Crititcal Knowledge Construction Teachers

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The 'dark side of the moon': a critical look at teacher knowledge construction in
collaborative settings
Lily Orland-Barak a; Harm Tillema b
a
University of Haifa, Israel b Leiden University, The Netherlands
Online Publication Date: 01 February 2006
To cite this Article Orland-Barak, Lily and Tillema, Harm(2006)'The 'dark side of the moon': a critical look at teacher knowledge
construction in collaborative settings',Teachers and Teaching,12:1,1 — 12
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Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice,
Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2006, pp. 1–12
Thematic introduction
The ‘dark side of the moon’: a critical

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look at teacher knowledge construction

in collaborative settings
Lily Orland-Barak* and Harm Tillema
University of Haifa, Israel; Leiden University, The Netherlands
10LilyOrland-Barak
12
lilyb@construct.haifa.ac.il
00000December
Teachers
10.1080/13450600500364505
CTAT_A_136433.sgm
1354-0602
Original
Taylor
2006 and
& Article
and
Francis 2005
(print)/1470-1278
Francis
Teaching:
Ltd theory(online)
and practice
Over the last two decades or so teacher knowledge construction has gained a
prominent place in the research literature of teaching and teacher education, as well
as in the design of pre-service and professional development programmes. The vast
majority of research programmes have focused on first person accounts of the chal-
lenges, affordances and assets of doing collaborative teacher research, as well as on
the barriers, impediments and confusions that teacher researchers face ‘on the way’.
However, of central concern is what conditions in the collaborative process play out
in collaborative teacher research and knowledge construction to transform it into a
professional learning experience. Drawing on five enquiry study groups this issue
attends to critical aspects in the co-construction of knowledge in teacher enquiry
groups. The five contributors to this issue focus on the different ‘sides’ of knowledge
construction, as shaped by the unique contexts within which their enquiry groups
were situated.
Conversation and dialogue are at the core of knowledge construction. Michal
Zellermayer and Edith Tabak’s study, ‘Knowledge construction in a teachers’
*Corresponding authors. Lily Orland-Barak, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905,
Israel. E-mail: lilyb@construct.haifa.ac.il; Harm Tillema, Department of Education, Leiden
University, PO Box 9555, NL 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands. E-mail: tillema@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
ISSN 1354-0602 (print)/ISSN 1470-1278 (online)/06/010001–12

© 2006 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13450600500364505
2 L. Orland-Barak and H. Tillema
community of inquiry: a possible road map’, is situated within the context of a part-
nership established between their teacher education college and several elementary
schools in the vicinity. The goal for this partnership was to construct a community of
enquiry for in-service and pre-service teachers, as well as for their clinical supervisors.
Their role as partnership research facilitators was to move them towards a collabora-
tively designed study that they choose and to empower them by involving them fully
in negotiating its aims and methods.
They describe work with members of the community to create a relationship of
mutuality between their research and that of the others. How the cycles of study were
connected to the changes that took place in the teachers’ perspectives on knowledge
and knowing and to their conceptions of teaching and learning is shown. Further-
more, the authors demonstrate that teachers’ perspectives on knowledge, teaching

and learning were closely related to their understanding of relationships and related-
ness and to their notion of agency and identity.
In her study ‘Convergent, divergent and parallel dialogues: knowledge construc-
tion in professional conversations’ Lily Orland-Barak focuses on the process by which
teachers collectively and individually construct professional knowledge in profes-
sional conversations. In particular, the question of how forms of participation operate
to mediate meanings in conversation should be central to our understanding of the
contribution of major reform efforts in teacher education to engage practitioners in
more communicative practices, situated in their unique social-professional contexts.
The extant research literature on knowledge construction and professional conversa-
tion has provided important insights into the conditions that sustain professional
conversation frameworks, on the outcomes for professional learning and on the
process and content of teachers’ conversational learning. This study adds to this
growing body of research to further understand how such conversations, viewed as
social contexts for the co-construction of meaning, actually operate ‘in action’ and
can constitute opportunities for learning in the situated context within which they
occur.
Drawing on data from seven monthly conversations conducted in the context
of an in-service professional conversation framework for the mentoring of
mentors, the study explored the dynamics of mentors’ conversations and their
potential for constituting opportunities for learning. Analysis of the conversations
identified three different forms of dialogue that operated ‘in action’: ‘convergent
dialogue’, ‘parallel dialogue’ and ‘divergent dialogue’. The study highlights three
fundamental points about professional conversations in relation to these notions.
One, that in any one conversation we can identify various forms of dialogue, each
of which can be potentially valuable for examining either instrumental or concep-
tual aspects of professional practice. All three forms of dialogue appear to provide
valuable opportunities for co-constructing different kinds of understandings about
practice. Two, that divergent and parallel dialogues can constitute important
opportunities for learning because they prompt a discourse in which professionals
expose, scrutinize and contest deeply ingrained assumptions about their practice.
Three, the critical role that the facilitator plays in being attentive to the competing
Teacher knowledge construction 3
discourses that emerge in conversation and how these shape its development into
either convergent, divergent or parallel dialogues.
The interventional nature of collaboration is under scrutiny in the study by Harm
Tillema and Gert van der Westhuizen on ‘Knowledge construction in collaborative
enquiry among teachers’. Their main question is ‘Does active, collaborative and
enquiry-oriented activity of teachers lead to knowledge productivity’, i.e. to an
increase in the capability of producing knowledge for practice? A study team
approach was used to organize teachers’ learning collaboratively (self-regulation) by
studying an issue from different professional perspectives (cognitive flexibility) and
by sharing existing knowledge and beliefs while working towards new knowledge
and understanding (conceptual change). This study groups approach was adopted
by teachers working together as colleagues in a team to become more knowledge

productive learners in their work environment. The outcome of the process was
evaluated using three criteria set by the teachers: (a) raising knowledge and under-
standing; (b) shifting individual perspectives; (c) utility of practical outcomes. Eval-
uation of their learning processes reveals insights into teachers’ acceptance of the
study team (i.e. collaborative) outcomes, especially their initial’ (un)easiness and
(un)certainties about using this approach, as well as the conditions to be met in
practising it as a learning tool compared with other learning tools for professional
learning.
A concern for the impact and sharing of knowledge construction outside the
collaborative setting is present in the paper by Frances Rust and Ellen Meyers on
‘The bright side: teacher research in the context of educational reform and
policy-making’. While there is a growing body of research by teachers about life
in the classroom and an abundance of research about teachers, their worlds and
their work, teacher research, i.e. research done by teachers that focuses on their
classrooms and schools, has not made its way into the discourse about and
formulation of educational policy. In part this is due to bias within the research
community itself about the legitimacy of teacher research; in part it is due to the fact
that teachers have not positioned themselves as critical stakeholders in the educa-
tional policy debate. Efforts to address the issue of legitimacy have resulted in the
proliferation of ‘spots’ for teachers’ work in journals and research conferences, but
these tend to be settings in which teacher researchers are essentially ‘preaching to the
choir’. Where teacher research has made its way into scholarship, it has done so by
and large as the focus of academic research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1992;
Clandinin & Connelly, 1994) rather than on its own merits as legitimate study in
response to a critical question. Thus the absence of teacher research as an influential
strand in the educational policy debate is hardly surprising. This paper draws from a
unique set of 120 action research studies completed over the past 6 years by a coali-
tion of teachers across the USA who are fellows in the Teachers Network Policy
Institute. While this work is collaborative in the sense that groups of teachers come
together in local settings to share their enquiries and to support one another, they are
not bound by either their local or the national organization to focus their research on
any one topic. Still, we have found that the research of those teachers who are
focusing on their own practice or on processes in their schools inevitably devolves to

a focus on one of the following areas: school organization and governance, the profes-
sional development of teachers, including pre-service teacher education, instruction
and curriculum development, and assessment of teaching and learning. The paper
focuses on the issues that confront enquiry-oriented teachers as they seek to better
understand their interactions with learners and as they attempt to translate their find-
ings into data that can shape educational policy-making.
A still wider perspective is endorsed by Bridget Somekh. Her paper on ‘Devel-
oping intercultural knowledge and understanding through collaborative action
research’ opens with an exploration of the process of ‘going into’ ideas and theo-
ries through the construction of a text. This encapsulation and communication of
knowledge through writing is embodied in the metaphor of the chameleon that, in

the word’s of Hamlet ‘eat(s) the air, promise-crammed’. The paper then goes on
to examine the process of knowledge production and intercultural learning in a
European funded action research network, Management for Organisational and
Human Development (MOHD), which the author directed in the mid 1990s.
MOHD involved partners in Austria, England, Scotland, Spain and Italy.
Researchers from Australia, Canada and the USA made significant contributions
to its work during periods of study leave. Over a 2-year period, research activities
included a dozen or so projects with teachers in all phases of education carried out
locally, addressing local needs within the overarching research question of the
project: ‘In what ways can individuals, regardless of their formal position in the
hierarchy, learn to understand their own power and make a conscious contribution
to organizational development?’ The paper addresses key issues such as: knowl-
edge production in action research through personal, dialogic learning; the socio-
cultural formation of knowledge in a multi-site, international, research network;
the role of individual identity and knowledge construction in building learning
organizations; the integration of intellectual and theoretical engagement in the
praxis of action research.
The purpose of this issue is to draw attention to some uncovered and unattented
and sometimes even neglected aspects of creating knowledge together. Collaborative
inquiry of teachers into their work and professional lives has, over the last two
decades, been advocated as a way of re-valuing teachers’ positions in educational
practice and of developing their professional identity (Darling Hammond &
McLaughlin, 1996; Cobb et al., 2003). Nonetheless, so runs the argument in this
issue, it is not devoid of difficulties and drawbacks.
By attending to the ‘dark side’ of collaborative enquiry we do not necessarily
imply a recounting of unsuccessful experiences with teacher enquiry. As the
papers in this issue may show, raising a critical voice prompts us to consider
concerns and tensions, as well as to delineate the bright side of informed partic-
ipation in a community of inquiry (Farr-Darling, 2002). In doing so we can scaf-
fold this form of exploratory learning (Castells, 2000), learn about its ‘Janus
headed nature’ and, consequently, form a more comprehensive portrayal of how
teacher development can be initiated and supported. The collective papers, each
in its own way, add to this portrayal, exhibiting a fair balance between the pros
and cons of concerted study and teacher collaboration.
The main undertaking of collaborative enquiry and study is the co-construction of
knowledge, whereby local or implicit knowledge in teaching is made explicit (Feiman-
Nemser & Beardsley, 1997). It has been advocated as a route in teacher research
(Cochran Smith & Lytle, 1998) for a number of reasons, such as linking knowledge
generation to the workplace, exchange of (practical) ideas and solutions among peers,
enhancement of teacher participation in enquiry and of a dynamics of knowing in
teaching (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1994; Hofer & Pintrich, 2002; Mason, 2003). In this
vein, the co-construction of knowledge can be looked upon as a prime route to build-
ing and sharing a knowledge base produced by teachers themselves, as well as a means
towards self-directed professional development (Loughran, 2003). In particular, its

features of partnership and joint collegiality are regarded as a strongpoint, not only to
help teachers to recognize, interpret and respond to the challenges of their practice,
but also to transform their work in the context of educational reform (Rust & Meyers,
2006; Hargreaves, 1997). This concerted kind of teacher research, therefore, offers
new ways of seeing, being and acting in the professional world of teachers; emanci-
pating them from the mere application of externally generated knowledge to their
classrooms.
A number of basic issues running as common threads through the different
papers may be of help to warrant whether or not participation in a community of
enquiry really endorses and supports professional learning. We need to ask, for exam-
ple, whether collaborative study and enquiry really induces learning and development
of teaching practices and not just reifies existing cultural artifacts and common prac-
tices. With this question in mind, we focus our introduction on issues of learning,
knowledge and knowing, as brought to the fore by the various collaborative enquiry
studies.
Learning as a result of collaborative enquiry

A first concern identified in the collected papers, and a serious question to be
raised in collaborative knowledge construction in general, is: ‘Has learning been
the result of working together?’ The teacher groups studied in the papers in this
issue indeed provide testimony that learning has occurred, although each in a vari-
ety of ways and probably with quite disparate and unforeseen outcomes. Despite
these differences, however, the kind of learning alluded to in all the studies may be
understood as raising a situational understanding of one’s teaching and providing
illuminative insights into one’s personal beliefs and orientations (as is, for instance,
evident in Zellermayer & Tabak’s paper and also present in the examples put
forward by Rust & Meyers). As a result of participation in enquiry, Zellermayer
and Tabak noted that teachers changed in their perspectives on knowledge and
knowing, specifically as related to their understanding of relatedness and personal
agency, which eventually helped these teachers/mentors to engage in partnerships
with others. The co-construction of knowledge strengthened their involvement in
the process and their ability to negotiate meaning and make informed choices.
Learning to participate, therefore, gave way to a more informed and professionally
accepted stance in studying a problem. Somekhs’ paper makes this clear by stress-
ing how the collaborative process of knowledge construction moved between the
personal and the public, encompassing political issues of power and control both
within the participants’ organizations and the team itself. Orland-Barak’s paper
adds to this idea by showing how conversation supported mentors in building
frameworks for understanding, and created spaces to discuss and elaborate initial
understandings. It could be contended that these outcomes can contribute to peda-
gogical thinking and problem-solving that is authentic and directed to the individ-
ual teachers’ context. Having stated this, however, the study by Tillema and van
der Westhuizen warns us of an overly positive evaluation of jointly constructed

knowledge, pointing to the fragility of outcomes that can be shared and distributed.
For example, knowledge productivity (one of the criteria for learning in their
paper) was often not reached by groups working collaboratively. They contend that
at least three conditions need to be fulfilled in order for collaborative learning
processes to be ‘knowledge productive’: the presence of a shared problem under-
standing, a willingness to change one’s perspectives and a commitment to partici-
pate in the dynamics of the group. In a way, these conditions coincide with Lave
and Wenger’s characteristics of a community of practice (Wenger et al., 2002): a
focus on shared interests, engagement in joint activities and development of a
shared repertoire of resources (experiences, stories, tools, ways to address recurrent
problems). Thus, shared practice seems to be, indeed, a crucial ground for devel-
oping knowledge. Cohen et al. (2002) claimed that groups learn as a result of
discussions and the creation of group products, a claim which correlates with the
notion of creating conceptual artifacts (Bereiter, 2002; Tillema & van der Westhui-
zen, 2006). Learning, in the context of Tillema and van der Westhuizen’s study,
was not a matter of sharing relevant academic knowledge but rather of reciprocal
exchange of ideas and practices, brought about by participants’ willingness to be
self-critical about what the group was creating.
The nature and dynamics of collaboration for knowledge construction

The question of whether groups can learn can also be restated: ‘Does co-
construction of the knowledge of teachers (by engaging in the activity itself) create
adequate opportunities for learning in the workplace?’, i.e. does it become easier for
teachers to make connections to one another as colleagues, to construct useful
knowledge for their regular work and take part in debates at a time and a pace that
is suited to them. Most of the groups studied in the papers in this issue were exter-
nally initiated, self-organizing and self-governing groups that shared a temporary
common goal and interest, which, although connected to it, did not necessarily
emerge out of their regular work. These voluntary groups, of an informal and
topical nature, were often not long lasting (even in the case of Rust and Meyers
they were not conducted on a regular basis or school based). Yet, as the studies
show, they were extremely resilient learning places (in the sense that their members
partook and contributed intensely and vividly, as long as interests and issues
coincided and did not drift apart). Their relative loose embedding in the school
context, however, may also mean that members may stop contributing when they
no longer perceive an added value, or they may withhold participation when new
areas and problems emerge or when the group dynamics dissipate over time.
Somekh’s study raises the issue of the potentially destructive tensions of
collaboration, when partners engage in an endeavour which is assumed to have
shared purposes and to be underpinned by shared values, while in fact their
different life experiences and professional biographies often make it inevitable
that they will come up against major differences in each other’s working practices
and assumptions.
A real difficulty in knowledge construction, then, lies in the upholding of a self-
sustaining and school-related learning environment, not rid of the natural work
context of teachers or distanced from the natural classroom context. Otherwise,
knowledge construction in cooperating groups will lack continuity and progression
in discourse. The study by Rust and Meyers is of special interest in this respect,
because it shows that a group’s existence can be maintained over a longer period
of time without being a formally created group. Indeed, knowledge construction
occurred in those networks that purposely came together from dispersed local
settings to share their interests. In such cases, however, one needs to be aware of
the threats to cohesion and sharing. The other papers deal explicitly with formats
for knowledge development in real, existing groups, i.e. the study team approach
by Tillema and van der Westhuizen, the three professional conversation types in
the Orland-Barak study and Zellermayer and Tabak’s approach to partnership.
Self-organization may be a strong incentive for groups to maintain their learning as
long as the common goals and aims are shared. Sponsored or self-instantiated
groups, however, may show a very different kind of dynamics (Kelleher, 2003)
from regular school-based groups, since their outcomes do not necessarily contrib-
ute directly to the school as organization and the teacher’s work context. It seems,
therefore, important to take into account the resources and contextualization of
collaborative knowledge construction which could influence the potential and rele-
vance of the group as well as its individual efforts to learn in quite different ways.
The way groups initiate may affect the way in which a community of learners
develops.
Forms of intervention and knowledge construction

A third question or concern with regard to knowledge and knowing in collaborative
enquiry would be how (different) forms of intervention mediate meaning and
understanding. The papers in this issue seem to offer a single answer, one which
supports extant views on the co-construction of knowledge (Cobb et al., 2003:
Loughran, 2003): through study and enquiry conducted by teachers themselves.
The studies add evidence to support the claim that the ‘telling’ strategy,
characteristic of an objectivist stance on knowledge construction (see Hofer &

Pintrich, 2002), has now been exchanged for a constructivist stance, which views
professional knowledge and knowing as being recreated and rebuilt by those
directly involved in the teaching context. According to this position, knowledge is
situated and embedded and needs to be accredited as an ‘epistemology of practice’
in its own right (Cobb et al., 2003). In this vein, thought and action are regarded
as framed, shaped and scaffolded by the setting and social context within which
they originate and within which learning takes place. This contextualist and inter-
ventionalist assumption is quite explicit in the work of Zellermayer and Tabak and
Tillema and van der Westhuizen. They address the proliferation of setting and
spaces in which teachers operate, extract and reshape meanings. In other words,
the intervention constitutes a vehicle for creating a situational understanding of

practice. Supporting each other in a collaborative setting aligned with a specifically
chosen intervention might even prove to be a decisive scaffold for exploratory
learning.
Different forms of intervention (namely Rust and Meyers’, Somekh’s and the
different types of dialogue in Orland-Barak) might, indeed, have different effects. A
common feature of the studies in this issue pertains to the set-up of engagement in
the collaborative sessions: they were all organized around participants’ expressed
needs and common concerns and developed into enquiry-oriented processes around
those issues of common interest. In the process, participants were granted maxi-
mum freedom to arrive at idiosyncratic understandings and, at the same time, to
frame common understandings that emerged from the process of joint exploration.
However, on a deeper level the papers show marked differences in how different
types of intervention can lead to the construction of meaning. The study by Orland-
Barak focuses on free conversation and dialogue as forms of intervention, leading
participants to unique interpretations of their roles and practices as mentors,
whereas Zellermayer and Tabak use a guided intervention approach that leads to
changes in teachers’ understanding of and perspective on their practice. Rust and
Meyers base their study on written reports, showing how this form of intervention
can inform practice and policy. Tillema and van der Westhuizen, however, focus on
the use of three specifically designed cases to focus on the outcomes of collaborative
research.
One may argue, however, that differences in types of intervention do not constitute
a major issue in the co-construction of knowledge. As we well know, there are many
variants that determine the kind of intervention that can best support collaborative
enquiry, depending on one’s aims, methods and the group’s characteristics. What
seems to be important from the collected papers, however, is the merging or combi-
nation of activities that characterize a particular form of intervention, for instance as
made explicit in the paper by Tillema and van der Westhuizen. In most cases it
comprises the following ingredients: (a) reflection or explication of beliefs; (b) study
or enquiry (collaborative or jointly) of a common concern, (c) sharing or bringing
together the results in order to scrutinize existing knowledge and gain new under-
standings.
Local or distributed knowledge in collaborative enquiry

A related but no less crucial question in collaborative knowledge construction
evident in the papers in this issue is whether the knowledge constructed is, by
nature, only local and inherently personal or whether it can be generalized (i.e. is
there a possibility for social, public knowledge represented by shared criteria). If
knowledge is regarded as something ‘in the mind’ (Bereiter, 2002), i.e. as objects
or packages known to one person only, then it becomes hard to share this knowl-
edge due to idiosyncratic differences in beliefs, orientations and perspectives. This
position is often reflected in ultimate constructivist approaches. However, if knowl-
edge is regarded as embedded in contexts and as inherently situational (Wenger
et al., 2002), i.e. it needs to be built by collaborative action in a context (or co-
constructed), then it may be distributed, shared and accepted by others as well.

Such a situated, jointly constructed view of cognition locates knowledge construc-
tion processes in the actions of persons, provoked by their activities in a context
(the contextualist stance, advocated by Lave and others; Edwards et al., 2002).
The studies in this issue seem to display a diversity of positions with regard to the
local and shared nature of knowledge construction. For example, the studies by
Orland-Barak and Zellermayer and Tabak point to knowledge construction in the
deep sense of gaining situational understandings through conversation (as an aim
in itself), while the studies by Rust and Meyers, Somekh and Tillema and van der
Westhuizen envisage collaborative inquiry and study as a way of enhancing individ-
ual as well as collaborative knowledge, aimed at change in the context of one’s
practice (as a means). These two views combine in Bereiter’s (2002) comment
about the way in which situational understanding is gained: ‘Through continuous
debate and exchange leading, eventually, to change in thinking and action, both at
individual and contextual levels of practice’. A similar position was put forward by
Edwards et al. (2002), who proposed the concept of informed participation in a
community of practice: ‘Through successive participation in a community of prac-
tice a person becomes better informed to act in ways which are suited and
accepted by that community’. A community of enquiry can, thus, beyond being
simply a community of practice, multiply the process of sharing and constructing
knowledge.
Mutuality in knowledge construction

How then, it could be asked, would reciprocity or mutuality in a community of
practice be of help in knowledge construction? The distinction between conver-
gent, divergent and parallel dialogue put forward by Orland-Barak may illumi-
nate this issue. Dialogue between peers can be conducive to the development of
more internally held discourses. It is the mutual nature of collaboration amongst
professionals which can allow the scrutiny, exposure and contextualization of
deeply ingrained assumptions and beliefs about practice (see also Somekh’s and
Rust and Meyers’ papers). Individual chains of thought can be broken open,
allowing others to join in and yield a multiplicity of voices. This sense-making in joint
action could very well turn out to be a strength but also a weak spot of collaborative
knowledge construction: The degree of mutuality and reciprocity required to arrive
at joint meanings may both be a threat to a person as well as an invitation to share
and explicate personal knowledge. The pressure put upon a person to share experi-
ences in a self-organizing group can be pertinent as long as it adds value for that
person and is free of power exerted on that person to contribute. In Somekh’s
MOHD project, for example, mutuality was reflected in the ability of participants to
challenge understandings across different national cultures in a non-threatening
atmosphere.
Collaborative enquiry always supposes an exploration of one’s own thinking in
a non-threatening way. However, close interrelatedness amongst participants

may also create escape mechanisms in complying with knowledge claims by
others and power relations in the group which will not bring forward change in
an individual’s beliefs or action, certainly not a lasting one outside the realm of
the group. Tolerance of different identities, mutual access to resources and
equality in exchange are important ‘ingredients’ of knowledge construction, as
Zellermayer and Tabak and Somekh show. Personal development alongside
open relations, coexisting in careful balance, seem to be important conditions for
the co-construction of knowledge.
How, then, do the different forms that mutuality and reciprocity take in the
papers contribute to knowledge construction? Zellermayer and Tabak’s paper
highlights the interrelatedness between personal identity and participation.
Becoming a participant in a conversation is triggered both by self-regulation and
by the groups’ decision to allow participation. In the process, participants immerse
themselves in different situations which may serve as a leverage for them. This
finding, combined with the study by Orland-Barak, points to the utility of distin-
guishing between diverse forms of conversations, since they provide different
opportunities for co-constructing unique understandings about practice.
Process and product in collaborative enquiry

From a more global perspective, it seems that the papers in this issue argue for two
apparently different ‘tracks’ in collaborative enquiry: one focusing on process and one
focusing on product. The ‘process track’ stresses the dynamics of knowledge, as it
changes and evolves throughout the enquiry, while the ‘product track’ seems to focus
on the implication of collaborative activity (the interventions) for understanding and
knowledge building. The papers by Tillema and van der Westhuizen, Somekh and
Rust and Meyers, particularly, are concerned with the conditions that yield certain
outcomes in collaborative knowledge building, either at the group or individual level,
and seek to determine their impact on innovation and reform. Other papers, for
instance that of Orland-Barak, focus the process of gaining understanding through
professional dialogue. Although different in orientation, these two ‘tracks’ seem to
merge when considering how collaborative activity gives leverage to a community of
enquiry. The process track may help to codify and disclose how knowledge is
constructed by professionals and how it is made accessible to them, whilst the product
track helps us to focus on the connections between the knowledge generated, their
sources and their applications.
As such, the combined insights offered by the two tracks, as made obvious by these
studies, may help to establish the supportive elements, i.e. the brighter side, in the co-
construction of the knowledge of teachers. The studies in this issue point to at least
some of them. Firstly, creating reciprocity and interdependence amongst participants
through informed exchange and progressive dialogue. Secondly, creating and gener-
ating knowledge that emerges from active participation in conversational enquiry may
balance different (dis)positions. Every voice is worth hearing, since it may contribute
either by adding knowledge or by scrutinizing and exposing critical knowledge. Each

individual contribution has an equal right and inherent value, stemming from an
intentional orientation to contribute and add to the co-construction of knowledge.
The group process, in turn, might contribute to identity formation of each of its
participants, by acknowledging the multiple voices foregrounded. The valuing of
multiple perspectives seems to be an important constituent of knowledge construc-
tion, because shifting between viewpoints and studying from different angles might
better ground the knowledge gained and cultivate what Christopher Clark (1995)
referred to as ‘thoughtful teaching’.
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The ‘dark side of the moon’: a critical

look at teacher knowledge construction

ISSN 1354-0602 (print)/ISSN 1470-1278 (online)/06/010001–12

more, the authors demonstrate that teachers’ perspectives on knowledge, teaching

by teachers working together as colleagues in a team to become more knowledge

focusing on their own practice or on processes in their schools inevitably devolves to

knowledge through writing is embodied in the metaphor of the chameleon that, in

towards self-directed professional development (Loughran, 2003). In particular, its

Learning as a result of collaborative enquiry

der Westhuizen warns us of an overly positive evaluation of jointly constructed

The nature and dynamics of collaboration for knowledge construction

Forms of intervention and knowledge construction

characteristic of an objectivist stance on knowledge construction (see Hofer &

the intervention constitutes a vehicle for creating a situational understanding of

Local or distributed knowledge in collaborative enquiry

constructed), then it may be distributed, shared and accepted by others as well.

Mutuality in knowledge construction

a non-threatening way. However, close interrelatedness amongst participants

Process and product in collaborative enquiry

either by adding knowledge or by scrutinizing and exposing critical knowledge. Each

nization Science, 5(1), 84–103.

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