teaching experience, and was classified as a novice teacher. From the beginning of
the project, she was only teaching one class of primary science, alongside other
classes with a more humanistic outlook. Although a diverse range of case teachers
was followed in the full research design, here there is only space to consider the
case outlined below. During the course of the project the case teachers were
observedfive times, they also participated in interviews. A combination of a rubric
and a text memo was used for observations. Furthermore a group of students from
each class was repeatedly interviewed.
From the quantitative study it appears that the case teacher emphasized that the
QUEST interventions had a very high degree of effect on her own teaching and a
high degree of effect on collaboration (Fig.21.2). The school she worked in was
categorized as level 3 (Table21.1). So, this case study is situated in the data as
positive teacher outcome and a school with a developing PLC. Although the school
had not reached the point where it had the most sustained PLC activities.
In thefirst interview the teacher referred, in general terms, to supporting student
interest as the most important issue in relation to teaching science, but found it hard
to exemplify how this might be done in relation to her own teaching. In relation to
QUEST she positively highlighted the importance of sharing concrete ideas for a
more inquiry-based approach to teaching science, and to initiating a closer col-
laboration with the other primary science teachers at the school. Over the duration
of the project the case teacher’sreflections on teaching primary science showed that
teaching was becomingmore confident and personalized. She began to include
experiences from inquiry-based projects in her own class, and her ideas about how
best to support student learning and frame their inquiries becamemore detailed.
Furthermore, over time, a closer connection between her reflections on the teaching
of primary science and enactments in her own classroom could be identified. The
development can be characterized more as an evolution than a revolution in relation
to structuring student inquiries, but these small changes seemed rather important in
relation to facilitating and mediating her students’learning activities and dialogues
about science experiments:findings supported by the student data.
The case school was characterized by a school-leader, who took a rather
hands-off approach, for example, he did never participate in PLC meetings. He
however encouraged the case teacher and her colleagues from primary science to
collaborate closer with colleagues from lower secondary science. Before QUEST
only secondary science teachers met up, primarily in relation to purchases for the
science lab. Framed by the QUEST project the local PLC grew to include both
primary and lower secondary science teachers. Over thefirst years, the case teacher
gradually developed a central role as a resource-teacher among colleagues from
bothprimary and lower secondary. She was however one of the teachers who was
moved to another school as a part of a municipal reform. But she managed to
“persuade”the leader and her colleagues at the new school to also enter the QUEST
network. At the end of the project, she was teaching science in six different classes
at the new school. Furthermore, she was acting as a science resource-teacher, e.g.,
one observation was of her co-teaching with an experienced biology colleague in
his class—on his request as he was trying out a more inquiry-based approach.
324 B.L. Nielsen