After the 3-day planning session in November, the Principal encapsulated how
these principles and the collaboration with the researchers underpinned the con-
struction of the school’s SIP and teachers’professional learning.
The three days spent by the development team in designing a new school implementation
plan were a real gift to the school. The strong partnership that had developed with the
researchers became a true collaboration. The researchers provided really helpful analysis
and expert support. Rarely do lead teachers have such quality time for reflection, profes-
sional learning support and co construction of school curriculum. Working together where
everyone contributed; being able to clarify progressions for concept development in science
in the New Zealand curriculum for our implementation plan; making resource links and a
purchasing plan; exploring and capturing examples of assessment practice from online sites
such as the MOE, NZCER and the old NEMP exemplars were integral to the completion of
our work for the year. (Principal’s written exit comments)The SIP combinedflexibility of contexts, content and delivery with a structured
progression of conceptual development through the schooling levels. The recom-
mended pedagogy featured inquiry-based learning that mirrored authentic scientific
inquiry. The draft SIP was aligned with the school’s mission statement and vision
and was to be introduced to and trialled by the teaching staff during the following
year.
54.9 Conclusions
This study illustrates how a partnership, forged between university researchers and
teachers around a shared and authentic problem of practice, produced solutions that
provided the necessary knowledge, vision and will to move education practice
forward in their context. From thefindings in this DBR study, teachers and
researchers together generatedfive generic principles (Yang and Hannifin 2005 ) for
strengthening teachers’PCK and primary science education programmes in the
study school. In this process the intervention of CoRe design proved to be a
mediating tool for‘teaching science content’ by giving purpose to teachers’
exploration of high quality resources, i.e. the Science Learning Hub and the
Primary Connections Programme resources. Through facilitated discussions around
these resources, with the emphasis on identifying and understanding big science
ideas and student-centred inquiry activities for constructing these ideas, teachers
learned the necessary content for effective primary science teaching—the inter-
vention immersed teachers simultaneously in content learning and pedagogical
reasoning, the foundations for strong PCK. These teachers were then able to
implement their new knowledge directly into their teaching in a supportive and
reflective environment that provided the four main sources of influence on
self-efficacy beliefs—mastery experience, vicarious experience, social experience,
and physiological states (Bandura 1997 ). As a result teachers’positive dispositions
towards science teaching were increased, and they were more confident and
proactive in their attempts to create purposeful and meaningful science learning
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