Abstract

The achievement of scientific literacy as the goal of science education requires that science teachers transform their practice and center their teaching on the student rather than content. Various professional development models show at least two development levels, the individual one – related to beliefs and knowledge – and the teaching practice one. Transformative models of professional development take into consideration collaborative work and reflection as the driving force of the transformation process. This work studies the manner in which collaborative work and reflection impact transformation at different levels. Participants are a group of 23 science teachers, from primary, secondary and College Education, with 4 to 32 years of experience that have been part of a collaborative action research for two years. Data is collected through questionnaires, filming and focus groups, and subject to content analysis. Results show that collaborative work positively affects reflection, and reflection influences transformation at three levels: teacher, practice and community. At the first level, the teacher changes her beliefs and knowledge, and her vision regarding the goal of Science Education, guiding her to scientific literacy (teacher transformation). At the same time, the teacher has dared to innovate his practice, implementing strategies towards that goal (teacher practice transformation). As a result, he tends to expand the scope of his influence beyond the classroom, because he sees that scientific literacy concerns also the community and he can help solve not only student issues, but of the community as a whole (community transformation).