens with sixth-grade students. Cogens can expand coteaching by providing regular constructive critique and action in which students have a key role to improve their learning environment. Students develop as coteachers via cogens and move further toward “owning” their learning. Coteaching and cogenerative dialogue thus, by expanding the agency of all participants, has the potential to develop more independent and satisfied learners.

1.3 The Future for Coteaching Coteaching and cogens provide teachers, students, and other stakeholders transformational tools inside the classroom. They allow teachers and students to work more as equals and the resulting power-shift results in a learning environment in which the student is more active and in increasing control of what and how she/he learns. Further, coteaching produces a more adaptive environment that lends itself very well to teaching and learning in the increasingly diverse classrooms characteristic of many twenty-first century schools. Coteaching enables teachers to deal more effectively with the demands of regulation and accountability required, especially in terms of health and safety, child protection, and rights issues. It allows for more risk in trying new approaches than would be possible when teaching alone. We end by suggesting that policymakers might do well to embrace coteaching and cogenerative dialogue as central to future developments in education. For instance, the vision for education for the future in the UK embraces the principle of “personalized” learning (DfES 2007), in which learning is tailored to the needs of each individual pupil. This requires an “extended curriculum” concept (DCSF 2008): “By working with a range of local providers, agencies, and other

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schools, a ‘core offer’ of extended services can be provided” (p. 44). The “core offer” comprises a varied menu of activities (including study support and play) and childcare. We would argue that coteaching and cogenerative dialogue offer effective ways to implement this vision. Teachers from different schools and professionals from outside agencies can collaborate most effectively by adopting coteaching and cogenerative dialogue to ensure that their respective roles are not challenged during collaboration. In the United States, coteaching has expanded from a practice between student and cooperating teachers to involve other stakeholders and other models. While, in addition to providing disenfranchised students a voice, cogens are also used as a form of evaluation in teacher professional development programs (Martin and Scantlebury 2009), with science undergraduate students and between teachers (Baynes 2009). Coteaching can also be professional development for inservice teachers or a practice that provides students to reconstruct their identities as learners from someone who is failing at science or mathematics, who cannot learn those subjects to a teacher who provides the resources for others to learn teaching. A recent call reporting in National Science Foundation program to support beginning teachers in high needs areas noted that coteaching was an effective approach for science educators to work with beginning teachers as they adjusted to teaching (McElroy 2009). Coteaching and cogens have transformed how science and mathematics are taught and learnt in urban, rural, and suburban classrooms, preservice teachereducation programs, undergraduate and graduate content courses, and programs focused on teachers’ professional development programs across the world. Within teacher education, coteaching and cogens provide a structure for teachers and students to critically examine power structures and hierarchies and change those structures to enhance and improve student learning, regardless of the age level or status of the learner. Moreover, coteaching and cogens shift explicitly the responsibility of teaching and learning from individual to collective. This restructuring of how people learn, how people learn to teach, and how people improve their teaching is critical because the improvement of how science and mathematics is taught and learnt requires the efforts of many individuals, working together as a collective.

References Baynes, G. (2009). Cogenerative dialogues. In K. Tobin & W.-M. Roth (Eds.), World of science education: North America (pp. 513–528). The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. DCSF. (2008). Personalised learning: A practical guide. Nottingham: DCSF publications. DfES. (2007). 2020 vision: Report of the teaching and learning in 2020 review group. Nottingham: DfES Publications. Holzman, L. (1997). Schools for growth. New York: Routledge. Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 465–491.

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Martin, S. & Scantlebury, K. (2009). More than a conversation: Using cogenerative dialogues in the professional development of high school chemistry teachers. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(2), 119–136. McElroy, M. (2009). Classroom observations, mentoring, and co-teaching among strategies to train new teachers. Retrieved August 11, 2009 from http://www.aaas.org/news/ releases/2009/0805noyce.shtml

Subject Index

A Academic performance, 43, 281 Accreditation, 47, 170 Achievement, 4, 6, 9, 10, 40, 43, 60, 79, 91–93, 118, 187, 253, 254, 256, 276, 300, 305, 306, 308–310, 312, 332, 346, 349, 353, 364, 365, 369, 372, 374, 376, 380, 383 Affordance networks, 175 Agency, 3, 4, 9, 11–13, 15, 16, 20, 33, 53, 54, 58, 60, 67, 80–82, 91, 142, 147, 152, 153, 155, 156, 160, 163–165, 174, 198, 202, 203, 210, 214, 243, 245, 247, 248, 251, 252, 256, 276, 277, 283–286, 288, 291, 292, 296, 298, 300, 307, 332, 337, 340–342, 346, 347, 349, 350, 353, 363, 365, 387 Assessment, 1, 2, 5, 9, 25, 39, 40, 42, 47, 48, 51, 71, 74, 89, 101, 155, 175, 183, 186, 189, 247, 253, 254, 256, 258, 276, 300, 316, 318, 328, 329, 331, 341–343, 345, 347, 354, 369, 379 Attitude, 3, 4, 6, 9, 23–26, 31, 32, 38, 160, 164, 219, 221, 233, 267, 283, 310, 316, 349, 350, 353, 356, 361, 363, 369–371, 377, 379, 387 Australia, 2, 3, 5, 133, 148, 170, 291, 305 C Classroom teachers, 9, 11–20, 23–31, 33, 39, 41, 45, 46, 53, 59, 64, 67, 72, 77, 80, 102, 115, 125, 136, 147, 148, 172, 223, 242, 291, 296, 299, 313, 323, 384–386 Coevaluation, 129, 130, 133–135, 141, 142, 384, 385 Cogenerative dialogue, 3–6, 20, 32, 54, 57, 58, 60–73, 75–77, 81, 102, 133, 141, 142,

242, 268, 273, 276, 281, 282, 287–292, 295, 297–300, 303–324, 327–347, 349–367, 369, 373–377, 380–381, 383, 386–388 Collaboration, 5, 25–27, 40, 47, 49, 54, 62, 66, 72, 76, 80, 82, 101, 126, 152–154, 171, 173, 183–186, 188, 189, 195–204, 206, 208, 210, 214, 216, 236, 245, 246, 249, 251, 255, 257–259, 310, 315, 332, 353, 354, 361, 363, 365, 367, 386, 388 Community of practice, 105–108, 170, 175, 223, 285, 373 Cooperating teachers, 1–5, 10, 35–39, 41, 43, 46–51, 53, 101, 105, 107, 108, 110–121, 169, 177, 178, 188, 241, 242, 250, 256, 259, 384, 385, 388 Coplanning, 40, 47, 48, 50, 102, 113, 114, 118, 129–131, 133–136, 141, 142, 147, 158, 159, 178, 222, 242, 245–248, 250, 255–257, 259, 315, 323, 384, 385 Coteaching inclusion teachers, 2, 247 parents as teachers, 2, 101, 281–301 preservice elementary teachers, 2 preservice teachers, 1–5, 101, 102, 173, 268, 384–386, 388 science teacher education, 1, 57, 63, 75–77, 220, 237, 241 special instructors, 2 teacher educators, 2, 5, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 24–27, 32, 33, 57, 61, 63, 73, 74, 76, 77, 101, 106, 169, 171, 173, 188, 214, 220, 232, 233, 236, 237, 241, 384, 385 Coteaching and cogenerative dialogue, 58, 61, 62, 69–71 Cultural capital, 53, 243, 248, 252, 266, 276, 277, 284, 285, 288, 295, 299, 324, 365, 381

391

392 D Discourse, 5, 61, 76, 101, 109, 111–113, 187–189, 206, 208, 210, 223, 287, 307, 308, 310, 320, 324, 349, 351, 353, 354, 362, 363, 365, 369, 380 E Equity, 130, 268, 304, 316, 323, 369–377, 379 Ethnicity, 79, 96, 97, 275, 282, 309–311, 332, 335, 346, 350, 369 F First year teachers, 5, 102, 115, 241, 244, 245, 257–259, 386 G Gender, 26, 266, 282, 285, 309, 310, 332, 335, 346, 350, 369, 385 Grade levels, 36, 39–41, 54, 106, 233, 312 H Harmony, 20, 21 I Immigrant, 79, 84, 97, 263–277, 308–311, 314, 334, 356 Interns, 4, 101, 105–108, 110–117, 119–121, 246 Ireland, 1, 4, 11, 25, 37, 53, 125, 129, 140, 141, 147–150, 153, 159, 164, 169–172, 188 L Learning outcomes, 35, 351 Likert scale, 47 M Mathematics, 4, 6, 12, 26, 40–44, 81, 82, 94, 216, 224, 265, 286, 303, 304, 327–347, 349–357, 359, 362–367, 369–381, 388 Mathematics classroom, 327, 328, 331, 335, 342, 343, 354, 355, 359, 365–367, 370–373, 375, 376 Mathematics proficiency, 42, 43 Math scores, 42 Mentoring, 5, 11, 20, 38, 39, 47, 50, 101, 169, 170, 174, 183, 257, 385

Subject Index Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment II (MCA-II), 40–43 O Online learning communities (OLCs), 24, 26 P Parent, 2, 4–6, 39, 58, 84, 101, 102, 172, 242, 244, 251, 264, 265, 267, 272, 281–301, 312, 313, 350, 351, 356, 357, 386 Partnership, 5, 9, 22, 28, 37–39, 49, 77, 151, 152, 154, 159, 169, 171, 173–178, 182, 184, 195, 200, 214, 216, 217, 271, 281, 300, 384, 385 Physics, 5, 83, 84, 88, 91–93, 102, 196, 199–202, 204–210, 215, 217, 219–238, 264, 385 Power relationships, 15 Primary teachers, 13, 25, 53, 125, 136, 147, 150, 172, 173, 219, 221, 224, 225, 227, 228, 230–234, 236, 237 Professional development, 2, 5, 11, 16, 22, 25, 30, 31, 47, 62, 63, 66–70, 75, 101, 106, 125, 147–165, 172, 200, 215, 216, 217, 220, 242, 250, 251, 257, 384, 388 R Reading, 4, 9, 28, 40–44, 74, 75, 158, 181, 244, 315, 329, 333 Reading assessments, 42 Reflective practice, 53, 115, 242, 251, 259, 318 Risk-taking, 4, 5, 101, 105–122, 189, 384 S Science education, 1–3, 13, 53, 57–77, 80–82, 95, 172, 173, 195, 199, 200, 215–217, 241, 265, 277, 305–312, 314, 318, 319, 323, 324 Situated cognition, 173, 174 Social capital, 15, 243, 248, 252, 258, 266, 277, 285, 292, 304, 309, 370, 380, 381 Sociocultural theories, 4, 53, 82, 111, 200–201 Special education, 1, 2, 36, 39, 40, 83, 84, 94, 351 Stakeholder groups, 38, 45 Structure agency dialectic, 202, 245

Subject Index Student teaching, 2, 3, 5, 35–51, 53, 54, 102, 106, 110, 111, 119, 140, 186, 241–246, 250, 252, 253, 255–257, 259, 377–380 Summative assessment, 47, 48 Supervision, 35, 153, 169, 175, 180, 186, 297, 355 Sweden, 5, 156 Symbolic capital, 96, 243, 248, 285, 290, 339, 352, 364, 372 T Teacher candidate, 9, 10, 35–39, 41, 43, 45–51 Teacher education, 1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 32, 33, 35–37, 39, 47, 57–60, 62–70, 73, 75–77, 80, 82, 94, 101, 102, 125, 126, 144, 145, 149, 169–171, 187, 188, 219–223, 225, 236, 237, 241, 244, 259, 268, 310, 358, 384–386, 388

393 Teaching styles, 10, 41, 44, 51, 133, 204, 206, 250, 252, 253, 358, 371, 375, 376 Traditional student teaching, 10, 35, 37, 38, 43, 45, 46, 49, 53, 110, 244 U UK, 6, 13, 25, 141, 148–151, 387 Urban education, 314, 334 USA, 1, 3, 6, 12, 26, 47, 53, 62, 83, 105, 110, 122, 133, 149, 172, 244, 264, 265, 275, 305, 327, 328, 332, 334, 346, 350, 351, 388 W Woodcock Johnson III Research Edition (WJIII-RE), 40–42

Author Index

A Abell, S., 25, 219, 222 Abouchaar, A., 281 Adams, P., 242 Adamson, S.L., 200 Addis, J., 148 Ali Khan, C., 70 Amstutz, D.D., 327, 329 Anderson, E., 96 Anderson, R.S., 223, 236 Anfara, V.A., 187 Angelides, P., 178, 179 Appleton, K., 219, 221 Archer, P., 171 Arguelles, M., 36 Armour, K.M., 153, 164 Asoko, H., 220, 236 Atkin, J.M., 26 Atkinson, P., 179 B Bacharach, N., 35–51, 384 Ball, S., 189 Banilower, E.R., 172 Banks, D., 199 Banks, J.A., 267, 376 Barab, S.A., 174, 175 Barufaldi, J.P., 12, 26 Bawens, J., 36 Bayne, G., 6, 54, 242, 305, 308, 309, 332, 351, 388 Beach, A., 215 Beck, C., 169 Beers, J., 54, 59 Beggs, J., 2, 4, 11–33, 36, 37, 53, 59, 125, 140, 148, 149, 155, 159, 161, 163, 164, 172, 221, 236, 267, 268, 384, 385 Bell, T., 133, 148

Berak, L., 36 Birman, B.F., 151, 154, 164 Bishop, K., 158 Blasie, C., 195–216, 385 Blatchford, P., 149 Boaler, J., 366, 373 Borko, H., 106, 178, 188 Bouillion, L.M., 265 Bourdieu, P., 53, 83, 174, 243, 245, 282, 284, 285, 341, 372 Boyd, N., 148, 202, 205, 223 Bradfield-Kreider, P., 36 Britzman, D., 106, 107, 122, 173, 185, 259 Brody, C.M., 222 Brown, A.L., 64 Brown, J.S., 173, 175 Brown, K.M., 187 Brown, R.E., 26 Brown, S., 126 Bruner, J., 173 Bryce, T., 152, 161, 164 Bryman, A., 177 Buchanan, D.A., 152 Buitink, J., 171 Bullough, R., 187 Burtch, M., 199 Bybee, R., 176 Byrd, D., 169 Byrne, M., 13 C Calderhead, J., 177 Campbell, A., 154 Capper, P., 126 Carambo, C., 5, 102, 195–216, 385 Carlisle, K., 4, 53, 101, 110, 111, 125–145, 148, 150, 223, 226, 384 Carter, R.T., 265

395

396

Author Index

Chang, P., 266 Cochran-Smith, M., 36, 51, 323 Cohen, L., 179, 225, 227, 235 Collins, A., 173, 175 Collins, R., 82, 296 Cook, L.H., 36, 178 Coolahan, J., 188 Cope, P., 126 Corbin, J., 245 Cox, F., 199

Fontinhas, F., 79 Ford, A., 202, 214 Ford, B.A., 358 Forde, P., 171 Foxx, S., 169 Freire, P., 54, 58, 60, 70, 76, 266, 359 Freudenthal, H., 179 Friend, M., 36, 178 Fullan, M., 174 Furlong, J., 126, 171, 183, 188

D Dahlberg, K., 4, 35–51 Dai, H., 200 Dalland, C., 198, 268 Daniels, H., 127–129, 145 Danielson, C., 51 Darling-Hammond, L., 50, 153, 171 Davies, D., 281 Dede, C., 27 Deegan, J., 171 Deinum, J., 171 Delgado-Gaitan, C., 281 Delpit, L., 276 Denzin, N.K., 187 Desforges, C., 281 Desimone, L., 151, 154, 164 Doorlang, D.H., 266 Doyle, W., 176 Druid, P., 173, 175 Duncombe, R., 153, 164

G Gallas, K., 176 Gallo-Fox, J., 4, 5, 101, 102, 105–122, 241–259 Garet, M.S., 151, 154, 164 Garfinkel, H., 355 Garrison, D.R., 27 Gaskell, J., 26 Gates, P., 343 Gess-Newsome, J., 222 Giddens, A., 283 Gilmer, P., 242 Ginsburg, L., 327 Gitlin, A., 187 Glaser, B., 269 Gleason, S., 2, 267 Gomez, L.M., 265 Goodall, J., 289 Goodrum, D., 172 Goodson, I., 171 Goodwin, A.L., 265 Gray, D.S., 152, 161, 164 Grenfell, M.J., 282, 284, 285 Gress-Newsome, J., 222 Grossman, P., 106, 120, 241 Guba, E., 305, 306, 322–323 Guskey, T.R., 153 Guyton, E., 35, 110, 242

E Earl, L., 126 Easton, C., 32 Edwards, A., 126, 171, 175, 186 Eick, C.J., 2, 59, 135, 173 Eijkelhof, H., 26 Elmesky, R., 362 Emdin, C., 82, 84, 308 Engeström, Y., 126–128, 142, 144 Evans, K., 241 Eylon, B.-S., 152, 162 F Falconer, K., 206 Famiano, M., 215 Feasey, R., 158 Feiman-Nemser, S., 277 Fennemore, M., 2, 267 Fitzgerald, H., 153, 159

H Hackling, M., 172 Hadden, R., 26 Hagger, H., 170 Hall, S., 352 Hamilton, D., 189 Hammersley, M., 179 Hammond, L., 267 Hanley, P., 152 Hargreaves, D.H., 32 Hargreaves M., 174 Harlen, W., 13, 25, 150, 156, 172, 219, 221

Author Index Harris, A., 171 Harrison, C., 152, 162 Hastings, W., 170 Hawkins, A., 299 Heck, T., 4, 35–51 Hemsley-Brown, J., 32 Henderson, A.T., 281 Henderson, C., 216 Hewitt, R., 36 Hickey, I., 25 Hill, B., 170 Hodgkinson, H., 372 Hoffmann, M.H.G., 175 Hofman, W., 171 Hofstein, A., 152, 162 Holroyd, C., 13, 172, 221 Holzman, L., 156, 386 hooks, b., 58, 59, 65, 70, 71, 77, 322 Hoover-Dempsey, K.V., 289 Hourcade, J., 36 Howey, K.R., 188 Hudson, P., 173 Hvitfeldt, S., 268 I Imig, D.G., 187 Imig, S.R., 187 Inglis, B., 126 J Jacbos, L., 265 Jacobs, C., 204, 205 James, E., 26 Jenks, C., 242, 257 Johnson, L., 299 Johnson, V.R., 281 Johnston, K., 153, 159 Johnstone, A., 26 Jonassen, H., 174, 175 Judson, E., 199 Juffé, M., 82 K Kagan, D.M., 220, 242, 257 Kellaghan, J., 171, 176 Kerr, K., 1, 5, 11, 101, 147–165, 384 Kessels, J., 173 Kidman, G., 286 Kincheloe, J.L., 58, 60, 70 Korthagen, F., 173, 176 Kosnik, C., 169

397 Kozulin, A., 126 Kress, T.M., 286 Krockover, G., 242 L Ladson-Billings, G., 269 Land, S.M., 174, 175 Lattimore, R., 353 LaVan, S.K., 54, 60, 281 Lave, J., 110, 173, 174, 201, 223, 373 Lavoie, D., 12 Leadbetter, J., 127 Lederman, N.G., 222 Lee, O., 266 Lee, T., 36 Lee, Y.J., 83, 266 Leigh, J., 178, 179 Lemke, J.L., 267 Leont’ev, A.N., 126, 127 Levinas, E., 284 Lewis, R.B., 266 Lincoln, Y.S., 305, 306, 322–323 Lortie, D., 105, 106, 108, 170 Loughran, J., 178, 187, 221 Loxley, A., 153, 159 Luft, J., 241 Lunn, S., 172 Luykx, A., 266 Lytle, S., 323 M Maandag, M., 171 Mac Isaac, D., 205 Magiera, K., 36 Mangione, T.L., 26, 64, 173, 175 Manion, L., 225, 227, 237 Mann, B., 36, 384 Mapp, K.L., 215, 281 Maringe, F., 152 Marks, A., 152, 164 Martin, D., 126 Martin, S., 1, 2, 4, 58, 59, 65 Martinez, K., 169 Masciortra, D., 148, 201, 204, 223 Masters, G., 281 Maughmer, B., 39 Mayer-Smith, J., 259 Mayfield, V., 178, 188 Maynard, T., 126, 183 McAlister, P., 148 McCalman, J., 152 McConchie, R., 300

398 McConnell, D., 26 McElroy, M., 388 McIntyre, D., 35, 110 McIntyre, J., 169 McMahon, K.C., 193 McNally, J., 126 McQueen, C., 39 Meister, D., 242, 257 Miettinen, R., 126 Miller, D., 36 Monroe-Baillargeon, A., 36 Moon, B., 259 Moore, R., 126 Morais, A., 79 Morgan, M., 171 Morrison, K., 225, 227, 237 Moseley, C., 173 Munby, H., 184 Murawski, W., 36 Murchan, D., 153, 159 Murphy, C., 2, 4, 6, 11–33, 36, 37, 53, 59, 125, 140, 148, 150, 155, 159, 161, 163, 164, 172, 178, 236, 267, 268, 383–388 Murray, L., 110, 111, 223, 226 Myrdal, J., 237 N Nasir, N., 366 Neil, P., 221 Neves, I., 79 Nevin, A., 178 Newton, L.D., 176, 230 Nic Fhearaile, S., 152, 162 Nieto, S., 358 Nilsson, P., 5, 219–238, 385 O Obiakor, F.E., 358 Ofstedal, K., 39 O’Gorman, M., 171 Olson, J., 26, 221 O’Meara, J., 25 Orr, W.E., 276 Osler, D., 173 Otieno, T., 205 P Pagach, M., 299 Palloff, R.M., 26 Palm, T., 344 Palmer, D.H., 221

Author Index Patton, J.M., 358 Perl, M., 39 Pitts, W., 6, 308, 327–347, 351, 387 Place, N., 106, 120, 151 Platt, J., 36 Polya, G., 338 Porter, A.C., 151, 154, 164 Pratt, K., 26 Proefriedt, W., 170, 188 Protheroe, L., 126 Pultorak, E.G., 179 Putnam, R.D., 15 Q Quinn, M., 153, 159 R Raizen, S., 26 Ramsey, S.J., 173 Ratcliffe, M., 152 Reid, F., 148 Reinhartz, J., 12, 26 Rennie, L., 172 Resnick, L.B., 173 Rigano, D., 133, 148 Ritchie, S., 281–301 Rodrigues, S., 152, 164 Rogoff, B., 121, 174 Rosiek, J., 266 Roth, M.-W., 12, 20, 32, 36, 46, 50, 53, 58–60, 63, 66, 76, 80, 82, 83, 127, 129, 133, 135, 141, 142, 148, 173–175, 178, 185, 195, 199, 203, 205, 220, 222, 223, 237, 241, 242, 248, 259, 266–268, 276, 281–287, 289, 291, 299, 300, 305, 306, 315, 323, 331, 332, 336, 340, 352, 359, 363, 364, 374, 380 Rovai, A., 27 Ruff, K., 173 Russell, T., 184 S Saez, M., 26 Sandler, H.M., 289 Sawada, D., 203 Scantlebury, K., 1–6, 54, 60, 102, 106, 119, 133, 135, 141, 241–258, 265, 273, 331, 383–388 Scherer, K.R., 336, 337 Schibeci, R.A., 26 Schoenfeld, A.H., 344

Author Index Schumm, J., 36 Schutz, A., 82 Secada, W.G., 353 Seiler, G., 362 Sewell, W.H., 53, 80, 82, 203, 243, 245, 269, 283 Seymour, E., 201 Sfard, A., 173 Shady, A., 82, 96, 309, 310 Sharp, C., 32 Sharpe, R., 173 Shaw, M.A., 356, 359 Sheared, V., 327, 329 Shine, J., 148 Shkedi, A., 32 Shorrock, S.B., 177 Shulman, L.S., 222, 236 Simon, S., 152, 162 Simpson, T., 170 Siry, C., 4, 57–77, 385 Skamp, K., 173 Smith, D.C., 25, 51 Smith, P.S., 172 Solomon, J., 152, 172 Sorensen, P., 170 Speck, B.W., 228, 236 Stake, R., 245 Steel, P., 152, 164 Stith, I., 241 Strauss, A.L., 245, 269 Stronach, I., 126 Stylianou, T., 178, 179 Suk Yoon, K., 151, 154, 164 Swanson, H., 36 Swartz, D., 285 Sweeney, J., 25 T Thao, J.Y., 265, 268 Thompson, C., 106, 120, 241 Thousand, J., 178 Tobin, K., 4, 20, 32, 36, 47, 50, 53, 58, 59, 61, 65, 66, 76, 79–98, 127, 133, 135, 141, 142, 148, 174, 185, 199, 202, 203, 216, 220, 222, 223, 237, 241, 242, 248, 265, 267, 268, 276, 281–287, 289, 291, 292, 296, 299, 300, 305, 306, 315, 322, 331, 332, 336, 338, 340, 351, 352, 359, 363, 364, 374, 380 Tracey, C.-T., 201 Tresman, S., 152

399 Tripp, D., 179 Trueba, H., 265 Trump, J., 36 Turley, J.T., 205 Turner, J., 339 U Upadhyay, B., 266 V Valencia, S., 106, 120, 241 Varley, J., 172, 173 Vaughan, T., 301 Vaughn, S., 36 Veale, O., 172, 173 Veenman, S., 220, 242, 257 Villa, R., 178 Vistro-Yu, C., 343 Volante, L., 126 W Wacquant, L., 243 Walker, E.N., 353 Walker-Knight, D., 36 Wang, J., 170 Ware, F.N., 2, 59, 135 Warmington, P., 126 Wassell, B., 59, 241 Waters, M.C., 350 Wegerif, R., 26 Weiss, I.R., 172 Wellik, J., 4, 39, 51 Wellman, B., 27 Wenger, E., 105, 110, 173, 175, 223, 285, 373 Wenzlaff, T., 36 Wertsch, J.V., 223, 226 Wideen, M., 171, 173, 188, 259 Wieseman, K., 36 Williams, B., 126 Williams, P.G., 2, 59, 135, 173 Wilson, E., 26 Wilson, R., 32 Z Zeichner, K.M., 36, 169 Zigmond, A., 36 Zimmermann, A., 279 Zurbano, R., 202, 214