This qualitative case study examined how middle school science teachers
conducted collaborative inquiry and reflection about students’ conceptual understanding,
and how individual teachers in the middle school science group acted and made
reflections in response to their collaborative inquiry. It also examined external influences
that affected the teachers’ ability to engage in collaborative inquiry. Observational,
written, and interview data were collected from observations of teachers’ face-to-face
meetings and reflections, individual interviews, a focus group interview, and online
reflections. The results of this study revealed that collaborative inquiry is a form of
professional development that includes answering curricular questions through
observation, communication, action, and reflection. This approach was developed and
implemented by middle school science teachers. The premise of an inquiry is based on a
need with students. Middle school science teachers came to consensus about actions to affect students’ conceptual understanding, took action as stated, and shared their
reflections of the actions taken with consideration to current and upcoming school
activities. Activities involved teachers brainstorming and sharing with one another,
talking about how the variables were merged into their curriculum, and how they
impacted students’ conceptual understanding. Teachers valued talking with one another
about science content and pedagogy, but did find the inquiry portion of the approach to
require more development. The greatest challenge to conducting collaborative inquiry
and reflection was embedding teacher inquiry within a prescribed inquiry that was
already being conducted by the Sundown School District. Collaborative inquiry should be
structured so that it meets the needs of teachers in order to attend to the needs of students.
A conducive atmosphere for collaborative inquiry and reflection is one in which
administrators make the process mandatory and facilitate the process by removing an
existing inquiry. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_13112 |
| Contributors | Todd-Gibson, Christine (author), Weber, Roberta K. (Thesis advisor), College of Education (Degree grantor), Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry |
| Publisher | Florida Atlantic University |
| Source Sets | Florida Atlantic University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 137 p., Online Resource |
| Rights | All rights reserved by the source institution, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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