Framework and Methods
With this proposed university-school partnership initiative, we seek to build our capacities for ‘learning to teach’ GCE. Beyond collaboration, the teacher-learners in K-12 and teacher education will engage in teacher inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990; Craig, 2009) or action research (Mills, 2018; Whitehead & McNiff, 2006) that emerges from the context of their (hoped for) GCE practices and includes such components as new pedagogical interventions, co-developing curricula, data collection, peer dialogue and reflection. Faculty project members and teacher learners will act as critical friends for each other (Berry & Russell, 2014). Additionally, the faculty project members will help support the teacher learners and teacher educators in teacher research methodologies, narrative inquiry and finding relevant conceptual and curricular resources. K-12 teachers will share their pedagogical insights on GCE to the teacher education classes.
Our project team works together to build the larger teams of participants based on the shared aim of the initiative. Drawing on best practices in cross-domain collaborations and emergent-design research (Tom, 1996), we work collaboratively to support the participants’ ‘opening of portals’ and the planning and operationalizing of their respective GCE collaborations. All team members engage in regular self-reflections about the partnership and their practice. Across the project, our team also supports participants in employing relevant methodologies for supporting their individual projects, from documentation to knowledge mobilization.
