A meeting place for meaningful collaboration – student teachers’ experiences and learning

ABSTRACT

Background

Internationally, teacher education usually involves close school-university cooperation. In Norway, such collaboration includes enabling student teachers to develop into researching teachers. In this article, our interest lies in how the Change Laboratory (CL), a form of participatory workshop, can lay the foundation for three-way collaboration between student teachers, teacher educators, and practice teachers, in terms of resolving practice issues and facilitating student teachers’ research planning.

Purpose

The study, contextualised within cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), sought to better understand student teachers’ experiences and learning gleaned from collaboration in the CL.

Method

Eight student teachers participated in the research, which was carried out over a four-year teacher education research and development project involving one university and one primary school. During this time, the student teachers met in the CL with the teacher educators from the university, and the practice teachers, who were working as mentors in the training schools. The data collected, comprising presentations and dialogues from the CL sessions, were analysed qualitatively.

Findings

According to the analysis, the student teachers thought that their CL experiences had supported them along the trajectory of becoming reflective, professionally oriented practitioners. They felt that, through participatory meetings with the teacher educators and practice teachers, they had developed in-depth subject knowledge; learned to collaborate; learned about school development; and learned how to be well prepared for the profession they were entering. In addition, they considered whether the project could be expanded to the entire teacher education system.

Conclusions

The findings draw broader attention to the role of participatory meeting places in creating a community of trust, and their potential to support teachers’ learning at crucial stages of their professional journeys, from early career phases and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher education
• change laboratory (CL)
• cultural historical activity theory (CHAT)
• collaboration
• student teachers’ experiences
• student teachers’ learning

Introduction

In research-informed teacher education, teaching and research on teaching are integrated, with the aim of fostering reflective teachers who are users and producers of education research. According to Loughran (2004), enabling student teachers to take a research stance is likely to link their research to practice and extend their reflection in the direction of more systematic inquiries into practice. Teacher research can support teachers to become active producers of knowledge and agents of change (Janssen, Westbroek, and Borko 2023), thus creating value for teaching and academic communities alike (Connolly et al. 2021; Postholm 2019). It follows, then, that creating sustainable, collaborative communities through which teachers can grow their professional learning should be considered crucial at, and beyond, early career stages (Feiman-Nemser 2001).

In this paper, we are particularly interested in a type of school-university collaboration that supports student teachers to develop into researching teachers. We report on a project from Norway, contextualised within cultural – historical activity theory (CHAT), in which a form of participatory workshop, the Change Laboratory (CL) (Ellis 2008; Engeström et al. 1996), was used as a physical meeting place for community building, development and learning. In the CL, teacher educators (working at a university), practice teachers (working as mentors in training schools) and student teachers came together to focus on aspects of the student teachers’ research and development work. The project, as a whole, was conducted across four years (2019–2023) and was carried out in two settings at two universities. This article presents findings from a sub-study, carried out within the larger research project at one of the universities, for which the author took the roles of leader and researcher for the CL sessions. The sub-study aimed to gain insight into the student teachers’ experiences and learning gleaned from collaboration in the CL. Before explaining more about the study, the work is contextualised with reference to the literature and the underpinning conceptual framework.

Background

Influences on teacher education in Norway

Reforms to teacher education in Norway have been influenced by developments in Finland several decades ago. A shift towards more academically-based teacher education, with the goal of a Master’s degree for all teachers, took place in Finland during the late 1970s (Toom et al. 2010). The intention was that teachers should conduct research into their own teaching, as researching teachers, and be enabled to read educational academic literature critically. In Norway, since the 2017 reform (Ministry of Education 2016a, 2016b), inspired by Finnish teacher education (Hansén, Sjöberg, and Eilertsen 2014; Lillejord and Børte 2014), teacher education has changed to a five-year, specialised Master’s-level teacher education programme for teachers planning to teach in primary and lower secondary schools. It has a stronger focus on academic skills and in-depth knowledge. The reform aims to enable teachers in Norway to ‘analyse and take a critical approach to national and international research and use this knowledge when practising the profession’ (Ministry of Education 2016a, 2016b, author’s translation), as well as to ‘apply relevant methods from research and development (R and D) to continually develop their own and the school’s collective practices’ (Ministry of Education 2016a, 2016b, author’s translation).

Theoretical framework

Cultural – historical activity theory (CHAT; see further Leontèv 1978, 1981; Wertsch 1981) and the Change Laboratory (CL) provide the study’s conceptual underpinning. CHAT is grounded in the notion that tensions or contradictions in, and between, activity systems can be the starting point for change and development (Engeström and Sannino 2010). The central idea behind the CL is that educational and work practice can be developed through collaboration and that contradictions within the practitioners’ own practice can be worked out (Sannino 2008). Approaches based on these concepts represent a shift away from the content-delivery traditions and participation-based methods that had been prevalent in higher education institutions and schools (Nygaard and Holtham 2008), emphasising development and learning in social settings. According to CHAT, cognition is created in subjects’ practical activity involving material objects (Lektorsky 1980) and knowledge is, thus, developed in action.

The concept of expansive learning, developed within CHAT, is defined as ‘to learn something that is not yet there’ (Engeström and Sannino 2010, 2). This implies the development of something new: for example, this could be a novel collaborative practice established between teacher education and schools. This idea places primacy on communities as learners, on the transformation and creation of culture, and on horizontal movement. It means that people working in various settings, such as universities and schools, can learn from each other, in ways other than through content delivery from one person to another, which would be the case in vertical learning situations. In expansive learning, student teachers can learn and expand tangible practices connected with a specific reality; thus, they develop something bespoke rather than generic. According to Engeström (2016), human learning is largely intertwined with intentional instruction; therefore, learning and instruction must be brought together.

Within the CHAT framework, the CL is the typical arena in which instruction and learning can be intertwined (Engeström 2007, 2011). Thus, in the context of this study, the CL is the place where teacher educators, practice teachers and student teachers can meet to analyse their situation and improve it, through three-way collaboration. The teacher educators’, the practice teachers’, and the student teachers’ plans and actions must be dialectically intertwined (Engeström 2016). In the CHAT framework, the researcher can be considered a formative interventionist. This means that the role of the interventionist researcher (IR) is to provoke and sustain an expansive transformation process led by practitioners, who take ownership of the process (Engeström and Sannino 2010). In CL meetings, the IR (in this project, the author), leads the processes within the CL. The IR conducts studies with practitioners, for example, creating and using mirror data (Cole and Engeström 2007), which functions as a mirror for participants in collective activity and dialogues, with the aim of enhancing development (Engeström 2000).

Teachers as researchers

The idea of research being an integral part of a teacher’s role has long been discussed, along with acknowledgement of certain challenges, which can include teachers’ lack of theoretical confidence, and lack of time (Stenhouse 1981). Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2021) draw attention to how teachers may work together in inquiry communities to develop questions connected to their teaching and their interpretive framework, and how the purposes and consequences of professional development are connected to teacher agency and ownership. Whilst teacher educators are well placed to cultivate student teachers’ sense of responsibility for their teaching and the students’ learning (Loughran 2004), teacher education programmes that engage student teachers in studying research, and conducting it on their own teaching, can produce more satisfied teachers who are more likely to stay in teaching (Darling-Hammond 2000). Further, student teachers can consider teacher research as beneficial (Maaranen 2010), and those who conduct action research in their teaching may develop a positive attitude towards research, and start to think of it as a habitual part of their everyday lives (Yan 2017). It is also the case that student teachers may appreciate the opportunity to study to Master’s degree level and perceive extensive academic study as valuable, believing that it is important for methodological courses to start sufficiently early in their studies (Jyrhämä et al. 2008).

Teacher research can assist teachers in developing the skills they need to acquire for use in the classroom. For instance, practitioner inquiry can be used to help student teachers become more analytic, based on developing their observation and listening skills, and their capacity to learn from practice (Darling-Hammond et al. 2023). As those authors note, teachers require well-developed observation and analytic skills in order to assess students’ achievements, learn about the strengths and needs of the students, and design teaching that contributes to student progress. Therefore, teachers need to know how to conduct inquiries to help them continually improve their teaching practice.

The partnership between university and school systems, sometimes described as ‘separate learning arenas’ for the student teachers (Smith 2016, 29), may be seen as perpetuating a theory – practice gap (Zeichner 2010). However, with the student practicum identifiable as a boundary context (Zeichner 2010), and the potential of boundary crossing between, for instance, universities and schools in advancing learning (Akkerman and Bakker 2011), there are valuable opportunities to be exploited for meaningful and productive collaboration. Productive teacher education, whilst preparing student teachers for teaching, can develop teachers who can learn from their teaching (Darling-Hammond et al. 2017). Preparation for teamwork and collaboration can help student teachers to shape their own practices, and, crucially, the practice of schools as a whole, in a positive way (Darling-Hammond et al. 2019).

Study context

As mentioned above, this paper reports on a sub-study from a university – primary school partnership collaboration within a larger, four-year project conducted in two settings at two Norwegian universities. The author, working at one of these universities, led the sub-study as the IR. The partnership included: six university teachers; two practice teachers; the headteacher of the collaborating primary school (Grades 1–7, children aged 6–13 years); and a group of sixteen student teachers, split into two cohorts of eight. In each cohort, some student teachers specialising in physical education and some specialising in mathematics took part. They were working on their research and development assignment (in the third year of the study) and their Master’s thesis (in the fifth year of the study).

The study reported in this paper focuses on cohort 1. In the first year of the study, the eight student teachers in cohort 1 decided on the design of their research and development assignments in each subject (i.e. mathematics and physical education) and constructed umbrella themes during the first three CL sessions. The student teachers’ voices were heard, and the focus of the assignments took into consideration the interests and needs of the teacher educators, the practice teachers and student teachers. During these first three CL sessions, they jointly decided that the student teachers should test out their teaching plans, together with the practice teachers, by conducting action research. With this in mind, each student teacher developed a focused problem formulation within the frame of the umbrella theme (Postholm, Klemp, and Nordbotn 2023). Seven of the eight student teacher participants continued to focus on the same theme in their Masters’ thesis. The student teachers took part in the CL sessions during their third and fifth years in the study, amounting to eight sessions altogether. All participants in the tripartite collaboration community (i.e. the student teachers, the teacher educators, the practice teachers and the IR) met in the CL sessions twice per semester during these two years. In addition, all the participants, with the exception of the IR, met several times in supervising sessions outside the CLs, at the school and university, throughout the three years of their participation in the project. However, it was in the CL sessions themselves that they were able to establish a meta-perspective on the processes. In particular, it was during these sessions that the participants analysed tensions and contradictions, and looked for possibilities and challenges relevant to their work planning outside the CL sessions.

During the third, fourth and fifth years of their studies, the student teachers undertook each of their field practices at the same school. This intentional consistency was such that they could become well known to the school, to the teachers and to the pupils in the classes where they were practising. In the fourth year, in between work on the research and development assignment, and the Master’s thesis, they encountered the same teachers and pupils at the school, and were followed up by the same university teacher educators during the practice period. It was these teacher educators and practice teachers who met the student teachers for the three-way collaborations in the CL sessions. In this way, the organisation of the student teachers’ field practice and their continuous collaboration with the same practice teachers and teacher educators enabled the provision of a stable and coherent collaboration community for the student teachers.

In the CL sessions, the IR (i.e. the author) gave short presentations on CHAT and the CL, with the purpose of helping the participants understand the theoretical concepts and the models that would be used in CL sessions. The participants were expected to read two texts focusing on CHAT, in advance of attending CL session 6. Ahead of some of the CL sessions, the participants were required to reflect on certain questions (in the case of sessions 1 and 8) or an assignment (in the case of session 2), by way of preparation. For example, as a preparation task for the second CL session, the participants were asked to reflect on a preliminary working hypothesis related to contradictions connected to the research and development assignment on which they were going to work. Mirror data (Engeström 2007), which can comprise documents, transcribed dialogues and video recordings, were introduced to the participants in CL sessions as well, in order to analyse their situation (in sessions 3 and 6). The activity system, or networks of systems (Engeström 1987, 2015), was used to analyse experienced tensions and contradictions in dialogues during the CLs (in sessions 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7). Furthermore, the participants reflected on assessment criteria (in sessions 2, 4, 7 and 8), supervision models (in sessions 2 and 8) and possible themes for the research and development assignment (in session 3) and Master’s thesis (in session 5). Furthermore, the participants planned their work for the assignment and the thesis, and discussed how they could collaborate. Before the eighth and final session, the participants were tasked with reading the responses they had given to questions as a preparation for the first CL. In the final session, the participants reflected on what they had learned while taking part in the project and considered what it might mean for their future practice.

The participants sometimes worked in homogenous groups and sometimes in heterogeneous groups during the sessions. For instance, sometimes the student teachers collaborated together (i.e. in a homogenous group); at other times, the teacher educators, practice teachers and student teachers in the same subject sat together (i.e. in a heterogeneous group). This combination of groupings allowed the participants to reflect within and across each other’s perspectives.

Purpose

In the context of the three-way collaboration (between the student teachers, teacher educators, and practice teachers) in the CL sessions, described above, the aim was to explore student teachers’ perceptions of their involvement in the sessions, and examine the implications for the student teachers’ learning and development as prospective teachers and researchers.

Method

Ethical considerations

Permission to conduct this study was sought from, and granted by, the Norwegian Ethical Research Committee, as well as by the student teachers. All participants signed an informed consent form, which informed them that their names would be anonymised and that they would be given full confidentiality (NESH 2021). In the reporting, the school, university and student teachers are therefore unnamed and identifying information removed.

Methodological approach

A qualitative case-study design (Creswell 2013) was selected as the most suitable methodological approach for addressing the aim of the research, as the purpose was to explore the matter of interest thoroughly, from the perspectives of a small number of research participants. Thus, the ‘case’ was the specific cohort of eight student teachers’ participation in the CL sessions over three years, whilst they worked in a group.

Data collection

The CL sessions in which the eight students took part served as the setting for data collection, which took place between 2019–2022. Data material was in Norwegian (the language used in the CL sessions) and consisted of the student teachers’ dialogues in groups, as well as presentations based on these dialogues. The focus was on the student teachers’ discourse as a way of gaining insight into the perspectives they expressed.

In preparation for the first CL session, the student teachers were asked to reflect on questions related to assignments accomplished at school during their first three years of the study. The questions included the following: What do you think about the assignments you have carried out at the school so far? How do you feel assignments that have focused on the connection between theory and practice have contributed to an understanding of the school, the students’ learning and the teachers’ practice? How do you think such assignments have contributed relevant knowledge to the school? How do you think such tasks have contributed relevant knowledge to the university?

During the first CL session, the student teachers initially reflected together in each of their subject groups. They then presented their responses to the questions above in a plenary. In advance of the eighth and final session, three years later, the student teachers reviewed their own responses to the questions they had reflected on before the first session. The intention behind this reviewing was to remind the student teachers of how they had experienced the situation before starting the project. As part of the eighth session, the student teachers also reflected together in subject groups in advance of responding to the following questions in a plenary presentation: How has your experience working on the Master’s thesis been? How were the theme and issue decided? What challenges have you experienced? What has worked well? What have you learned and how have you developed during participation in the project? What significance does participation in this project have for you?

The group discussions and the presentations from the CL sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and included in the material.

Data analysis

The student teachers’ discourse during the first CL session was initially summarised, based on verbatim transcriptions, and then made into a narrative text (Riessman 2008). This text was given the heading ‘Experiences and wishes before starting the project’. Next, the transcriptions from the eighth CL session were coded and categorised, using an open coding process (Strauss and Corbin 1990), in order to structure the data. The codes were written on the right-hand side of the transcriptions, thereby facilitating the grouping of sentences and paragraphs into categories that represented similar content. Through this process, the main categories that are presented below emerged. Within each of the categories, a narrative text description was constructed (Riessman 2008), based on the material belonging to a given category. To ensure the quality of the study, a member-checking process was employed (Lincoln and Guba 1985). This meant that the student teachers read the narrative text descriptions to determine the extent to which they perceived these to be an accurate reflection of their experiences. They claimed that they recognised their own expressions and understandings, thereby affirming the accuracy of the descriptions.

Findings

The analysis described above allowed insight into the student teachers’ perceptions of their involvement in the CL sessions, as they interacted in the three-way collaboration (i.e. between the student teachers, teacher educators, and practice teachers). In the subsections below, the findings are presented according to the main themes that emerged from the analysis. The first theme, (1) Student teachers’ experiences and wishes before starting the project, refers to experiences the student teachers had regarding school-related activities in their two first years in teacher education (i.e. based on their discussions during the first CL session). The remaining themes (i.e. based on the analysis of the eighth CL session) highlight how the student teachers experienced the work, and what they learned during their three years of participation in the project, with the CL as a meeting place for analysis to resolve contradictions and tensions. These themes are: (2) Reflective practitioners; (3) When to learn methodology; (4) Understanding research findings; (5) In-depth knowledge of subject themes; (6) Collaboration and school development; and (7) The purpose of teacher education. For anonymity, the student teachers’ perceptions are, at times, denoted by ‘they’; in other instances, their perceptions are conveyed through anonymised, translated excerpts of discourse from the analysed transcripts.

Student teachers’ experiences and wishes before starting the project

This section is based on the discussions during the first CL session. Once the student teachers knew they would soon have to work on their research and development assignments, they wanted to acquire useful and practical information in good time before they started. They gleaned some knowledge in observation and interviewing while working on assignments during the first two years of their teacher education. However, before the project commenced, they also sought information on the requirements, methods for data collection, and guidance on the optimal approach to accomplish this. They wanted to know, as well, which theories they might use as a theoretical framework, and be advised of the focus of the assignment and examples of previous research. Moreover, they thought it might be useful to talk in groups with other students, to learn what perspectives they had on the assignment and to share their thoughts and opinions. They therefore suggested group discussions on each other’s topics to familiarise themselves with others’ points of view. They perceived it as useful to spend time with the practice teacher, too, to talk about what to do and how to do it in the school setting. They explained that they wanted to have an open dialogue with the practice teacher when collecting data at the school, and sought help formulating a theme and a problem relevant for all parties. As one student teacher noted:

For the work on the R&D assignment in the context of the training school’s goals and our own interests to be ideal and feasible, it is important to have good communication between the various parties.

The student teachers felt that they needed to be informed of the school’s goals and of what the practice teachers were interested in finding out; as one student teacher put it, ‘From this, we can choose something that we ourselves are interested in writing about, and the task can be useful for both parties’.

The student teachers considered it may be a challenge if the university teacher, the school and they themselves had different perspectives connected to the focus and purpose of the assignments. As one of them questioned:

Should the assignment be used to develop us as teachers, or should it be an academic assignment? Should we learn to do research, or should we find out interesting things about the school?

The student teachers thought that communication between the school and the university needed to be good. They asked whether they were expected to be present in the school as researchers or as teachers. One student teacher in physical education posed a question in relation to the focus of their work:

Should we focus on ball games if the pupils have already been playing ball games for a month when we come to the school? Should the student teachers’ research needs be prioritised over the curriculum and the school’s annual plan?

According to the student teachers, the practice teachers had only received limited information from the university before entering the school in their field practice, which therefore constrained the assistance they could offer. They felt that more information would help the practice teachers and the training school assist them with their needs. Furthermore, the student teachers thought that a final challenge would be lack of time. They reflected that, to write a good research and development assignment, they would need enough time to create a problem, gather data, process data, talk with practice teachers and the teacher educators doing follow-up regarding school practice, as well as to discuss and create a complete text.

The student teachers summed up the following points as possible sources of tensions and contradictions: (1) Different opinions about the purpose of the Master’s thesis: should it make us researchers or teachers? (2) The flow of information between university and school could be a problem. (3) Tensions might arise between the students’ tasks to be implemented in practice and the teachers’ period plans. (4) Tensions might arise if the students did not want to write a Master’s thesis based on the needs of the school, but, rather on something different in which they were interested.

As explained above, the themes below relate to the analysis of the eighth and final CL session, three years later.

Reflective practitioners

The student teachers reported that they had become much more reflective. As one of them explained:

I reflect on what has gone well and why and what turned out not so well and why. You do it almost automatically without considering it. It will be helpful for us as teachers. It has become a way of thinking that, in a way, is there unconsciously. And it is very helpful.

Another student teacher added that it had been ‘super useful’, and that they would like to teach the best they can, with a further student teacher reflecting on becoming more conscious and now managing to see things in the classroom more quickly, and more readily understanding what to do.

The student teachers went on to talk about the intention of teacher education and whether they should learn to conduct research in their own practice, in order to develop continuously. As one of them noted, ‘then we have to use so much time to learn it in a proper way, to manage to reflect’. Another commented:

Yes, I feel that we have learned that: the ability to reflect, and that we need to conduct research and to be professionally oriented. We can then accomplish reflective practice. This I think we have developed in this project.

One of the student teachers said that they would always try to do things better in the classroom, noting learning about what action research is, and that it is always necessary to search for new knowledge, because there is no fixed solution. Another followed up, saying that they had conducted action research twice, both in the research and development assignment and in the Masters’ thesis, continuing, ‘[W]e have analysed a situation and reflected on what could have been done differently. We have done it very thoroughly many times’. Further, one student teacher highlighted the following:

We have experienced that it is really important that we get supervision during the process when conducting action research to try out a teaching plan and not just on the text we produce.

When to learn methodology

The student teachers pointed out that the teaching of methodology could have been conducted before they started the Master’s thesis, in order to allow them to develop a basic understanding, which meant that they could have read more by themselves when working on the thesis. They added that they could have learned about methodology even before they started working on the research and development assignment. They indicated, too, that the teaching of methodology could have been more closely related to what they needed in their Master’s thesis work, with one commenting that ‘It was a little bit of a waste of time’. They suggested that the methodology teaching could have been part of supervision, and argued that it would have made the teaching more useful for the assignment and thesis.

Understanding research findings

The student teachers reported that they had learned about research and the knowledge it could yield. For example, one student teacher noted ‘I think I’ve learned a lot about research in this project. About how you assess research, I think I didn’t know anything about that before’; with another reflecting ‘We’ve learned a lot about research – about how you assess research. I felt that I wasn’t able to do that before; as long as I could read research texts, it was good’.

In-depth knowledge of subject themes

The student teachers reported that they had learned a great deal about the themes they were working on, because they focused on these both in their research and development assignment, and in their Master’s thesis. As one of them said, ‘I’ve become more reflective, and I’ve gained subject knowledge that allows me to argue for my choices in teaching’, with another adding, ‘You become better at arguing, in such a process. And I think it’s important that we can manage what we do in the subjects professionally and argue for our choices’.

Collaboration and school development

The student teachers asserted that they had learned a lot about collaboration and school development. They felt that they had worked closely with each other, the school and the practice teacher. They said that they had learnt from each other because of this strong collaboration. One of the student teachers elaborated on this as follows:

I think that we have learned something that makes us well prepared for the profession. We are reflective and have learned about school development. The more you learn, the more meaningful things become for you.

The purpose of teacher education

The student teachers considered that, if the aim of the five-year teacher education programme was for them to learn to be researching teachers, then teacher education must provide them with enough time to learn how to do research in a proper way, allowing them to develop the skills necessary to become reflective. In fact, they said they truly felt that they had developed the ability to reflect when they found themselves doing research, and that they had become professionally oriented. They expressed several reasons for this. One of the student teachers summed it up as follows:

We are four students in one group. We have an overall theme. We know each other’s theses well, and we have therefore managed to solve challenges together. We spent time at the school to become known by the class and the pupils before doing our fieldwork there, working on our assignments and theses. We have had regular contact with the practice teacher. These things are all reasons why things have become as they have.

In all, the analysis suggests that the student teachers perceived that their experiences of tensions and contradictions when starting the project had been resolved, and new ones had not surfaced. However, in addition, they thought about whether the organisation and understanding of the project could be expanded to the whole of the teacher education system.

Discussion

This study allowed insight to be gained into the student teachers’ perceptions of their involvement in a project which used the CL as a meeting place for three-way collaboration between student teachers, teacher educators, and practice teachers. In the paragraphs below, the implications of the findings are considered, with reference to the wider literature context.

The CL provided the participants with the possibility of planning processes, as well as analysing and reflecting on the processes experienced outside the CL. It was interesting to note that, according to the analysis, the student teachers felt that university – school communication could be improved, as such limitation can perpetuate the theory – practice gap (Zeichner 2010). The sessions were used to plan and analyse the situation as it developed, as well as to reflect on learning (e.g. in the eighth and final session of the project). It was evident that the student teachers considered that they had become reflective practitioners. Thus, they felt able to be agents of change and produce knowledge during their practice at school (Janssen, Westbroek, and Borko 2023).

In the project, the student teachers learned to work together, with the umbrella theme keeping them together, in inquiry communities (Cochran-Smith and Lytle 2021) to find answers to their research questions. Importantly, they felt they had learned how to conduct action research because they had done so in connection with both the research and development assignment, and the Masters’ thesis: in other words, they had learned by carrying it out (Yan 2017). Learning and instruction were, thus, intertwined (Engeström 2016): not only in the CL (Engeström 2007, 2011), but also, too, in the practice field when the student teachers conducted research on teaching which had been planned together with practice teachers and university teachers in the CL sessions.

The student teachers thereby learned something new, and university – school collaboration was able to develop and bring out something that was not yet there (Engeström and Sannino 2010). However, there was a perception that the methodology course was not always the best use of time, because the student teaches considered that what they learned there was not necessarily useful for their research projects. This led to the suggestion that the methodology course material would be better taught before both the research and development assignment and the Masters’ thesis, or even integrated into supervision – thus having the possibility of becoming much more relevant to their projects. It is clear that, again, there is great potential for learning to be more intertwined with instruction (Engeström 2016).

The findings demonstrated that the student teachers felt they were able to work on problem formulations that were relevant and useful for all who took part (Postholm, Klemp, and Nordbotn 2023). The joint planning in the CL sessions made it possible for the student teachers to become familiar with the opinions and perspectives of the other participants, thereby laying the foundation for horizontal movement (Engeström 2016). The student teachers stated that they wanted to learn to teach as well as they could, and that they were prepared to do not only that, but also to learn from their own practice in order to develop in a sustained way. Their discourse reveals that they considered that they had experienced a productive teacher education; one that was able to prepare them for teaching and conducting research on their own teaching (Darling-Hammond et al. 2017), and continuously improve it (Darling-Hammond et al. 2019). The findings suggest that teacher education had cultivated the student teachers’ sense of responsibility for teaching and the pupils’ learning. Moreover, they had developed a position on research that allowed them to link research to practice and extend reflection into more systematic inquiries (Loughran 2004). It seems that this research stance had become part of their professional routines (Darling-Hammond 2001; Feiman-Nemser 2001), and they explained that reflection became more habitual. More broadly, such a foundation has the potential to allow teachers to become more satisfied professionally, which could make teachers more likely to stay in the teaching profession (Darling-Hammond 2000).

Through the CL process, the student teachers were made aware of the importance of research and how research findings could help them develop rationales for their choices in teaching. However, they learned, as well, that all research is not necessarily good research: in other words, they had become more critical about what good research might look like. This is in line with the reform in Norway, requiring that teachers take a critical approach to national and international research and use this knowledge in their practice (Ministry of Education 2016a, 2016b). The student teachers taking part in the project seemed to be aptly prepared to use research in a critical and professional manner, and they expressed the opinion that subject knowledge would help them explain and justify their choices in a professional way. According to Jyrhämä et al. (2008), academic literature can help teachers support their actions with evidence. It is significant here that the student teachers noted finding relevant research and in-depth knowledge of subjects important for their practice.

When working on their research and development assignments, and their Masters’ theses, the student teachers collaborated in the CL sessions and planned for collaboration at the school with the practice teacher. During their time in the school, they collaborated in groups when trying out teaching methods and researching processes. They believed that they had been prepared for collaboration at the school and school development. This is noteworthy, as preparation for teamwork and collaboration helps student teachers develop their own practices, and the practices of the school as a whole (Darling-Hammond et al. 2019). The regulations set forth by the Ministry of Education (2016a, 2016b) of Norway state that, in addition to developing their own practices, student teachers should also learn to contribute to the school’s collective practice. The student teachers’ assertions that they were ready to develop their own teaching and contribute to school development resonates with this reform.

The student teachers considered that the teacher education programme and their participation in the project had enabled them to become researching teachers who were professionally oriented. They presented several reasons for this, including that they had worked in groups under an umbrella theme, resolving challenges together; they had familiarised themselves with the school, the classes and the teachers at the school before starting their work; in addition, during the process, they had been in regular contact with the practice teacher. Furthermore, they experienced the need for supervision of the process when conducting action research. It suggests that the teacher education process had supported the emergence of knowledge-based, researching teachers who were able to develop both their own and the school’s practice, as described in the curriculum framework (Ministry of Education 2016a, 2016b).

As noted, above, tensions and contradictions play an important role in the process. Although the student teachers considered that the tensions and contradictions they felt when entering the project were resolved, it is interesting that a new tension or contradiction arose: namely, their thinking about how the organisation of the project could be expanded to the whole of the teacher education system. Following the theory of human learning (Engeström 2016), learning and instruction should be intertwined, emphasising transformation and the creation of culture. This sense of looking forward and outwards underscores how describing processes that took place during the project is only one part of what is needed to help others understand what the participants have experienced and learned. Rather, it is the case that additional research must be conducted in connection with such projects to help develop new, fresh thoughts and ideas about transfer and sustainability.

Limitations

The findings from this study are linked to a particular project that involved only eight student teachers; generalisation is not intended. Further research involving a larger sample of student teachers is crucial to explore how the CL, serving as a meeting place, could contribute to the improvement of learning and development among student teachers. It would also be interesting for future research to study how their learning and development became part of their practice when they embarked on working as teachers in schools. What such a project means for practice teachers’ and university teachers’ learning is another key avenue for future research.

Conclusion

The creation, and maintenance, of collaborative communities designed to help teachers grow their learning are important at all stages of teachers’ professional journeys (Feiman-Nemser 2001). Our study from Norway explored a type of school-university collaboration that supports student teachers to develop into researching teachers. Contextualised within cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), the study was interested in student teachers’ perceptions of how the Change Laboratory (CL) (Ellis 2008; Engeström et al. 1996), a form of participatory workshop, might provide a foundation for three-way collaboration between the student teachers, teacher educators, and practice teachers, in terms of resolving practice issues and facilitating student teachers’ research planning. It was evident from the outcome of the in-depth analysis that the student teachers believed their CL experiences had helped them on their journeys towards becoming professionally oriented, reflective practitioners. They felt that, through participatory meetings with the teacher educators and practice teachers, they had developed deeper subject knowledge; learned to collaborate; learned about school development; and learned how to be well prepared for the profession they were entering. It is important to bear in mind that the descriptions of experiences and learning presented are connected to a small, specific project, in which a limited number of participants took part. The findings in this article are, therefore, offered as a thinking tool (Gudmundsdottir 2001) for researchers and practitioners, with the idea that they could contribute to the development of meaningful collaborations between student teachers, teacher educators and practice teachers in other settings, thereby helping with efforts to support the development of prospective teachers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The study is part of a larger project funded by the Research Council of Norway, under the project title “Learning, assessment and boundary crossing in teacher education (LAB-TEd)” (Grant number: 287859).