research and development where teachers shift their primary purpose from teaching
to learning. In these PLCs teachers participate as self-regulated learners with
opportunities to engage in deep discussion, open debates, and the exploration and
enrichment of possibilities for action. Characteristics of successful PLCs include:
shared values and vision; collective responsibility; reflective professional inquiry;
collaboration, and group; as well as individual learning (Bolam et al. 2005 ).
Fortunately as a member of CUSP, the school in this partnership project had an
established culture of collaborative professional learning. Since the research focus
was on an identified practice-based problem, the study employed a pragmatic
methodology featuring a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach (Anderson and
Shattuck 2012 ). The DBR approach has the potential to enrich a PLC experience by
offering a bridge between research and practice in education via a collaborative
partnership between researchers and practitioners. Adopting this approach the
project team was able to negotiate the study through all its phases“from initial
problem identification, through literature review, to intervention design and con-
struction, implementation, assessment, and to the creation and publication of the-
oretical and design principles” (Anderson and Shattuck 2012 ,p.17).Ona
pragmatic level, the teachers’key intent was to trial the CoRe design intervention as
a precursor to planning, implementing and evaluating a series of related science
lessons featuring inquiry-based learning. Thefindings were to inform their planning
of a whole school science education programme, to be called the Science
Implementation Plan (SIP), at the end of the year of which teachers at the school
had authorship and ownership. The teachers at the school would have authorship
and ownership of the plan. For their part, the researchers focused on the impact of
CoRe design on the teachers’PCK in science because they sought to increase the
impact, transfer, and translation of their research around science PCK enhancement
through CoRe design into teaching practice. They hoped working with teachers to
build new theory and develop design principles that guide and improve the
teachers’practice would inform education research generally. It was anticipated that
the richer science PCK of the mentor teachers would in turn enhance the learning
opportunities of the pre-service teachers on teaching practice in their classrooms
under the CUSP project umbrella. The strength of the partnership lay in the
underlying synergy of the purposes and goals each partner sought to achieve by
participating in the project.
The initial research design (including purpose and goals, relevant literature,
professional learning opportunities, data gathering, discussion offindings and time)
was co-developed by the university researchers and the Principal and Science
Curriculum leader from the partner school. As the plan unfolded classroom teachers
made the pragmatic research decisions related to the day-to-day implementation of
the plan, for example, the topics for CoRe design, unit planning processes, and
the timing and nature of classroom implementation of unit plans and reflective/
evaluative opportunities with researchers. The researchers in turn facilitated
workshops that introduced teachers to: key features of inquiry-based learning in
science; high quality resources to support inquiry learning; and the process of CoRe
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