E.H.D. (Edith) Koh

Professional development, teacher collaboration and availability of quality curriculum have been named as three important sources of support for teachers involved in the teaching of interdisciplinary curriculum. However, there is limited research on how these measures support teacher development in an interdisciplinary context. This study examines the learning potential of collaborative development of interdisciplinary curriculum in secondary schools in Singapore. In a researcher-initiated intervention, an English teacher and a science teacher from the same school collaborate in a teacher design team to plan and carry out a lesson that teaches students to critically read science news articles. A qualitative case study approach is adopted to examine the learning potential of the boundaries encountered by teachers in a researcher-initiated teacher design team. As the teachers negotiate the discontinuities they experience during these boundary encounters, their attempts at sense-making have the potential to give rise to learning opportunities. A comparison of boundary encounters across cases would surface aspects that promote and facilitate boundary crossing. These findings could inform the design of teacher collaboration as a source of professional development in interdisciplinary contexts.