Effects of expert teachers' collaboration on their conceptualisations and practices towards inquiry based methods in science teaching

his paper aims to investigate teacher collaboration through observations and interviews with 6 new science teachers [NSTs]. It aims to identify the effects of debates amongst NSTs about specific teaching problems (i.e. new science teachers exchange about the gain and loss of inquiry based methods). The effects concern NSTs' conceptualisations and practices about IBST implementation. The study tackles two questions: At what level NSTs are able to implement IBST within their class-room? Does the interactions through the teacher education specific session change the NSTs' conceptualisations and practices? The first section drawn the research's theoretical framework: it refers to vocational research which explore collective work from the activity theory model. The second make explicit the methodology: a mean to elicit teachers' knowledge and their repertoire of actions is presented. The third presents the main results: under certain conditions, debates amongst teachers and teachers educators create a common system of knowledge and practice