Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220

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Teaching and Teacher Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

Collaborative inquiry in teacher professional development

Deborah L. Butler a, *, Leyton Schnellert b
a
Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, 2125 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4
b
Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, EME3115-3333 University Way, Kelowna, BC, Canada, V1V 1V7

h i g h l i g h t s

< Relationships within a community of inquiry are varied and complex.

< Teachers’ collaborative inquiry can be conceptualized as forms of co-regulation.
< Teachers’ inquiry has the potential to foster meaningful shifts in practice.
< Benefits arise from nesting practice-level inquiry within cycles of self- and co-regulated learning.
< Inquiry-oriented approaches to professional development can support systemic change.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This article presents an in-depth case study of a complex community of inquiry. In this community,
Received 6 February 2012 teachers worked collaboratively to build from situated assessments of students’ learning through reading
Received in revised form to refine and monitor practices designed to enhance student learning in their subject-area classrooms. In
18 June 2012
this report, we present evidence to address three questions: (1) What did inquiry look like within this
Accepted 30 July 2012
community?; (2) How was collaboration implicated in teachers’ inquiry?; and (3) How was engagement
in inquiry related to meaningful shifts in teachers’ practice and learning? This research contributes by
Keywords:
uncovering important links between teacher inquiry, collaboration, and educational change.
Professional development
Inquiry
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Collaboration
Self-regulation
Co-regulation
Formative assessment
Community of inquiry
Educational change

Albeit from varying perspectives, multiple stakeholders call for
teacher professional development as a means of fostering and/or
enacting educational change (Borko, 2004; Cochran-Smith & Fries,
2005; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Darling-Hammond, 1996,
2000; Little, 2001; Timperley & Phillips, 2003; Zeichner & Noffke,
2001). But tensions often arise between stakeholders with
varying roles, rooted in conflicting assumptions about where to
locate accountability, the nature of teaching as a profession, or the
role of professional development in effecting change (e.g., Earl,
1999; Fitz, 2003; Møller, 2009). For example, it is increasingly
prevalent to ask schools and districts to develop improvement
plans that require uptake of certain practices and/or tracking
outcomes using large-scale assessment data, particularly when it
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 604 822 0242; fax: þ1 604 822 3302.
E-mail address: deborah.butler@ubc.ca (D.L. Butler).
appears that systemic improvements are needed. In contrast, critics
of such “top-down” initiatives suggest they lack sensitivity to local
contexts, fail to capitalize on the local knowledge generated within
and by school communities, and undermine or underestimate the
necessary role of teachers as contextualized decision makers
(Barnett, 2004; Borko, 2004; Guskey, 2002; Robertson, Hill, & Earl,
2004; Tierney, 2006). Nonetheless, across perspectives, it appears
that stakeholders share: (a) a fundamental commitment to
improving outcomes for students, and (b) an emerging recognition
that, to make a difference, change must be meaningfully situated
and sustained at the classroom level (e.g., Hopkins & Levin, 2000).
Thus, it is not surprising that emerging professional develop-
ment models position teachers centrally in change efforts. These
models often suggest that meaningful, sustained changes in class-
rooms are fostered by engaging teachers jointly in locally situated,
inquiry-based, longitudinal, and critical examinations of practice
(e.g., Carpenter, Fennema, & Franke, 1996; Horn & Little, 2010;

0742-051X/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2012.07.009
 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220
Loughran, 2002; Luna et al., 2004; Morrell, 2004; Schnellert, Butler,
& Higginson, 2008). Further, an emphasis is often placed on the
benefits of collaboration within a community of inquiry for sup-
porting teachers’ learning and practice revision (Cochran-Smith &
Lytle, 2004; Guskey, 2000; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006; Morrell,
2004; Robertson, 2000).
Given these emerging trends, research is needed to clarify how
collaborative, inquiry-oriented professional learning communities
might contribute to educational change efforts. To that end, this
research examined links between teacher professional develop-
ment, inquiry processes, collaboration, and practice change.
Specifically, we explored three interconnected research questions:
(1) What did inquiry look like within an authentic community of
inquiry?; (2) How was collaboration implicated in teachers’
inquiry?; and (3) How was engagement in inquiry related to
meaningful shifts in teachers’ practice and learning?
1. Inquiry processes within professional development
Emerging professional development models engage teachers in
inquiry as a means of promoting shifts in practice and teacher devel-
opment (Ball, 2009; Campbell, McNamara, & Gilroy, 2004; Cole &
Knowles, 2000; Loughran, 2002). These models build from concep-
tions of teaching as requiring, not application of scripted routines, but
rather contextualized decision-making that instantiates pedagogical
principles and practices to best meet students’ needs within particular
classrooms (Ball, 2009; Borko, 2004; Butler, Novak Lauscher, Jarvis-
Selinger, & Beckingham, 2004; McIntyre, 2005; Palincsar, 1999).
Rather than relying on one-shot workshops to enhance skills, these
initiatives create opportunities for teachers to draw on resources (i.e.,
from practice, peers, readings) to inform sustained inquiry and
reflection-on-action as a means for spurring teacher learning (Cochran-
Smith & Lytle, 2004; Hobson, 2001; Horn & Little, 2010; Witterholt,
Goedhart, Suhre, & van Streun, 2012). This study adds to prior
research by considering how teacher professional learning and practice
change might be fostered within a community of inquiry (Campbell
et al., 2004; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Dillon, O’Brien, & Heilman,
2000).
Fig. 1. Multiple layers of inquiry.
1207
To that end, we drew from the research literature and our past
work (see Butler et al., 2004; Schnellert et al., 2008) to construct
a multi-layered representation of teachers’ engagement in inquiry
cycles (see Fig. 1). To develop this framework, we integrated
conceptions of inquiry offered across literatures. For example, while
teachers’ inquiry has been associated with activities ranging from
reflective teaching to more formalized research (see McLaughlin,
Black-Hawkins, & McIntyre, 2004), common across discussions is
what Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1990) describe as “systematic,
intentional studies by teachers of their own classroom practice” (p.
2). For example, Lewison (2003) characterizes teachers as engaged
in framing problems from new perspectives, considering research
and evidence to generate solutions, and trying out and evaluating
ideas. Joyce and Showers (2002) describe iterative cycles wherein
teachers learn through experimenting and reflecting on new
teaching strategies. Common across frameworks are descriptions of
teachers engaging in problem-defining, action-oriented, reflective,
and iterative cycles. Our model of teacher inquiry is consistent with
these descriptions.
Our conceptualization of inquiry is also informed by a socio-
constructivist model of self-regulated learning (e.g., see Butler &
Cartier, 2004; Cartier & Butler, 2004; Paris, Byrnes, & Paris, 2001).
Parallel to definitions of “inquiry,” self-regulation constitutes
a recursive cycle of goal-directed, strategic activities that include
defining problems or expectations, setting goals, selecting, adapting,
or inventing task appropriate strategies, self-monitoring outcomes,
and revising goals or approaches to better achieve desired outcomes
(Butler & Winne, 1995; Winne & Hadwin, 1998; Zimmerman &
Schunk, 2001). Most frequently models of self-regulation have
been applied to describe students’ engagement in academic work.
But, like just a few others (e.g., Kremer-Hayon & Tillema, 1999), we
extend a model of self-regulation to consider teachers’ engagements
in practice and professional learning (Butler et al., 2004; Schnellert et
al., 2008). We have found this model particularly useful in charac-
terizing how teachers might engage in iterative cycles of knowledge
generation, through which they coordinate tacit and more explicit
forms of knowledge (see Hargreaves, 1999).
1208 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220
At the heart of our model (see Fig. 1) is attention to fostering
students’ active, self-regulation. When focused on student learning,
models of self-regulation have been applied to better understand
students’ strategic engagement (i.e., learning how to learn) when
faced with the demands of academic work (e.g., see Butler, 1998,
2002a; Zimmerman and Schunk, 2001). Note that, in this study,
teachers’ common goal was to support adolescents’ self-regulated
learning through reading (LTR) in subject-area classrooms (see
Cartier, 2000; Lewis, 2007; Lindberg, 2003; Moje, 2007; Shanahan
& Shanahan, 2008). We traced how teachers worked alone and/or
jointly to foster students’ self-regulated LTR as contextualized
within classrooms.
Correspondingly, this report focuses most centrally on the
second layer of inquiry represented in our model (see Fig. 1), which
we have labeled “practice-level” inquiry. Here we interpret that
teachers self-regulate practice when they identify instructional
goals for students (e.g., to draw inferences while LTR), access
external resources to inform their work (e.g., research reports;
other teachers’ ideas), plan approaches for achieving goals (e.g., an
activity, instruction, assessment), define and collect indicators of
progress, monitor and reflect on outcomes in relation to goals, and
adjust practices responsively. Inquiry processes are more iterative
and less linear than depicted here (Winne & Hadwin, 1998).
Nonetheless, in broad terms practice-level inquiry can be concep-
tualized as teachers’ recursive engagement in planning, enacting,
monitoring, and revising practices in order to achieve valued goals
for students. Ideally teachers adopt an inquiry stance on an on-
going basis within and across classes, linking action and reflec-
tion (Marcos & Tillema, 2006). Also ideal is for teachers to integrate
research and resources into practice in ways that productively
inform their work (Bromme & Tillema, 1995; Simmons, Kuykendall,
King, Cornachione, & Kame'enui, 2000).
Finally, even if teachers learn a great deal in and through
practice-level inquiry, their learning may be enhanced if they also
deliberately focus attention on knowledge generation, at least for
themselves, if not for a broader public (Hargreaves, 1999;
McLaughlin et al., 2004). As is represented in the outermost layer of
our model, teachers may self-regulate their own learning (i.e., in
“teacher-learning” focused inquiry) when they identify goals for
their own development (e.g., to learn more about LTR), access
resources to inform their thinking (e.g., research, professional
journals, colleagues), plan strategies for advancing their knowledge
(e.g., create a study group), monitor their learning, and make
adjustments as needed. Our model suggests that teachers’ profes-
sional development is enhanced when practice-level inquiry is
nested within cycles of deliberate, self-regulated attempts to
advance their own learning.
Thus, as a foundation for this research we drew heavily on
models of self-regulation, descriptions of “inquiry” from across
fields of study, and findings from our previous empirical research to
conceptualize important relationships between three layers of
inquiry. We were attentive to teachers’ ultimate goal, which was to
foster students’ learning (here their self-regulated LTR). Then, to
address the first of our three research questions (i.e., What did
inquiry look like within this community of inquiry?), we focused
attention on whether and how teachers engaged in dynamic cycles
of practice and/or teacher-level inquiry.
2. Collaboration as supportive of inquiry
Our second research question focused on how collaboration
might be implicated in teachers’ engagement in inquiry. Many
researchers have described why collaboration within a community
of inquiry might be beneficial to teachers’ professional practice and
learning (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2004; Guskey, 2000; Hopkins,
2000; McLaughlin et al., 2004; Morrell, 2004; Robertson, 2000;
Schnellert, 2011). For example, in his analysis of five systemic
change initiatives across countries, Hopkins (2000) listed benefits
of establishing networks as breaking down isolation, enabling
collaborative professional learning, finding joint solutions to shared
problems, exchanging practice, knowledge and expertise, and
fostering school improvement. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999)
contend that the social structure of a group adopting an inquiry
stance helps teachers persevere in the exploration and application
of new ideas. Van Horn (2006) suggests that, when teachers have
opportunities to collaboratively solve problems and have access to
rich resources, they are more likely to take risks, sustain attempts to
make change, and develop, adapt and/or apply approaches
designed to support students in their classrooms.
But additional research is needed into what collaboration looks
like within an intact inquiry community. To add to the extant
literature, we conceptualized teachers’ collaboration as forms of co-
regulation (see Hadwin & Järvelä, 2011; Meyer & Turner, 2002;
Volet, Summers, & Thurman, 2009). Building from our multi-
layered model (see Fig. 1), we suggest that co-regulation occurs
when a social agent provides support to or “scaffolds” another’s
engagement in cycles of inquiry, whether as an equal partner or as
a mentor. From this perspective, it could be argued that working
within a network or community of inquiry creates conditions for
teachers not only to access rich resources, but also to engage
together in developing practice and learning. Thus, to address our
second research question, we traced how teachers were co-
regulating practice and learning as a means of characterizing
collaboration, and then considered how teachers created relation-
ships with others across a networked, inquiry community.
3. Collaborative inquiry in relation to shifts in practice
Our third research question considered how teachers’ engage-
ment in collaborative inquiry might be related to their making
shifts in their practice and learning. While researchers recognize
the potential of collaborative inquiry to support teacher learning,
not enough is known about how professional inquiry communities
function, in all their complexity, to affect change in classrooms
(Borko, 2004; Elster, 2009; Horn & Little, 2010; Huziak-Clark, Van
Hook, Nurnberger-Haag, & Ballone-Duran, 2007; Little, 2003;
McLaughlin et al., 2004).
First, participants in studies are often a select group of volun-
teers (Butler, 2002b). In contrast, in this research we investigated
how inquiry unfolded across a “messy” network of professionals
working within and across schools with the common goal of
advancing students’ self-regulated LTR. As might be expected in
a change effort unfolding in an authentic, complex, multi-layered
system (see Hargreaves, 1999), participants varied greatly in
expertise and experience, and were not equally invested in making
change and/or like-minded in terms of their dispositions toward
teaching or professional development.
Second, research has suggested the importance of having
common values and goals to nurturing teachers’ sustained and
collaborative engagement in inquiry (e.g., Durrant, 2009; Lasky,
2005). Thus, in this research, we focused particular attention on
how structures and resources available to teachers, including data
from assessments that could be used formatively to set goals and
monitor outcomes, might have created conditions that shaped
collaboration, inspired teachers’ co-regulated engagement in
inquiry, and led to meaningful shifts in practice.
Third, our theoretical stance suggests that practice shifts are
most likely to occur when teachers engage in practice-level inquiry,
because it is at this level that teachers draw on resources and tools
to define goals for students, strategically direct activity, monitor
 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220
outcomes, and make shifts accordingly (see also Cochran-Smith &
Lytle, 2004; Hobson, 2001; Horn & Little, 2010; McLaughlin &
Talbert, 2006). Significantly, our model also suggests that it is
when external resources feed into teachers’ contextualized
decision-making that they can inspire (or scaffold) practice changes
in ways that are meaningful in context, thereby creating those oft-
called for research-practice links (see Butler & Schnellert, 2008;
Hargreaves, 1999; McIntyre, 2005). Thus, in the research reported
here, we traced how teachers’ engagement in inquiry, as forms of
self- or co-regulated practice, might be associated with important
practice changes.
Finally, our theoretical perspective elaborates how teacher
learning might develop in and through practice, both incidentally
and more deliberately. For example, research suggests that teachers
construct knowledge about teaching and learning by reflecting in
and on classroom practice (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Cochran-
Smith & Lytle, 2004; Dana & Yendol-Hoppey, 2008). At the same
time, our model suggests added value if teachers also take a step
back to self-regulate their learning, particularly if that is connected
to practice-level inquiry. By moving deftly between self- and co-
regulating learning and practice, teachers can engage iteratively
in accessing resources to inform practice and generating knowl-
edge through reflections on activity.
4. Contextualizing our study
The literature cited above, written by authors working in
a variety of national contexts (e.g., Canada, the US, the UK, New
Zealand, Europe), suggests how the issues taken up in this research
are relevant across jurisdictions. That said, because educational
practice and policies are fundamentally shaped within particular
cultural, social, and political contexts, in this section we locate the
community of inquiry under study within a particular context and
educational system.
This study was conducted within an urban, multicultural school
district in western Canada. In Canada, education is a provincial
rather than federal responsibility. Further, in the Province where
this study was located, public schools are clustered into school
districts, overseen by school boards. At the time of this study, the
provincial Ministry of Education instituted an accountability cycle
requiring school districts to develop goals, implementation plans,
and assessment strategies. However, the provincial government
also supported local decision-making. As long as school districts
could account for outcomes (using provincial-level and/or self-
generated data), they could set their own goals and strategies for
achieving them. In this context, the Ministry put into place
a funding program to support literacy-focused initiatives.
Our participating school district also supported decentralized
decision-making. For example, schools were encouraged to set local
goals with their School Planning Councils. Further, it was by
building from a convergence of school goals that the district set
a goal on adolescent literacy. This goal was incorporated into the
district’s accountability contract with the Ministry. The district also
accessed Ministry funding to support an adolescent literacy
initiative.
The participating district also explicitly supported inquiry-based
professional development. As part of its literacy initiative, the
district nurtured a distributed community of inquiry comprising
teachers, school-based leaders, and district-level support
personnel. It is significant that the community of inquiry studied
here was supported by, but not dependent on researchers. Instead,
we studied how a group of teachers within an existing initiative
were working collectively to improve student learning. Within this
context, participants were drawing on multiple forms of resources.
Correspondingly, in our analysis of collaborative inquiry, we
1209
considered how initiative structures and available resources may
have directed teachers’ attention to goals and shaped inquiry
processes.
5. Research design and methodology
To review, in the research reported here, we investigated how
teachers in a community of inquiry worked alone and/or together
so as to improve outcomes for students. Our three research ques-
tions were: (1) What did inquiry look like within this community of
inquiry?; (2) How was collaboration implicated in teachers’
inquiry?; and (3) How was engagement in inquiry related to
meaningful shifts in teachers’ practice and learning?
Case study designs are particularly useful for investigating
a complex, dynamic, and multidimensional phenomenon in
a naturalistic setting (see Butler, 2011). Thus, to address these
research questions, we chose to conduct an iterative, in-depth, case
study of one complex community of inquiry in action (Creswell,
2007; Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2003).
5.1. Participants
The community of inquiry investigated spanned three schools
most actively engaged in the literacy project, as defined by the
participating district. Two of these schools enrolled students in
grades 8e12; one enrolled students in grades 7e9. Teacher teams
of various sizes were constituted within each school, depending on
interest and how their school community chose to focus their
efforts (e.g., all students at grade 8; particular subject areas). These
teams of teachers had opportunities to come together within and
across schools in interactive sessions (see Fig. 2). Literacy leaders,
who had opportunities to work together as part of cross-school
network, were designated at each school to help in leading and
coordinating the project. Support teachers also came together over
time to design “second shot” literacy classes for struggling readers.
At the time of this study, one of this paper’s co-authors was the
district-level consultant responsible for the literacy initiative. The
other is a university-based researcher who had been engaged in
collaborative research with the district for a number of years. As
resources to the community, our roles were to help teachers co-
construct situated literacy assessments and interpret data to set
goals, plan practices, and monitor outcomes. Along with literacy
leaders and other colleagues, the district-level consultant was also
available for on-going support as requested (e.g., for planning or co-
teaching; for gaining access to materials).
It was from this intact community of inquiry that our study
participants were recruited. Ethical approval was obtained for
recruitment strategies and all study procedures following institu-
tional and school board guidelines. Ultimately participants
included three literacy leaders and fifteen other teachers (see
Table 1). Most of the teachers were female (16 female, 2 male).
Teachers’ years of experience varied from 1 to 33 years. While some
teachers had developed a rich background in adolescent literacy,
others were drawn into the project because of their connection
with a school-based team.
During interviews teachers described how they worked with
others to improve literacy outcomes for students. Some partici-
pants identified collaborators not included in our study (see
Table 1). Some of these collaborators worked within the schools
from which our participants were drawn. Two collaborators
worked at a fourth school, not included in this study. This paper’s
co-authors were also identified as collaborators. Thus, while we
report here on data collected with/from 18 participants working
across three sites, it was clear that networks associated with this
community of inquiry extended beyond these borders.
1210 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220
Fig. 2. District, researcher, and school-based activities across the year.
5.2. Data collection
Multiple forms of data were collected to provide converging
evidence related to our research questions (Merriam, 1998; Miles &
Huberman, 1994; Yin, 2003), including: (1) semi-structured inter-
views near the start (Winter) and end (Spring) of the year; (2)
copies of Fall and Spring literacy assessments and associated
reports; (3) documents and artifacts representing teachers’
engagement alone or together in inquiry processes (e.g., e-mail
correspondence; classroom materials); and (4) field notes from
meetings or classroom visits between teachers and the researcher
or district-level consultant (see Fig. 2).
As part of the district-level initiative, teachers and literacy
leaders constructed and administered two coupled, curriculum-
based assessments that could be used to identify student needs
(in the Fall) and monitor outcomes (in the Spring). These assess-
ments included a Performance-Based Assessment (PBA; see
Brownlie, Feniak, & Schnellert, 2006) and a Learning through
Reading Questionnaire (LTRQ; see Butler & Cartier, 2004; Cartier &
Butler, 2004). In other papers we report on student-level data and
provide fuller descriptions of these two measures (see Butler,
Cartier, Schnellert, Gagnon, & Giammarino, 2011). In this paper,
we focus instead on how teachers were building from these
assessments to make practice changes in ways that benefited their
students. We accessed classroom-level data as a form of corrobo-
rating evidence if teachers reported achieving literacy gains for
their students.
Semi-structured interviews were framed by orienting questions.
In the Winter (W), teachers were asked to comment on: (1) their
professional goals, support they might need, and how they would
know those goals had been met; (2) goals for students, how they
would achieve those goals, and how they would judge those goals
had been met; (3) outcomes observed in relation to goals (for
themselves; for students); (4) how participating in the district
literacy initiative was shaping their thinking; and (5) what aspects
of in-service activities were most and least helpful. Questions were
parallel in the Spring (S), but asked teachers to reflect back across
the past year and think ahead to the future. At both times, teachers
were asked to share documents or artifacts to illustrate practices
they had enacted. Other forms of data (i.e., literacy assessment data,
classroom artifacts, documents, e-mail, field notes) were collected
through the year to trace how participants worked together, in
relation to practices they enacted alone or in tandem.
5.3. Data analysis
Interviews served as the initial foundation for data interpreta-
tion. All interviews were transcribed and then analyzed in an
iterative and recursive process (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam,
1998). Subsequently, and throughout our analysis, data from
interviews, documents, artifacts, and field notes were cross-
referenced to generate and warrant interpretations (Merriam,
1998; Yin, 1994). For example, if a teacher described making prac-
tice changes in a classroom, we considered how other evidence
(e.g., classroom artifacts) was reflective of those descriptions.
Following Agar (1996), we describe our interpretive process as
abductive, in that we moved iteratively through cycles of inductive
and deductive analysis. In our coding we were informed by our
theoretical framework and research questions, and at times focused
attention on the fit between data and what we anticipated a priori.
But, as a starting point we also looked to what teachers were saying
from a more open, inductive stance. As we moved through cycles of
analysis, we continually checked tentative assertions against
multiple forms of data. We deliberately and comprehensively
searched for confirming and disconfirming evidence, were sensi-
tive both to common patterns and variability, and created condi-
tions that allowed for moving beyond our original theoretical
frameworks to accommodate what we were learning (e.g., by
involving multiple coders, working from different perspectives,
into the analysis process). The result of this open, cyclical approach
was that, over time, and through successive interpretations and re-
representations of data, we refined our research questions (to those
 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220 1211

Table 1 coding frameworks were constructed by two research assistants,

Participants and roles within the community of inquiry. and then carefully crosschecked against original transcripts by the
Location Participant Gender Exp Role(s) Subject area lead researchers.
Participants As we moved to more interpretive levels, and, as we started to
School 1 OX Female 6 LL, CT, RT Generalist observe variations in teachers’ engagement in inquiry, we devel-
School 1 DN Female 18 RT, CT Humanities oped criteria for characterizing teachers’ self-regulation of practice
School 1 BB Male 33 CT Humanities
and learning as falling into one of six categories, ranging from 0 (no
School 1 EN Female 14 PD chair, CT Humanities
School 1 XQ Female 13 CT, Librarian Humanities inquiry) to 5 (iterative inquiry into practice, teaching, and learning)
School 1 MX Female 21 CT Humanities/drama (see Appendix A). We conducted basic statistical tests (e.g., ANOVA,
School 1 HG Male 23 CT Science follow-up paired t-tests) to support interpretations related to the
School 2 NE Female 6 LL, CT Humanities qualities of teachers’ engagement in self-regulated inquiry.
School 2 ED Female 13 CT Humanities
School 2 TD Female 14 CT Humanities/business
We also created displays to visualize the quality of collaborative
School 2 FH Female 4 CT Humanities (French engagement in inquiry among participating teachers. Appendix B
immersion) presents a more elaborated coding framework we generated in
School 2 SS Female 10 CT Humanities/French tandem with these figures to characterize the depth of teachers’ co-
School 2 CU Female 2 CT Humanities
regulation in practice-level inquiry cycles. We then built from this
School 2 NW Female 7 CT Humanities
School 3 BH Female 6 LL, CT Humanities coding to construct an overall “collaboration map” of relationships
School 3 NC Female 1 CT Humanities using Agna (Benta, 2003) and VisuaLyzer (Medical Decisions Logic,
School 3 TU Female 3 CT Humanities 2007) software, using line width to represent the strength and
School 3 ET Female 17 RT Generalist depth of teachereteacher collaborations based on our qualitative
Collaborators (mentioned by participants) coding.
District DLT Male 14 DLC Cross-curricular In this article, we present our findings both descriptively, and in
Researcher Res Female 12a Res Cross-curricular
relation to these more interpretive levels of analysis. In some cases,
School 1 AM Female 20 CT Science/math
School 1 OJ Female 21 CT Humanities we present excerpts from displays, not only as a means of por-
School 1 TS Male 14 VP Math traying patterns observed, but also to warrant our conclusions.
School 2 OD Male 18 CT Humanities
School 2 LA Male 26 P Science 6. Findings and discussion
School 2 NA Female 8 CT Sciences (French
immersion)
School 3 AD Female 13 CT English 6.1. What did inquiry look like in this community of inquiry?
School 4 RK Female 8 CT Humanities
School 4 AJ Female 11 CT Humanities To characterize how inquiry processes were enacted in this
(French immersion)
community of inquiry (i.e., to address our first research question),
Note. Exp ¼ years of experience at the start of the study; CT ¼ classroom teacher; we first built from our multi-layered model (see Fig. 1) to consider
LL ¼ literacy leader; RT ¼ resource teacher; PD ¼ professional development chair; the qualities of teachers’ self-regulated inquiry of practice and
DLC ¼ district literacy consultant; Res ¼ researcher; VP ¼ vice principal;
P ¼ principal.
learning.
a
Experience in a formal role as a university-based researcher. A key finding here was that all teachers engaged in self-
regulated inquiry, at least to some extent (see Table 2). As
reported on here), and elaborated conceptual frameworks for described earlier, as part of our abductive analysis we developed
viewing and interpreting patterns. criteria for describing the depth and scope of teachers’ self-
Generally speaking, our analysis moved from descriptive to regulation in each inquiry process (see Fig. 1), and then overall,
successively more abstracted layers of interpretation. For example, on a scale from 0 to 5 (Appendix A). Our findings were that all
we began by clustering ideas expressed by teachers into broad participants set context-specific goals related to fostering students’
thematic groupings informed by our research questions, focusing learning. The majority of teachers enacted practices matched to the
for example, on what kinds of goals teachers set for themselves and goals they had set for students (mean of 3.72 out of 5) but,
their students, practices teachers described (and provided evidence considering the full inquiry cycle, participants were significantly
for) enacting, and how teachers described working together and less likely to focus on planning and reflecting/monitoring (means of
why. Once excerpts from transcripts were grouped into broad 3.00 and 3.22, respectively). They were least likely to describe
themes, we clustered ideas and assigned “low inference” labels to adjusting approaches over time based on monitoring of outcomes
represent what appeared to be a common meaning (e.g., goals associated with practice changes (mean of 2.50).
teachers set focused on enhancing student learning, classroom Further, the extent to which individual teachers engaged itera-
practice, and/or their own learning and development). Two tively in the full cycle of inquiry processes varied considerably (see
researchers generated the initial set of codes through an open Table 2). What these differences looked like in practice was that the
reading of interview transcripts. Then initial codes were reex- teachers most actively engaged in inquiry adopted an integrative
amined against the data and refined through discussion. This and long-term approach to planning, while in more limited forms
included deriving relationships within and between codes and of inquiry teachers tackled shorter-term goals without reflecting on
posing questions related to data and previous theoretical models. connections across lessons. Further, while some teachers adopted
To move from description to interpretation, coded data were an inquiry stance that undergirded most of their activities (within
collected into a variety of displays to reveal patterns and test for planning; within classes as they were interacting with students;
conceptual coherence (Miles & Huberman, 1994). First-level across classes), others were less systematic, targeted, and/or
displays pulled together all data related to any given research explicit in their attempts to monitor and modify their approaches to
question. Second-level displays were constructed from the teaching.
comprehensive, first-level displays to reveal larger patterns. Finally, Thus, while teachers were making important changes to prac-
we built from second level displays as seemed warranted to create tice in order to meet student needs, the extent to which they
more detailed forms of data coding, representation and checking. reflectively engaged over time in successive cycles of trying out,
At every step in the analytic process, displays or more sophisticated monitoring, and adjusting practices varied. The significance is that
1212 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220

Table 2
Qualities of teachers’ self-regulated inquiry.

Teacher School Goal(s) Planning Enacting Reflecting/monitoring Adjusting Average

OX (LL, RT) 1 Y 5 5 5 4 4.75
MX 1 Y 5 5 5 4 4.75
BB 1 Y 1 1 1 1 1.00
XQ 1 Y 1 3 3 2 2.25
DN (RT) 1 Y 5 5 5 4 4.75
EN (PD) 1 Y 2 3 3 3 2.75
HG 1 Y 1 4 2 1 2.00
NE (LL) 2 Y 5 5 5 3 4.50
FH 2 Y 4 4 4 3 3.75
TD 2 Y 2 2 2 1 1.75
NW 2 Y 1 3 2 1 1.75
CU 2 Y 2 5 4 2 3.25
ED 2 Y 3 3 2 2 2.50
SS 2 Y 3 4 3 3 3.25
BH (LL) 3 Y 2 2 2 2 2.00
TU 3 Y 3 4 2 2 2.75
NC 3 Y 4 4 4 4 4.00
ET (RT) 3 Y 5 5 4 3 4.25
Mean (%) 100% 3.00 3.72 3.22 2.50 3.11
SD n/a 1.57 1.23 1.31 1.10 1.20

Note. F (3, 68) ¼ 2.69, p < .054, for a comparison of mean levels across aspects of teachers’ self-regulated practice. Follow-up paired t-tests on differences between means
showed statistically reliable differences (p < .05, two-tailed or lower) for all paired comparisons except for that between planning and reflecting/monitoring.

it cannot be assumed that all members of a complex community of
inquiry engage in the same way in inquiry processes. It follows that,
if we are to investigate outcomes associated with this form of
professional development (Little, 2003), research designs must
allow for a nuanced association of the qualities of inquiry and
practice engaged by teachers in relation to outcomes for students.
Whether and how teachers engaged in full cycles of inquiry
could not be associated with school site (see Table 2) or years of
teaching experience. Classroom experience of teachers engaged in
the fullest cycles of self-regulated inquiry (i.e., average scores 4.00
or above) ranged from 1 to 21 years. Years of experience for
teachers engaged in more limited forms of inquiry (i.e., scores 2 or
below) ranged from 6 to 33 years. But teachers’ engagement could
be associated with their roles in the initiative. While there were
exceptions (e.g., BH), teachers most actively engaged in cycles of
inquiry tended to be literacy leaders (OX, NE) or support teachers
(DN, ET), whose roles were to serve as collaborators or mentors for
colleagues (see Table 2). Interestingly, this is consonant with
Hargreaves’ (1999) suggestions that individuals in mid-level lead-
ership roles, like those played by literacy leaders in this context, can
help in bridging vision and the “chaotic reality” of its imple-
mentation (p. 133), and that mentoring (through supervising pre-
service teachers, in his argument) may be “a powerful stimulus to
reflection” (p. 132).
As part of our first research question, we sought to investigate
whether and how participants were self-regulating practice (i.e., to
achieve outcomes for students) and/or self-regulating their own
learning (see Fig. 1). To that end, we examined teachers’ responses
when asked about their goals, success criteria, achievements, and
learning (see Table 3). Findings were that teachers most often
Table 3
Converging evidence related to teachers’ focus of attention during practice- and
teacher-level inquiry.
Focus of responses Student Improving
learning: practice
own class
Professional goals 100% 61%
Accounting for success? 89% 89%
What have you achieved? 89% 89%
What have you learned? 94% 83%
described goals and gains in relation to shifts in classroom practices
or achieving student outcomes (see Table 3, columns 1 and 2). But,
even after considerable probing, few teachers described themselves
as deliberately self-regulating their own learning (see Table 3,
column 3). For example, only 22% explicitly described goals for their
own learning. Similarly, when asked about achievements, only 39%
of participants explicitly framed responses in terms of gains for
themselves as learners. Overall, teachers appeared to be highly
motivated to engage in the literacy initiative because they
perceived important gaps in student learning that they wished to
overcome. But for most participants, pursuit of their own profes-
sional learning appeared to be a means-to-an-end rather than
a deliberate target for development.
Thus, our findings converged to suggest that participants were
primarily focused on goal setting and enacting practices in order to
achieve better outcomes for students. Recognizing that conditions
in change initiatives can support or constrain ways of working (e.g.,
Brownell, Adams, Sindelair, Waldron, & Vanhover, 2006; Durrant,
2009; Edwards, 2005; Sailors, 2009; Timperley & Phillips, 2003),
we considered how teachers’ emphases may have been shaped by
literacy initiative structures. For example, as described earlier, all
participants worked in school-based teams to collect, interpret and
plan from data. Multiple forms of data converged to suggest that
teachers built from those experiences to set grade- and/or class-
level goals matched to the literacy needs of their students. For
instance, NC described building from literacy assessments “in terms
of goals that we have outlined for our classes. [We] originally
decided on three goals, but then we narrowed it down to two, note
taking and main ideas” (W9eW13). In her Spring interview OX
noted that:
Having the time to go over these [literacy assessments]
thoughtfully and together as a team e group scoring and have
the planning time at the end to say, ‘what is it that we want to do
as a team? How will we address all the things we are seeing?’ e
for me that is the biggest thing. If I had to think of anything for
Own
next year, I wouldn’t want to lose any of the time we have now.
learning
(S381eS388)
22% Similarly, multiple resources were made available on which
11% participants could draw to plan and design classroom practices,
39%
33%
including district-sponsored workshops, materials in school
libraries, and support from colleagues, study groups, literacy
 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220
leaders, and district-level consultants. Correspondingly, data (i.e.,
classroom artifacts, e-mail correspondence, interviews) revealed
how teachers were drawing on these kinds of resources in their
attempts to refine practices in their classrooms. For example OX
explained that, “MX and I have our own conversations going on all
the time and those conversations are so varied, from, ‘Do you have
this; I need this?’ to really talking through ideas or things that
worked or didn’t work” (W338eW341). Finally, it is notable again
that the teachers most richly engaged in inquiry processes were
often those with dedicated roles in supporting colleagues or the
overall initiative. Initiative structures appeared to both require and
enable these participants to engage more fully in inquiry processes,
for example, when working with colleagues through practice
change processes.
Implications here are that initiative structures may be highly
influential in inspiring but also delimiting participants’ attention
and activity. Here, it was promising that initiative structures
encouraged goal setting and practice changes so consistently across
community members. But additional supports may have further
scaffolded teachers’ bridging from goal setting to fuller, iterative
cycles of planning, enacting, monitoring and adjusting. They may
also have more explicitly supported teachers’ deliberate cycling
between self-regulating practice and learning.
6.2. How was collaboration implicated in teachers’ inquiry?
Research has suggested ways in which structures associated
with networks or communities of inquiry, including opportunities
for collaboration, have the potential to foster sustained and
meaningful shifts in practice (Hilden & Pressley, 2007; Hopkins,
2000; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006; Morrell, 2004; Wiliam, 2007/
2008). Thus, as our second research question, we sought to char-
acterize in a richly descriptive way the kinds of collaborative rela-
tionships that developed within our diverse community of inquiry.
To begin, we were again sensitive to how collaborative rela-
tionships were influenced by the literacy initiative structure. For
example, the district and schools had chosen to focus primarily on
grade 8 students, which shaped development of school-level teams
(i.e., comprising more and less enthusiastic grade 8 teachers).
Further, district- and school-based activities (e.g., workshops, study
groups) provided teachers with opportunities to share ideas with
others from across the district. Again, all team members had
opportunities to participate in meetings where situated assess-
ments were developed, data were interpreted and discussed,
grade-level goals were established and progress was reviewed.
Keeping these structural parameters in mind, we drew from our
coding of interviews, coupled with evidence from field notes and
artifacts/documents, to create visual displays of collaboration
among teachers (i.e., as levels of co-regulation). Fig. 3 presents
three examples. In each, the degree of shading in each “box” (e.g.,
for goal setting, for planning) reflects the ways in which two
teachers worked together through recursive inquiry processes. To
support development of these figures, we drew on criteria for
coding the depth and scope of teachers’ co-regulation with others
(see Appendix B). This analysis was conducted for all collaborative
relationships described by participants, whether or not collabora-
tors were formally part of the literacy initiative or participants in
this study (see Table 1).
Overall what we found was that the quality of relationships
among community members varied considerably. The strongest,
most sustained collaborative relationships could be characterized
as rich engagements in co-regulated inquiry cycles. For example,
DN and NE (bottom of Fig. 3) worked as part of a cross-school team
(also including RK, AJ, and FH) to co-regulate each other’s
engagement in both practice- and teacher-learning level inquiry
1213
(reflecting a 5 overall). They worked collaboratively to set goals,
plan lessons, teach in parallel (i.e., enacting similar lessons at
different schools), debrief and reflect on outcomes, and regularly
co-constructed new understandings about teaching by stepping out
of practice-level cycles to plan for and reflect on what they were
learning. NC and TU (middle of Fig. 3) worked together more closely
through full cycles of practice-level inquiry, bridging in a small way
to collaborative teacher learning-level inquiry (reflecting a 4 over-
all). Less developed relationships most typically involved consul-
tative, information sharing. For example, EN and OX’s collaboration
(top of Fig. 3) reflected some intensity in goal setting, coupled with
some co-planning and co-teaching, but only at the practice-level
and without much monitoring or adapting of practices (reflecting
a 2 overall).
To further characterize the network of relationships in our
community of inquiry, we used software tools designed to support
analysis of social networks. In Fig. 4, the depth of collaboration (i.e.,
co-regulation) is reflected in the thickness of lines interconnecting
community members (e.g., the line between DN and NE is thickest,
reflecting their high level of co-regulated inquiry). This visual
representation allowed us to consider how collaboration emerged
among team members within a given school and across the full
community.
A number of notable patterns are evidenced in this collaboration
network. First, this community of inquiry was complex and
dynamic, with different kinds of relationships forming within and
across schools. For example, while there were clearly some strong
relationships within school level teams (e.g., NC and TU in the
school at the top of the figure), the strength of relationships within
schools varied, and there were many strong relationships forged
across schools (e.g., between NE and DN). Second, many collabo-
rative relationships emerged through membership on grade-level
teams. Some of these remained relatively superficial, which
seemed more common when teachers had not worked together
previously and/or did not know each other well (e.g., OX & BB; BH &
TU). But in some cases rich, collaborations developed within
school-teams (e.g., between NC & TU), especially when teachers
had opportunities to develop those relationships over time (see
Horn & Little, 2010; Lasky, 2005; Levine & Marcus, 2010).
Third, we observed that some of the strongest collaborative
inquiry partnerships (e.g., NE, DN, & RK; between the district
consultant & literacy leaders) spanned school boundaries and were
grounded in long-standing relationships. In some cases, these well-
developed relationships superseded and overshadowed support
available in school teams. For instance, DN explained:
I am collaborative by nature [but] I have probably done more
planning with the group outside of [my] school. I think part of
that is just that I am on a different page . than my colleagues at
the school are in their development in terms of having
a collaborative team that is really kind of wrestling and messing
with this and sharing ideas and strategies. That kind of collab-
oration for me is happening outside the school . In the
discussion group, NE and I are more experienced than RK. AJ has
a breadth of knowledge about social studies, but she is not as
confident in all this literacy instruction. It is really a nice sharing
of expertise and it is really a safe place to say ‘I don’t get this.’ It is
happening but just not in the school for me. (W292eW313).
A further, systematic analysis of teachers’ descriptions of
supports and benefits to collaboration suggested factors associated
with the development of strong relationships. First, teachers
described how structural supports (e.g., attending workshops as
teams; school-based teams) created opportunities for them to learn
from one another (see Hilden & Pressley, 2007; Sailors, 2009;
Timperley & Phillips, 2003). For example, ET explained that,
1214 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220
Fig. 3. Engagement in collaborative inquiry cycles: three examples.
“meeting with the other teachers in the district was huge for me. I
had the benefit of not actually teaching it until the second semester,
so I was able to learn from everybody as they were going through
it” (S213eS217). Similarly, CU explained how valuable it was for her
to work with a cohesive, school-based team led by an experienced
and knowledgeable literacy leader (NE):
It helps me gauge myself. Just talking with colleagues. I am
a fairly new teacher, so it helps me know where I should be
going. And sharing strategies has been amazing within this
group since we have been so cohesive this year. . It has allowed
me to be more creative. Working in a pair or larger group, you
get more ideas. (S177eS187)
However, not all teachers felt they had sufficient opportunity to
collaborate with others. For example, EN felt excluded when the
number of attendees to district-level workshops was limited.
Further, teachers experienced practical barriers to collaboration
such as time pressures, scheduling conflicts, and unpredictable
access to substitute teachers to cover classes during team meetings.
As EN explained, “ensuring that teachers can share takes time. It
takes time for people get used to the idea and it literally takes
physical time” (W394eW398).
A second factor associated with the depth of collaboration was
whether or not potential collaborators were equally committed to
common values and goals (see also Hopkins, 2000). For example,
OX (literacy leader, school 1) felt constrained in developing inquiry
partnerships as some colleagues resisted focusing on LTR processes
within subject area courses. Similarly, BH (literacy leader, school 3)
explained how:
Some people talk the talk and say, ‘Oh it would be great [for you]
to come into my classroom, I would love that.’ Then you approach
them and it’s not the right time and all sorts of other excuses are
given. You end up feeling like a door-to-door salesman some-
times, trying to get teachers to buy in. (S240eS247)
Teachers who developed the richest inquiry relationships
described themselves as having the opportunity to work with
others who shared compatible or complementary interests,
working styles, philosophies, expertise and/or backgrounds (see
Durrant, 2009; Lasky, 2005). For example, NE described how the
 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220
Fig. 4. Collaborative relationships within a community of inquiry.
individuals within her study group (DN, RK, & AJ) came together to
share their complementary strengths and expertise:
I can really see clearly what I am not doing right or not able to
get right now in my practice because I can see how other people
are doing it. Working with someone like [DN] is really good
because she breaks everything down into minute little details.
Working with someone like [RK] is really good because she can
sequence things really well. [AJ] always points to the rich parts
[of course content], which I do too. (S566eS576)
These findings reveal that development of collaborative rela-
tionships within a networked structure is definitely not automatic.
Teachers required time, space, and opportunities to work with
colleagues and leaders within and across schools. Also important
was the opportunity to seek out colleagues with similar levels of
commitment and/or complementary knowledge.
6.3. How was engagement in inquiry related to meaningful shifts in
teachers’ practice and learning?
Our third research question focused on how teachers’ engage-
ment in inquiry may have been associated with shifts in their own
learning and practice with potential to achieve valued outcomes for
students. To address this question, we built from interview data to
catalog for each teacher: (1) described gains, and (2) what they
were learning. We cross-checked these reports against other data,
1215
such as records from situated assessments and artifacts from
classrooms. In Table 4 we reproduce a display we created to relate
the depth and scope of teachers’ self-regulated inquiry (see column
1) to the achievements and learning they described in relation to
students, practice, or themselves as learners (columns 2e7).
First, in terms of gains, data converged to suggest that 89% of
teachers perceived themselves as having made important revisions
to practice by participating in the initiative. For example, some
teachers described their practices as becoming more integrated and
goal-directed. Here SS describes how her teaching had changed
dramatically to become more planful:
Again, just becoming more intentional. It has absolutely shifted
my practice. It has changed how I think about the year. Rather
than going unit by unit and having all these individual great
units, I think about the whole year and how what they do in one
unit builds into another and another. It has given me a great
understanding of skill building versus skill doing. (S315eS320)
Significantly, 89% of teachers described specific gains for
students they associated specifically with practices they were
enacting. For example, in her Spring interview, CU explained:
We often used those active reading sheets. We would set goals
so that they could figure out what was important before they
started. So for instance, in the Middle Ages we would decide that
heroism was important. So we would focus on that while doing
reading . I started putting together organizers for them and
1216 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220

Table 4 focused understandings about their students’ literacy needs. DN

Participants’ self-regulated inquiry in relation to gains and learning. noted:
Teacher SRI Students Practice Own learning
I guess what I have learned is that kids need repeated exposure and
Gains Learning Gains Learning Gains Learning practice at some of the particular skills that we think are fairly
OX (LL, RT) 4.75 - - - - - - simple. They are actually quite complex when you start to unpack.
NE (LL) 4.75 - - - - - If we are not seeing huge gains, then this is just part of a process of
DN (RT) 4.75 - - - - - -
MX 4.75 - - - - -
learning and what we have learned and built on this year, hope-
ET (RT) 4.25 - - - - fully they will build on and deepen next year. (S77eS84).
NC 4.00 - - - -
FH 3.75 - - - - -
Similarly, in her Spring interview, MX explained: “I had two
SS 3.25 - - - - - - different classes that I had to teach the course to. At first I didn’t realize
CU 3.25 - - - how different they were until I looked at the results of the fall
EN (PD) 2.75 - - - - - assessment. Then I could teach to it” (S38eS48). Overall, we inter-
TU 2.75 - - - -
preted these findings as suggesting that, by drawing on resources (i.e.,
ED 2.50 - - - -
XQ 2.25 - - - assessments; peers; materials) to inform their engagement in cycles
BH (LL) 2.00 - - - - of practice-level inquiry, participants were learning about and
HG 2.00 - - - enacting practices responsive to the needs of their students.
NW 1.75 - - - - -
But patterns apparent in Table 4 again suggest that teachers
TD 1.75 - -
BB 1.00 - - -
were less deliberately attentive to directing or monitoring their
# 16 17 16 15 7 6 own learning processes. While the vast majority of teachers
% 89% 94% 89% 83% 39% 33% described new insights or understandings about practice and
Note. Teachers are listed in order based on depth and scope of self-regulated inquiry students, only roughly 1/3 explicitly described achieving goals they
(SRI). Shading indicates teachers in leadership roles. Squares represent the focus of had set for themselves as learners. For example, ED had set a goal in
teachers’ comments on students, practice, or their own learning. LL ¼ literacy the Fall to bring herself up-to-date on research and practice related
leader; RT ¼ resource teacher; PD ¼ professional development chair.
to adolescent reading. In the Spring, she reflected not only on her
own progress as a learner, but also on how her own learning was
connected to gains for students:
then they had to do it on their own. So I could see what they
were picking up. The PBA helped a lot. It was actually really I am learning and I love that. Change is good and it is really neat. If I
surprising to see the huge leap in the areas that I worked on. am a better teacher then the kids learn more. I felt that this year the
(S125eS138) amount of reading and what they produced was so good and they
learned so much more on what we did do. (S246eS251)
Although continued research on this point is clearly needed (e.g.,
see Butler, Schnellert, & Cartier, 2012), we interpret from these find- Interestingly, it appeared to be the teachers who were bridging
ings that engaging teachers in collaborative inquiry communities has across teacher-learning and practice-level inquiry who made the
potential to impact classroom practices in ways that benefit students. richest and widest gains. Note here that rows in Table 4 are ordered
Second, in relation to what teachers were learning, findings based on the depth and scope of teachers’ engagement in inquiry
were 83% of teachers articulated new insights or understandings cycles (see Appendix A), and that shading is used to identify
about practice. An example is SS, quoted above, who developed community members in roles dedicated to supporting other team
a better understanding of “skill building versus skill doing.” Other members. Inspection of patterns across cells suggests that the
teachers described revising assumptions about the appropriate widest range of and richest gains/learning tended to be described
balance between content coverage and supporting learning by individuals who were engaged in iterative, sustained cycles of
processes in subject-area classrooms. For example, MX reported: inquiry and/or who were positioned in designated support roles (as
collaborators; as mentors). We interpret that, while the majority of
I am just not as concerned about content as I used to be. I am way
teachers were clearly learning a great deal from reflection on and in
more concerned with how kids learn, way more then I ever was. I
engagement in practice-level inquiry (a la Schön, 1983, 1987), richer
always knew that was a piece of the puzzle. If you do all these
gains may be experienced if teachers deliberately embed engage-
things, ‘Oh I got to give them a test, I got to check their vocab-
ment in self- and co-regulated practice within cycles of teacher-
ulary.’ I am just so not there as a teacher anymore (S376eS380).
learning level inquiry.
Similarly, HG noted:
It has opened my eyes to the point that I know that reading for
7. Conclusions
information has got to be the focus of where these kids are at. If
not, when they come across words that they don’t understand or
In this article we report findings from an in-depth case study of
can’t pronounce, they will just skim it over or bother to stop.
a complex community of inquiry in action. To address our three
They just plow through. . So just going through and modeling
research questions, we describe the nature of participants’
a way to read through those tough words. I think out loud, and I
engagement in inquiry, the development and quality of collabora-
model what process I go through to solve that problem of an
tive relationships, and how engagement in inquiry might have been
unknown word. To be able to go through and model how you
associated with shifts in teachers’ practice and learning. In these
would read a science text for information and work through,
concluding remarks, we highlight important directions suggested
that is a big piece. I mean you don’t do that one time and then
by our findings.
that is it. I mean I am doing that all year. (S118eS142)
First, it was encouraging that our participants were highly
Most consistently, teachers (94%) described learning more about motivated to revise practices when they observed lower-than-
their students. For example, many teachers described how, when desired student performance related to valued goals, and that the
building from literacy assessments, they developed richer, more vast majority set goals and shifted practices responsively to achieve
better student outcomes. But troubling was the great variability in
 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220 1217

the depth and scope of participants’ engagement in inquiry and Acknowledgments

that the least frequently engaged inquiry process was “adapting,”
which is so central to sustained cycles of responsive practice revi- This work was supported by a Standard Research Grant to the
sion. Thus, further research is needed into how initiative structures first author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
can support teachers’ on-going engagement in fuller inquiry cycles. Council of Canada. Portions of this article were presented at annual
For example, in subsequent work we have been exploring how meetings of the American Educational Research Association. We
having opportunities to collaborate both outside of and within would like to thank Stephanie Higginson and Jennifer Scott for their
practice (e.g., through co-teaching) might be implicated in fostering support in data collection and analysis for this project, Trevor
richer forms of inquiry (see Schnellert, 2011). Corneil for his technical assistance, as well as Vicki Rothstein,
Second, in this study we drew on our theoretical framework and Norma Jamieson, Kathleen Champion, Kathyrn D’Angelo and Bruce
past empirical findings to conceptualize collaborative inquiry as Beairsto for their support of this work.
forms of co-regulation at practice- and/or teacher-learning levels.
In this study, applying a model of co-regulation to describe
collaborative inquiry allowed for constructing nuanced portraits of Appendix A
when and how teachers were pursuing inquiry together. Through
this analysis, we opened the “black box” in research on collabora-
tive teacher professional development (Little, 2003, p. 949) by
tracing how teachers were working together. Future research might Criteria for judging the depth and quality of teacher’s inquiry.
elaborate these findings by further examining relationships
Level Label Criteria Teacher
between collaboration as co-regulation and associated shifts in
teachers’ practice and learning.
0 No inquiry  No goals identified or no
Third, consistent with other research cited earlier (e.g., Hilden & reference to toward working
Pressley, 2007; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2006; Morrell, 2004), our toward goals.
findings uncover the complexities of teachers’ relationship devel-
1 Little  Set goals, but no reference BB
inquiry
opment and suggest some of the ways in which initiatives might to working toward goals
encourage collaboration. These include providing time, resources, that had been set.
and structured opportunities for collaboration. However, additional  No evidence of planning,
research might further explore how having multiple, collaboration reflecting, monitoring or
options, as was the case in this complex, multi-site professional making alterations.
network, might enable teachers to find “like-minded” colleagues
2 Limited,  Mention of goals, but XQ
typically NW
with common goals or values with whom to engage in collaborative limited examples of
short-term ED
work. inquiry working toward goals. TD
Fourth, building from our multi-layered inquiry model (see  Limited evidence of planning, BH
Fig. 1), we have suggested that making resources available to reflecting or monitoring. HG

teachers while they are immersed in goal-directed cycles of inquiry Short-term example of
is key to forging research-practice connections (Butler & Schnellert, alteration of practice related
2008; see also Bromme & Tillema, 1995; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, to goals and plans.
2004; Simmons et al., 2000). Consonant with this perspective, in
3 Some  Mention of goals with CU
sustained TU
this study we found that teachers were drawing on resources (e.g., several segmented
practice-level EN
assessment frameworks and tools; research-informed materials; inquiry examples of lessons SS
colleagues and mentors) to inform practice revisions. But, given the working toward goals.
strong push internationally for teachers to build evidence-based  Evidence of some ongoing
practices into classrooms in ways that achieve measurable planning, and some evidence
outcomes, it will be crucial for future research to continue studying of reflecting and monitoring.
how inquiry approaches to professional development are able to Example of alteration of
support systems-level change in ways that both draw on and practice due to knowledge
generate knowledge about education so as to achieve valued emerging from inquiry.
outcomes for students (Hargreaves, 1999).
4 Iterative,  Clear defined goals with FH
recursive NC
Finally, as an international press toward accountability multiple elaborations
inquiry into ET
increases, the temptation to impose top-down initiatives to practice including several examples
improve student outcomes becomes correspondingly more of lessons and other efforts
intense. As an alternative to top-down reform efforts, our work to work toward goals.
over time has provided both a theoretical account and a detailed, Indications of continuous
empirical analysis of how multiple stakeholders might be pulled programming toward goals.
together in loosely coordinated, goal-directed inquiry cycles  Evidence of purposeful
focused on improving outcomes for students (see also Hopkins, planning in either lessons or
2000). We have been fortunate that, in the western Canadian program goals.
province where this study was located, government, district, and  Evidence of reflection on
school-level processes have at times been coordinated to progress toward goals either
distribute leadership, and agency, across the system (see Butler, during and/or after process.
Schnellert, & MacNeil, 2012 for a fuller description). But further Multiple examples of
research is sorely needed into how multi-level change initiatives alteration of practice due
can provide space for teachers, formal and informal leaders, to knowledge derived
policy-makers and other stakeholders to feel and be invested in through inquiry.
educational change. (continued on next page)
1218 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220

(continued ) (continued)

Level Label Criteria Teacher Level Label Criteria Pairs

5 Iterative  Clearly defined goals with NE 3 Intermittent  Set shared goals, usually DN:MX
inquiry DN shared inquiry BH:NC
multiple deep elaborations in group scoring situation
into practice, OX into practice NW:NE
teaching & including several examples of MX  Some co-planning, typically OX:HG
learning lessons working toward goals. refers to goals when planning HG:OX
Clear indication of continuous  Sharing of resources or NC:BH
enacting of goal-related plans. ideas, some sense of addressing TD :CON
OX:MX
 Evidence of purposeful planning shared goals over time MX:OX
in lessons and unit/program goals.  If co-teaching, there are NE:CON
Evidence of ongoing examination shared goals in mind, sense MX:DN
of progress toward goals both of working together to
during and after process. Multiple develop practice
examples of alteration of practice  May check in regarding
derived from new knowledge; implementation, sharing
gives least one example of of examples (i.e., sharing
how new knowledge and implementation stories
knowledge or examples), but little to
of practice has developed. sustained shared attention
to progress regarding
goals over time
4 Iterative  Set shared goals for students, CU:NE
Appendix B shared TU:NC
usually in group scoring
inquiry NC:TU
into situation ET:BH
practice  Co-planning with goals in DN:AJ
Criteria for judging the depth and quality of collaborative relationships. mind, sustained conversation FH:NE
about goals as related to NE:FH
Level Label Criteria Pairs NE:AJ
practices BH:ET
0 No  No collaboration: explicitly OX:WP
 If co-teaching, shared goals in
collaboration OX: CS
stated that there was no mind, sense of working together
collaboration to develop and implement practices
1 Little  Co-assessed; set group CN:BB
 Debriefing regarding implementation
collaboration OX:AM
scoring situation; may not of strategies/approaches
(collaborators BB:MX
often have set shared goals MX:XQ  Some co-reflection and
disconnected)  Little to no co-planning, OX:TS problem-solving
rarely refer to goals XQ:EN  Collaborative, longitudinal work
in interactions within a practice-based inquiry cycle
 If co-teaching, collaborators 5 Iterative  Set shared goals for students, NE:DN
are not in agreement on goals shared DN:NE
usually in group scoring situation
inquiry DN:RK
or relationship of activities  Set and shares own goals for
into practice NE:RK
to goals and teacher professional learning MX:
 No co-monitoring (i.e., debriefing, learning  Ongoing co-planning with sustained CON
feedback) conversations conversation about goals as related OX:
 May state that collaborator does CON
to practices FH:AJ
not have shared  Collaborative development of
understandings/intent strategies and approaches
2 Consultative  Set shared goals, usually DN:CON
 If co-teaching, there is a sense of
information XQ:MX
in group scoring situation working together to implement,
sharing NW: OD
 Sharing resources and ideas NW:SS adapt and refine practices
in relation to goal DN:OX related to goals
 Sharing resources or ideas, OX:DN  Sharing and critiquing of one
but no integrative XQ:OJ
another’s classroom examples
SS:NE
co-planning (surface TD:ED  Ongoing co-reflection and problem-
level collaborative planning) ED:CON solving and adaptation of approaches
 If co-teaching, most likely BH:TU with own and student-learning goals
modeling (often lack NC: AD
in mind
NC:ET
of co-planning)  Longitudinal collaborative work
ET:NC
 No co-monitoring (little BB:OX within an inquiry cycle
to no sustained conversation FH:NA  Collaborators/group have shared
about goals and related EN:OX inquiry stance to practice and
actions over time) TD:NE
own learning goals
NE:LA
EN:XQ  Collaborators relate
BB:DN practice and learning
EN:CON goals to inquiry cycle
 D.L. Butler, L. Schnellert / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 1206e1220
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