| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 環境教育研究所 === 102 === Confronting environmental issues, humankind must form consensus and seek solutions collaboratively. Environmental education is therefore embedded with collaboration for learners. However, teachers in schools are often separated by disciplines or given inadequate time to interact, they work alone. This study interviews 9 teachers in primary and middle schools, trying to understand how they collaborate with their own colleagues within environmental learning. By acknowledging teachers’ experiences, this study aims at exploring the needs of professional development for school environmental educators, and learning the significance collaboration bring to environmental education.
This study reaches the following conclusions: characteristics of environmental education easily allow teachers to connect for collaboration. Through such collaboration, culture of the whole school is altered, and professional development is promoted. Nonetheless, environmental educators hardly find collegiality with teachers from the same profession, thus they have to seek peers outside or to play the role as facilitators inside their schools. Though teachers are given a plenty of chance to work in groups, they do not demonstrate all features of collaboration, and especially lack for collegial support from one another. In addition, gaps between administrative leadership and front-line teachers may cause negative culture to collaborate.
Collaboration is a difficult but meaningful process, however, little is mentioned in environmental education research. While environmental education is institutionalized and the concept of professional learning community is highly accepted in Taiwan, this study wishes to draw attention from experts, administrators, researchers and educators, to start to care the collaboration among school environmental educators with their colleagues; as well as to understand the features and needs of these facilitators, thus may provide assistance from lenses of professional development. Consequently, school culture and environmental education learning may both be improved.
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