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Title
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Professional Learning through Collaborative Curriculum Design in a Research-Practice Partnership
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Abstract/Description
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The purpose of this dissertation research is to understand the complex processes that unfold during collaborative design of reform-oriented science curriculum materials within the structure of a design-focused research-practice partnership (design-RPP). In particular, this research examines professional learning opportunities for teachers, collaborators, and researchers that are offered within the context of a design-RPP. Research-practice partnerships are becoming a common collaboration model in education, in particular when the goal is the design of curriculum innovations. With this model, partners may be brought together in inter-institutional and cross-practice collaborations known as design-focused research-practice partnerships (design-RPPs) to engage in joint work.
Theoretically, this research draws on sociocultural theories and conceptual frameworks of workplace learning, collaboration, and design processes to investigate how design-RPPs may function as contexts for professional learning. As a design-based research study, this research is concerned with how members of a design team engaged in iterative cycles of co-design, enact, and redesign as they created three curriculum units for high school science courses. Design tensions surfaced in this collaborative work; three tensions are explored in the empirical chapters included in this dissertation.
Methodologically, this research presents a synthesis of relevant literature along with two ethnographic case studies and a design narrative focused on collaborative work practices among the members of a design-RPP over a three year period. The first case study explored the tension of coordinating work across the multiple institutions that made up the design-RPP by centering the experience of a collaborator who took on different roles as the needs of the project and partner institutions shifted. This case showed that there may be a threshold for role fluidity which marks the number or types of roles an individual may be able to productively balance and that role porosity and re-mediations takes opportunity, trust, support, as well as time to develop. The second case study explored the tension of partnering with early-career teachers by focusing on professional learning as reported by a second year science teacher as she engaged in collaborative practices related to the design and enactment of high school biology curricula. This case study suggested that a design-RPP can function as a context for teacher professional learning and the development of multiple forms of expertise by serving as designer setting, in which a teacher’s professional learning pathway includes activity structures and opportunities for learning that are unique to co-design work. The involvement of early-career teachers in intensive design-RPP initiatives needs to be undertaken carefully, with an acknowledgement that special routines and supports may need to be developed. Finally, the design narrative explored the design tension of how to select anchoring phenomenon for a contemporary and authentic project-based learning experience that meets shared goals. This narrative shared the experiences of a design team as they engaged in different activity structures to seek out needed forms of expertise while developing criteria for selecting anchoring phenomenon. Through cycles of knotworking, ad-hoc groups with specific forms of disciplinary, pedagogical, and design expertise and diverse cross-disciplinary expertise came together as needed to develop ideas, provide critical feedback, and engage in design and enactment work. The underlying connections between the members of the collaboration allowed for the design team to expand and contract as needed through the process of developing criteria for phenomenon selection.
Through this research, a new conceptual framework—the Framework for Professional Learning through Design in Partnership—was developed for understanding how professionals learn through collaborative curriculum design activities within the designer setting offered by a design-RPP. This dissertation seeks to contribute an understanding of how professionals learn while engaged in collaborative design of reform-oriented science curriculum materials within the structure of a design-focused research-practice partnership.
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Date
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2019
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Committee
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Bell, Philip
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Jackson, Kara
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Penuel, William
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Thompson, Jessica
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Goering, Sara
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IRE Approach/Concept
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Research Practice Partnership (RPP)
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Language
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English
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Open access/full-text available
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en
Yes
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Peer reviewed
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en
No
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ISBN
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9781392442562
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Citation
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Bergsman, K. C. (2019). Professional Learning through Collaborative Curriculum Design in a Research-Practice Partnership [Ph.D., University of Washington]. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations/docview/2374455034/abstract/AC78DBB94D2E45B4PQ/6
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Place
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United States -- Washington
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Rights
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Database copyright ProQuest LLC; ProQuest does not claim copyright in the individual underlying works.
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Type
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Ph.D.
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