The impact of organizational and personnel changes on a college–school partnership vision

Abstract

The current qualitative descriptive–interpretive study was adopted to explore the impact of organizational and personnel changes carried out during two years of college–school partnership on the partnership vision, as well as on the attainment of professional development improvement in science teaching and pre-service teacher education. The data were collected by a semi-structured interview of the participants (12 pre-service teachers, 6 school teachers, the science instructor, the general pedagogical instructor and the school principal); personal discussions; and a researcher’s diary. A content analysis was carried out using the Narralizer software. Despite the importance of defining a vision and careful organizational planning of a college–school partnership, this study points to the importance of ambiguity and problem-solving for the partnership’s success. The study recommends fostering ambiguity tolerance; improving the participants’ reflective capabilities; and addressing organizational challenges and problem-solving in science education as part of a learning community, to improve the study of science and the shared leadership.

Keywords:

• Ambiguity tolerance
• partnership vision
• pre-service teacher education
• problem-based learning
• professional development school
• science education