ENHANCING THE PRACTICE OF PHYSICS TEACHERS - MECHANISMS FOR THE GENERATION AND SHARING OF KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING IN COLLABORATIVE ACTION RESEARCH

This article reports on a study of physics teachers engaged in collabo rative action research. The purpose of the study was to examine and id entify ways that teachers' knowledge about teaching and their educatio nal situations grow when they are engaged collaboratively with other t eachers in inquiry on their own practice. Individualist and social con structivist perspectives were used to design the study and to collect and analyze data. Data sources included interviews of the teachers, cl assroom observations, transcripts of the collaborative action research meetings, and teachers' writing. The guiding methodology was naturali stic inquiry, and data were analyzed through the development of ground ed theory to construct coding categories. A case study was written usi ng the analysis. It was found that three mechanisms were used by the t eachers to generate and share knowledge and understanding about their practices. This enhancement of normal practice includes anecdote telli ng, the trying out of ideas, and systematic inquiry. A second finding was that teachers' knowledge and understanding can grow through authen tic being-in-the-world and through enhanced normal practice. The study suggests that if each of the mechanisms of enhanced normal practice i s seen to be a legitimate form of research, then action research can b e embedded in teachers' practice, and can then play an important role in teacher education and the reform of science education.