PATHWAY
TO A COLLABORATIVE NETWORK
Patricia R. Simpson, St. Cloud State
University
George Davis, Minnesota State University
Moorhead
Thomas Tommet, University of St. Thomas
Abstract
This
paper addresses the development and functioning of the Minnesota Teacher
Research Network (TRN). The paper
focuses on the factors we deem important for developing and maintaining a
research network that involves a number of institutions. The key factors are
synergistic and complementary but to facilitate discussion they are organized
under the headings: Getting Started, Motivation, and Management.
The Teacher Research Network
Since 1993, the state of Minnesota,
through SciMathMN, has been involved in
“…. The process of transforming teacher education in mathematics and
science so that teachers will be prepared to teach according to the vision of
present and future national standards and will be prepared to continue learning
new content and new ways of teaching throughout their professional lives”
(Simpson and M. Wallace, 1995). To
accomplish this mission, SciMathMN formed a statewide collaborative, called
Transforming Teacher Education (TTE), between policymakers, universities and
school districts interested in improving teacher education. TTE worked to make recommendations that
shaped new teacher licensure rules, provided professional development programs
for all involved in teacher education, and awarded small grants to support
individual campus initiatives that would change education programs and courses
for K-12 science and mathematics teachers.
As a logical next step in the
process of transforming teacher education, the Teacher Research Network (TRN)
was formed in 1998. TRN, which includes
individuals from public and private teacher preparation institutions, was developed
to assess the knowledge and practice of Minnesota teachers in their first three
years of practice.
Purpose
of TRN
TRN initially attempted to determine the
extent to which beginning science and mathematics teachers have beliefs and
practices aligned with state and national standards through the use of
instruments primarily developed by Salish.
With experience, our research questions evolved to focus on the
knowledge of beginning teachers in five areas –
content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of students,
knowledge necessary to establish an environment for learning and knowledge
related to a teacher’s professional development. These five categories of
knowledge are taken from an earlier SciMathMN document Transforming Teacher Education: A Minnesota
Framework for Mathematics and Science. (Simpson and Wallace, 1995) Data was also collected to determine the
status and context of new Minnesota teachers.
Instrumentation
Information on the structure and
implementation of the organization has been described in a presentation made at
the 2002 annual meeting of this organization.
(Davis, Simpson, Johnson, and A. Wallace, 2002 and Simpson, Shume, and
Tonnis, 2002)
Eleven institutions and 28 faculty
members participated in this project over a five-year period in which 64 first
year teachers were investigated. Some were observed for only one year while others
were followed for a full three years.
Three years was selected because this was the definition used for
beginning teachers in the state policy document that formed the framework for
this project.
TRN is presenting three papers at this
conference: our findings, the resulting database, and this paper that provides
information on key components of the collaborative. (Koomen, Guckin, Hartshorn
and Qson, 2006 and Wallace, Harms, McClure, Reap, and Shume, 2006). It is our
hope that others will instigate a project such as ours. The key factors for starting and sustaining a
research network are synergistic and complementary but to facilitate discussion
we have organized them under the headings: Getting Started, Motivation, and
Management. The order in which the
information is presented is not meant to be hierarchical in nature. And in fact
each area must be continually addressed in order for the collaborative to
continue functioning.
Getting Started - How do you get there?
TRN was an extension of an existing
network. For several years, individuals interested and involved in science and
mathematics teacher preparation had been meeting to develop state policy
related to teacher licensure and local licensure programs at each of their
institutions. As policy was set and
licensure programs were approved it was time for the group to move onto a new
project. State policy documents and the research gathered to create that policy
led to the development of a conceptual framework upon which a research program
could be established. We now perceive that a conceptual framework is one of four criteria for the creation of a
successful research network. The conceptual
framework allowed the group to develop the research questions that provided a
focus for the network. The second criterion for the network was having an engaging question to investigate. These
research questions need to be engaging for two different audiences. The
question must be one that members of the collaborative are interested in
answering and it must also be engaging to a funding source since the group
needs some financial resources. Information about funding requirements will be
addressed in the nuts and bolts section of the presentation. A third criterion for getting the network
started is to involve participants in
real work. There had not been an
extensive statewide investigation of the current knowledge of new teachers nor
the context in which they teach. Thus a
real need existed to fill this void so that teacher preparation institutions
could better prepare new teachers. As
an added benefit, the participants increased their knowledge and awareness of
new teachers. The background of TRN
participants varied greatly and some, primarily the scientists and
mathematicians, had not had an opportunity to observe their graduates in
classrooms. Others had visited
classrooms and many had been teachers themselves but were not familiar with
current conditions in Minnesota schools.
Data collection for the project allowed the researchers to visit a
variety of classrooms and to develop personal perceptions of teacher practice
and the context in which teachers work.
In many instances, this research experience impacted participants
teaching goals and practice. Changes in
teaching at the university were an unintended outcome for participants in the
project. A fourth criterion for starting a network was the existence of an opportunity. In our case, the funding organization was
looking for a logical next step in its support of standards-based teaching and
learning. The state and national
organizations were also looking for evidence of current teacher practice in schools. We had a well-educated, motivated group
looking for a reason to continue to meet and work with each other.
Motivation – Why collaborate?
Everyone knows that it takes more effort
to work on a project as a group than it does for an individual. The total
amount of work done by each person is lessened but more time must be spent in
organizing and attending meetings, coming to consensus on decisions, and
communicating. So what made this group come together and continue to function
as a group for over five years?
Members of the collaborative were
diverse in almost every way. They had
different types of training, they were in different places in their careers,
they were in different departments, their teacher programs differed in size and
types of licensure, some taught and others were in administrations and the size
and type of institutions they represented also varied. Actually, this diversity was one reason that
people chose to participate.
Many of the reasons individuals
chose to participate are common to any group project. The members of the group were collegial. No one tried to push a personal agenda onto
the rest of the group. When mistakes
occurred, discussions focused on solutions not blame. Everyone was willing to take on a part of the
project to ensure that the goal of the group would be accomplished. Most
individuals in the group had a common vision in the sense that they were
committed to the idea of standards-based teaching and learning. Meetings were
viewed as an opportunity to spend time with people you liked and those who
valued your personal experiences and contributions. No matter where you were in
your career or the size of your institution, this collegiality was an important
factor in continuing project participation.
Newer faculty benefited from professional opportunities. Participation in the network allowed
participants to participate in research with some degree of support. If you were the only person in your
department or school interested in science or mathematics educational research
you now had a cadre of people with common interests to discuss your work. The
group helped develop research protocol and instruments. The network provided
opportunities for presentations and papers as team members and some small
amounts of funding as minigrants for research and travel to local meetings was
provided. All of these items gave young
faculty opportunities to meet university requirements for tenure and promotion.
Each member of the collaborative
developed ownership of the
research. There were no graduate
students collecting data in this project.
Research network members did all observations. They were also in the
classroom helping to prepare teacher licensure candidates at their institution.
Although no comparisons were made, people were interested in seeing what their
former students were doing, how their teachers compared with those profiled by
other members of the group and what they could learn about their graduates that
could be used to improve their teaching or their institution’s programs. In a
sense much of what was done was action research in that answers to the
project’s research questions informed individual classroom practice. A few participants were interested in the
instruments and protocol as a mechanism for program evaluation that could be
used for future accreditation visits.
Personal professional development was a motivational factor for all
participants, though what was learned was not always the same. Initially professional development was a
formal part of meetings. Speakers and
books helped participants learn about specific areas of educational research,
qualitative research, and observation instruments. Responsibility and expertise associated with
professional development came from various members of the group and no one
person was seen as ‘the expert’ in the group.
Everyone had expertise to share with the rest of the group. Informal professional development occurred
through peer mentoring and a sharing of information among participants. Network meetings were often the first place
someone heard about new changes in licensure, or a new resource for teaching,
or an upcoming meeting, or source of funding.
Because of the diversity of the group, members had different sources of
information – science or mathematics
organizations, education networks, and policy connections – all of which resulted in group members having
a wider perspective on science and mathematics teaching and learning than they
could have developed as members of any other single organization.
A fifth motivator for the research
network is the scope of the investigation
that could be undertaken. Due to the
nature of the teaching assignments of the participants and a lack of full-time
graduate students, the scope of this project could never have been undertaken
without the participation of the entire group.
Individuals provided research background and skills, instruments were
acquired and modified to meet the specific needs of Minnesota’s vision of
teaching, and many more teachers were observed over a longer period of time than
any one person or institution could have managed on their own. Each year, each classroom teacher was
observed twice. Each visit included pre- and post-observation surveys, and each
teacher was interviewed at a later date.
Although this amount of interaction between teacher and research only
created a snapshot of teacher knowledge and classroom conditions it was far
more than what had been done previously and it was done at a fraction of the
cost of many large research projects. Data organization and management were
also a much larger task than any one small group could have accomplished
alone. The diverse composition of the
network was also important in that it allowed for diverse lenses to be applied
to both the classroom and the final data set.
The teachers were viewed through the lenses of scientist, mathematician,
education generalist, former teacher, and practioner and researcher in science
and mathematics education.
Management – What are the nuts and bolts
of the project?
The above factors are not
sufficient; we need also consider the process of collaborative research and the
day-to-day operation of the network.
First we consider factors concerning the process of the research. Every group needs a common vision. Our vision was pretty much in place based on the
work done previously for TTE.
Participants agreed that accomplished beginning teachers need more than
content knowledge. Beginning teachers
also need knowledge of students, pedagogy, and instructional resources and they
need to value continuing professional development in all of these areas. Even with this common vision there were still
huge differences in the meaning that each of us associated with vocabulary we
all used. It was important for the group
to develop a common vocabulary. The first discussions of terms like
qualitative and quantitative research were long and sometimes heated. Terms like inquiry and problem solving needed
clarification between the mathematics and science education participants. This common language developed over the first
year as instruments were developed and redesigned to better address the
questions we were investigating.
Another important issue is related to quality control. The first profiles that were written
contained many more inferences about the teachers than actual
observations. It is one thing to direct
a graduate student to redo completed work but another to tell a colleague that
his/her work is unacceptable and must be redone. But we did, and the final results reflect the
commitment of group members.
As the amount of data increased, we
needed to address the organization of the
data. We needed to make the data accessible to all of the researchers
without betraying the confidentiality promised to new teacher
participants. An organizational schema
was developed to facilitate access to the data. Much data was converted to electronic format
and the remaining original data will be archived at a single site. The process
continues as we decide to whom and how the data should be made available to a
larger audience.
Day-to-day operation includes both
financial factors and organizational management factors. The chief financial
factor is funding to cover group-meeting expenses, including food, lodging,
and travel expenses. The goal was to
minimize personal expenses, not to supplement personal income. The work of TRN consists of three somewhat
overlapping, phases. During the first
phase the instruments and protocols were developed, tested and rewritten, and
during the second phase the data regarding new teachers was collected. Project cost for these two phases included
stipends to the researchers, honoraria to the participating new teachers, and
some purchased staff time, besides the group-meeting expenses. During phase two, TRN participant stipends
were phased out due to financial constraints, but the honoraria to the
participating new teachers were continued. The third phase of the project (2003
to present) is bringing closure to the project, including the dissemination of
the knowledge gained. Minnesota
Department of Education is covering meeting expenses and handles group meeting
arrangement details.
Support staff were useful to set up
network communication, reserve hotels and select food and take care of the
paperwork associated with reimbursement but often group members did this work
as well. More important is the organizational management style. Three persons served as project director for
periods of time during the seven years of the project, but all three shared
certain traits. Shared government was
norm. As many decisions as possible were
made by the group and everyone pitched in to help. Directors did make sure that certain tasks
were done to ensure efficient group functioning. Also the directors established a model for
group functioning. The group meetings were used to accomplish
much of the collaborative work. Each
meeting had a variety of tasks to complete – discussion and decisions related
to research had to be made, decisions regarding group function such as task
assignments also took place, some time was spent on professional development,
and the remaining time was used by the group to complete as much work as
possible knowing that once the meeting ended, the responsibilities of everyday
life would return. Between meetings the
directors worked to keep the collaborative informed while the participants had
the primary responsibilities data collection, analysis, and other assigned
tasks. Without the Internet and email, communication could not have been
accomplished. With limited staff support
and participants spread throughout the state, online work became essential for
such tasks as data analysis, presentations and publication.
Project activity as described above broke down into two
funding cycles. For the 1998-2003 portion of the project (instruments and
protocols were developed, tested and rewritten plus the study data were
collected of new teachers) the project funders provided about $340,000. For the 2003-2005 portion of the project (follow-up surveys,
collection of questions to ask the data from end user groups, development of
data matrix and website as well as archiving print material) the Minnesota
Department of Education provided about $............ Note: Tom you and Clark can estimate
this.
Conclusion
The information presented here gives the
reader an overview of what we consider the essential factors needed for a
successful collaborative. Although individual situations will result in
different research questions, methods of funding and combinations of participants,
it is our firm belief that the factors of all three groups (getting started,
motivation, management) must be continually addressed throughout the existence
of the project.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the
encouragement and financial support of SciMathMN, and especially its
then director, Bill Linder-Scholer, during the initial phases of the Teacher
Research Network. We thank the ADC
Foundation and again Bill Linder-Scholer during our transition to phase three. And finally, we thank the Minnesota
Department of Education and especially Beth Aune and Clark Erickson for their
continuing encouragement and financial support.
TRN Membership
George Davis, Minnesota State
University Moorhead
Clark Erickson, Minnesota Department
of Education
Alice Guckin, College of St.
Scholastica
Timothy Harms, Minnesota State
University Moorhead
Lynn Hartshorn, University of St.
Thomas
Michele Koomen, Gustavus Adolphus
College
Robert McClure, St. Olaf College
Luther Qson, College of St.
Scholastica
Melanie Reap, Winona State
University
Gillian Roehrig, University of
Minnesota Twin Cities
Teresa Shume, Minnesota State
University Moorhead
Patricia Simpson, St. Cloud State
University
Thomas Tommet, University of St.
Thomas
Alison Wallace, Minnesota State
University Moorhead
References
Davis, G., Simpson P., Johnson B., &
Wallace A. (2002). Getting to the Fourth
Year: The
instruments and protocols used to study
the practice of beginning K-12 science teachers.
Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Education of
Teachers in
Science,
Charlotte, NC.
Koomen, M., Guckin A., Hartshorn L.,
& Qson L. (2006). Longitudinal study
of beginning
teachers: emerging themes. Paper presented at the annual meeting of
the Association for
Science
Teacher Education, Portland, OR.
Simpson, P., Shume T., & Tonnis D.
(2002). Getting to the Fourth Year:
Preliminary findings
regarding the practice of beginning K-12
science teachers. Paper
presented at the annual
meeting
of the Association for the Education of Teachers in Science, Charlotte, NC.
Simpson, P. & Wallace M. (1995). Transforming Teacher Education: A Minnesota
Framework
for Mathematics and Science. SciMathMN: Roseville, MN.
Wallace, A., Harms T., McClure R., Reap
M., & Shume T. (2006). The TRN
Profile Matrix: an
accessible dataset on beginning math and
science teachers. Paper
presented at the annual
meeting
of the Association for Science Teacher Education, Portland, OR.