Teacher collaboration’s influence on inquiry-based science teaching methods

Figures & data

Table 1. Example of “teacher professional knowledge” (T.P.K.).

Goal	To create pupils’ teams
Clue	I feel the need to promote exchange and discussion amongst pupils
Actions	I let pupils organise their own teams with their preferred classmates
Reference knowledge	There is more noise in the classroom when teams are created in this manner but the inquiry runs well. When I direct the creation of teams, it doesn’t work as well.

Table 2. Experienced science teacher T.P.K.: dimension 6 mode 1.

Biology 7th grade	Communicate to students expectations for the current lesson
	Dimension 6, mode 1
Goal	To make explicit the expectations for the record
Clue	I feel the need to attend to the record…
Actions	The record should be organised. We know we have titles, subtitles. We outline the most important elements, and sentences have to be redacted but not the hypothesis. The process is: I should note what I am looking for, what I can deduce, and how I will connect this piece of information to my question.
Reference knowledge	During the “how to verify” stage, pupils’ ideas explode in all directions, but it is only for the record, so we quickly write lots of words, we don’t need structured sentences. That will be expected from upper secondary school pupils, thus we steer them during lower secondary school in such a way that they won’t be surprised. They have to be autonomous in their presentation, they are at the 7th grade so it’s a little caricatural, but it’ll help.

Table 3. New science teacher T.P.K.: dimension 6 mode 2.

Biology 6^th grade	Teachers made explicit what was taught during the inquiry session
	Dimension 6, mode 2
Goal 1	To acquire methodology
Clues	I wonder what they really observe.
Actions	I ask pupils to cut pieces of a flower, then I make them paste those pieces in front of the corresponding words. This is an observational drawing, I include concrete observation in their notebooks.
Reference knowledge	Thanks to this, they will find it again while opening their notebooks. I already did this for the bud and it worked fine. They had pasted different parts of the bud. It allows ideas to be clearer if they read their activity again.
Goal 2	Learned, and made use of, vocabulary
Clues	They asked me many questions, but they couldn’t find the appropriate words.
Actions	In this case, I come to each team to implement the important terms, [i.e.] the parts of the flower and each time I make them ask their questions using the right words.
Reference knowledge	They have to manage to incorporate parts of the flower, as seen during the dissection. The goal was to understand the following experiences and documents.
Goal 3	Filling in an assessment sheet
Clues	Here we have corrected all the activities; unfortunately we cannot always do that.
Actions	I planned this gap-fill text so they have a kind of evaluation at the end of the session.
Reference knowledge	I think we should not correct everything but only the important things. We always make a summary at the end of the activity. Even if there still are some unanswered questions, at least the summary is clear. The next time we always take what we have done before and then we notice the main report in the course. We will take up this notion of reproductive system and reproduction because we didn’t speak about it today. We will work on it next week. We will restart from the gap-fill text to remind us what we already saw before.

Table 4. Committed science teacher T.P.K.: dimension 6 mode 4.

Biology 6^th grade	Students rely on explicit knowledge and meta-knowledge which result from the inquiry session and will be useful for future situations and problems
	Dimension 6, mode 4
Goal	To provide continuity in the session for sustain learning reinvestment
Clues	The pupils’ activity points towards the next session.
Actions	I ask each group to carry out different activities in order to explain them and to present their results to their mates. To do that, I ask them to write down their observations, to draw some figures, to use graphics.
	So next week I will have a group working on that exercise, I will have groups who refine some results from the activity they are carrying out today. I will run an exercise, which aims to show that if we vary the amount of carbon dioxide flowing into a closed area, matter production become higher; the growth of a plant is higher.
Reference knowledge	This kind of activity has to go on for several weeks: it’s a problem. It also causes a lot of trouble for the 6th grade pupils because they need to come to the classroom during the week to observe, and to water the flowers… some come, others don’t.

Table 5. Shared approaches concerning I.B.S.T.

Dimension	Mode	Goal	N.S.T.	E.S.T.	C.S.T.
3 Responsibility	1	To allow students to question and make assumptions	x	x	x
	3	To keep in mind the purpose of the activity	x		x
4 Diversity	1	To support a pupil who encounters difficulties	x		x
		To get students’ attention and talk to them	x	x	x
	3	To create pupils’ team	x	x	x
	4	To adapt the activity to specific needs of some pupils	x		x

Figure 1. Locating teachers’ strategies on the six-dimensional I.B.S.T. model

Table

Content-centred		Learner-focused
Dimension 1: Who initiates the questioning?
1.1. Teachers elaborate the questioning on their own.	1.2. Teachers elaborate the questioning after considering students’ concerns.	1.3. Students’ questioning is fostered through a challenging situation elaborated by teachers.	1.4. Students elaborate their own questioning from a theme introduced by teachers.
Dimension 2: What is the nature of the problem?
2.1. Closed problem: students have to follow a narrow protocol.	2.2. Partially closed problem: students need to elaborate their own hypothesis and protocol within a well-known situation.	2.3. Partially open-ended problem: students have to cope with an open task and limited material already prepared.	2.4. Open-ended problem: students need to elaborate their own hypothesis and protocol.
Dimension 3: To what extent are students responsible for the inquiry?
3.1. Teachers steer students through all the different stages of the formal inquiry process.	3.2. Teachers guide students towards different ways to achieve the task.	3.3. Students are responsible for the inquiry.	3.4. Students rely on material which enables them to check their learning outcomes.
Dimension 4: How is student diversity of knowledge, needs and intentions handled?
4.1. Teachers cope with specific pupils’ behaviour in order to involve them within the inquiry.	4.2. Teachers alter the task “on the fly” in order to maintain specific students’ involvement.	4.3. Each individual student or student team receives supervision from teachers.	4.4. Students with specific needs or interests rely on planned adaptation of the inquiry situation.
Dimension 5: What is the role of argumentation?
5.1. Teachers facilitate exchanges among students.	5.2. Teachers communicate students’ propositions to the whole class.	5.3. Students are encouraged to consider their schoolmates’ assumptions, results and conclusions.	5.4. Students are asked to justify their conclusions with respect to knowledge or evidence.
Dimension 6: How are the teacher’s goals made explicit?
6.1. Teachers communicate to the students their goals and expectations for the current lesson.	6.2. Teachers make explicit the learning outcomes of the inquiry session.	6.3. Students are asked to make explicit what they have learned during the inquiry session.	6.4. Students develop explicit knowledge and meta-knowledge which result from the inquiry session and will be useful for further situations and problems.