Collaboration in teachers’ practice

Teachers play a significant role in student learning (Hattie 2011). Therefore, to support the development of high-quality education, teachers’ professional learning is important and needs to be facilitated by the school organization (Parding and Berg-Jansson 2017). Teachers also need a healthy work environment that motivates and encourages them to stay and develop in the profession (Geiger and Pivovarova 2018). Collaboration and exchange between subject teachers can be important for professional development, shown by Avalos (2011), Postholm (2012), and Parding, Sehlstedt, Johansson, Berg-Jansson, and Jakobsson (2018). Collaboration can also strengthen feelings of competence and relatedness (Vangrieken, Dochy, Raes, & Kyndt 2015). According to Self-Determination-Theory, these are innate psychological needs that, together with autonomy, must be fulfilled in order for a person to remain healthy (Deci and Ryan 2000). Accommodation of these needs makes humans growth-oriented and inclined to integrate themselves into larger social structures. Therefore, need satisfaction in competence, relatedness and autonomy are important drivers in learning, building interpersonal relations, and developing intrinsic motivation (Deci and Ryan 2000).

However, collaboration can also be difficult and cause problems, for example due to time-consuming processes that interfere with other important tasks, or difficult relationships (Little 1990). If the collaboration is forced upon the participants, they may lack autonomy and intrinsic motivation (Deci and Ryan 2000). On the other hand, teachers may also feel a lack of autonomy due to limitations in their opportunities to collaborate with colleagues (Vangrieken, Dochy, Raes, & Kyndt 2015), a constrained form of individualism (Hargreaves 2001).

When the individual’s cost of a collaboration, for example increased workload or conflicts between collaborators, is perceived as higher than the gain, for example student or teacher learning or enjoyment, a social connection might be viewed as less valuable (Adler and Kwon 2002). Collaborations that teachers perceive as valuable, can thus be viewed as collaborations where the gain has been perceived as higher than the costs involved. We need to acknowledge the cost of upholding social connections; it can be viewed as uncertain investments in social capital without guarantees of dividend, and efforts can be made on an organisational level to reduce the costs and increase the gain for individuals (Adler and Kwon 2002).

In the present study, I explored biology teachers’ perspectives on collaborations they considered valuable or less valuable for their own professional learning or the development of biology teaching and learning at their school, in relation to the organisational conditions they experienced. In order to identify support which can strengthen teachers’ well-being and professional learning in different types of collaborative work, as requested by Reeves, Pun, and Chung (2017), I focused on benefits and difficulties of the collaborations to identify factors that can increase the gain and reduce the cost for the teachers. In addition to general insights on the value of collaborative work, the focus on biology teachers allows for analysis of collaborations especially relevant to biology education.

Teacher experience of collaboration

Teachers’ life-stories, where teachers wrote telling aspects of their working life, were gathered in an earlier study (Raymond, Butt, & Townsend 1992). The researchers found that collegial interactions were mentioned frequently, even though they were not specifically requested. Most of those accounts (80%) described negative interactions but many of the teachers (60%) also mentioned positive collegial interactions. In the present study, I asked the surveyed biology teachers to give accounts of experiences that they viewed as more or less valuable. The purpose was to be able to compare and contrast between these experiences in a qualitative rather than quantitative way. Experience can be viewed as a continuous process, and represented by for example life-stories, or as one specific experience—an experience—the latter as a process with closure or an end result (Roth and Journet 2013), such as the collaborations narrated in this interview study.

Huberman (1992) analysed teachers’ life histories in search of variables that could predict a career path towards the positive spectrum of the developmental phases. Teachers who did not experience significant reforms or multiple-classroom innovations, and instead worked with smaller changes and adjustments, with occasional help and input from a small group of colleagues and external sources, were more likely to be satisfied later on in their career. Other variables that had a large impact were experience of successful outcomes in the classroom, and those in part-time employment were more likely to remain at the positive spectrum of the career model than those in full-time employment. Time to reflect on practice can be important for development (Bryce, Wilmes, & Bellino 2016) and might be a reason for the higher satisfaction in part-time employed teachers. On the other hand, time consuming interactions can reduce time for reflection and the gain the interaction brings might not outweigh the cost. By comparing and contrasting between teachers’ experiences of valued and less valued collaborations, we can gain insight into how to lower the risk of collaborations being perceived as more costly than beneficial.

Teacher collaboration—respect for individual differences and well-being

Lieberman and Miller (1981) pointed out the importance of focusing on the strengths instead of the weaknesses in individual teachers’ approaches to professional learning, and Clark (1992) also emphasised the need for respect and appreciation for differences in teaching styles. Clark (1992) advocated abandoning the idea that teachers need to become excellent at everything. High expectations, combined with large amounts of emotional labour and low support, can be especially destructive for early-career teachers (Jakhelln 2011). By focusing on strengths and recognising them, individual teachers’ feelings of competence can be strengthened and their contribution to collaborative professional development may increase (Clark 1992). It has been shown that certain forms of collegial interaction place high demands on respect for each other’s differences as well as trust, such as observing each other’s lessons and giving feedback. Supportive social climate and autonomy are related to job satisfaction and reduced risk of burnout among Norwegian teachers (Skaalvik and Skaalvik 2017). An open climate might be particularly important for teachers in the early stages of their career in order to facilitate professional development and avoid burn-out and disillusionment (Jakhelln 2011). Collaborations of different perceived value can point towards factors which are important to support the development of such an open climate. If teachers feel inadequate in a collaboration, this might make them perceive it as less valuable and inclined to avoid further interaction since feelings of competence connects to intrinsic motivation (Deci and Ryan 2000).

Collaboration of different degree of interdependence

The type of collaboration teachers engage in can also vary in degree of interdependence. Little (1990) categorised the collaborative work of teachers into four categories based on the degree of interdependence they entail: storytelling and scanning, aid and assistance, sharing, and joint work. The storytelling and scanning can function as emotional support and bring up ideas for developing practice. The next level of interdependence, aid and assistance can be especially important for early-career teachers. The concept of sharing entails the potential to increase teachers’ repertoire and quality of teaching but also lays the groundwork for in-depth discussions about attitudes to teaching and instructional priorities. Finally, joint work is the conception in Little’s division of collegiality that entails the highest degree of interdependence. Joint work is highly dependent on organisational structures and requires teachers to expose their work and discuss intentions and practices, thus laying the foundation for in-depth discussions. (Little 1990).

All four levels of interdependence can entail problematic aspects (Little 1990). Story-telling and scanning can conserve practice and may lack depth. Aid and assistance can be problematic if teachers are at risk of being judged, possibly losing status, prestige or self-esteem if required to ask for help. Joint work entails the risk of loss in individual autonomy and can also cause confrontations when different viewpoints collide (Little 1990), which can lead to conflicts and balkanisation (i.e., hostile standpoints) between groups of teachers (Hargreaves 2001).

Organisational support of collaboration and teacher experience

Professional development through collaboration can be strengthened if school structure rewards interdependence between teachers, thus increasing their motivation to collaborate (Little 1990). The gain teachers receive from collaborating with others may differ with level of experience where beginner teachers might have a larger need of collaboration than more experienced ones (Little 1991). In a study performed in Germany, teachers’ participation in collaboration was shown to decrease with the teachers’ age and experience, but there was large individual variation (Richter, Kunter, Klusmann, Lüdtke, & Baumert 2011). However, the use of professional literature as means of professional development increase with teachers’ age. One explanation that the authors provide is that the need for collaborative support is greater in the beginning of a teacher’s career and that more experienced teachers have less to gain from collaboration with colleagues. Bureaucratic or organisational measures could increase the individual’s gain in social interaction and tip the scales in favour of upholding the social connection or collaboration despite the costs (Adler and Kwon 2002). The biology teachers represented in the present study varied in level of experience from less than one year in the profession to up to 30 years to enable reasoning around benefits and difficulties that relate to level of experience.

Collaboration—benefits and difficulties

In a review article on how experienced teachers learn, Postholm (2012) concludes that collaboration with other teachers, with support from school administration, seems to be a good way for teachers to learn and that this, in turn, benefits the students. Postholm (2012) also points to the importance of autonomy so that teachers may identify their own needs for development of their practice, and that there is time for, and structure that, facilitates reflection. Since collaboration can support well-being and professional development, but also can bring problematic aspects, it is important to understand conditions that impact how collaborations function. Previous studies have shown that teachers value collaboration highly (Parding, Sehlstedt, Johansson, Berg-Jansson, and Jakobsson 2018) but that it can be problematic or perceived as negative (Johnson 2003). However, I have not been able to find any studies that analyse conditions related to collaborations of different types, and with different perceived value, as was done in the present interview study. The benefits and difficulties biology teachers experience in different types of collaborations of more or less perceived value can help prioritise support to increase gain and reduce cost for teachers in collaborations, and thereby support their well-being, professional learning, and the development of teaching and learning biology in schools. The subject-specific focus on biology opens up for analysis of aspects of specific relevance for biology teachers and provides examples of important collaborations for biology teachers.

Aim and research questions

The aim of the present study was to identify aspects of teacher collaboration which can increase the gain and reduce the cost for biology teachers in different types of collaborations. The two overarching research questions were as follows: (1) What aspects of benefits and difficulties did the biology teachers experience in relation to collaborative work perceived as more or less valuable? (2) Which conditions did the biology teachers experience as relevant for the functioning of the collaborations of different types and perceived value?

Motives to use case-based methodology and the importance of including implicit learning and experience when studying professional learning

In this study, grounded in the teachers accounts of their own experiences in relation to collaborations being perceived as more or less valuable, I used a case-based methodology (Svensson and Doumas 2013). This was done to enable contextual understanding of the examples of collaborative experiences each teacher chose to relate, as well as relationships and overarching trends between these experiences. In accordance with the case-based methodology, I identified aspects of relevance for the cases and analysed internal and external relations between the cases (Svensson and Doumas 2013). The cases are the biology teachers’ own accounts of collaborations that they considered more or less valuable for their professional development and the development of biology education at the school.

This approach is complementary to more direct measures of professional development, such as measuring teacher learning, implementation of new teaching methods, or effects on student learning due to professional development projects, as discussed in Evans (2019). In research on professional development programs, the key focus is often on more explicit learning goals (Webster-Wright 2009). Such direct measures of explicit learning risk underestimating the effect of professional development; for example, the effect can be delayed and there might be long-term effects even if no measurable effects on student learning can be detected. Many small and unmeasurable effects, or implicit learning, might also sum up to significant improvements in the education system, such as changes in school cultures and attitudes towards development. Explicit learning might be easier to detect through more direct measures, while implicit learning that may be identified only in retrospect might be missed (Evans 2019). In accordance with Evans (2019), I view explicit and implicit learning as two opposite ends of a spectrum with more or less explicitly stated learning goals and intended learning outcomes.

In this study, I zoomed out from specific professional development projects and instead limited the study to how collaborative work is perceived by biology teachers in terms of value for their professional development or biology education development at their schools. Thus, the narratives can range from implicit to explicit professional learning and the teachers might express an awareness of learning in retrospect (Evans 2019). Evans argues that professional development is often reduced to practitioners’ physical actions that can be observed. I let the teachers themselves identify which collaborations they consider more or less valuable for development (professional or educational). This gives a wider take on development while specifying the individual teachers’ perspectives and experiences in line with what Webster-Wright (2009) identifies as authentic professional learning.

Depending on how the teachers define collaboration, they might include different types of work situations when they choose examples to relate. Moreover, the conditions that are relevant for how well a collaboration turned out were identified from the individual teacher’s perspective. Evans (2019) advocated for observational studies in order to strengthen knowledge on teachers’ learning and avoid too much focus on individuals’ perspectives. However, since the purpose of this study was to increase understanding on how school organisations can support teachers’ professional development/learning and well-being, I argue that it is relevant to investigate the issue from the individual teachers’ perspectives. Emotional, practical and intellectual aspects are intertwined in experiences (Roth and Jornet 2013), therefore teachers’ experiences of collaboration and their perceived value connects to well-being, support and professional learning. Using a case-based methodology enabled a degree of generalisation.

The context of the study—the biology subject, teachers interviewed, locations and type of schools

Contextual conditions may differ between subjects and school forms; in the present study, the focus was on biology teachers in upper secondary schools in southern Sweden which provided Natural science or Agricultural programs. In most other upper secondary programs in Sweden, the biology courses are replaced by general courses in science studies, rendering biology quite a small subject. The biology subject is broad and includes many organisational levels, from biomolecules, cells, organs and organisms to ecosystems (The Swedish national agency for education 2011). Swedish upper secondary school biology teachers are often specialised in some parts of the subject, for example ecology, microbiology or genetics, which may bring increased need for intradisciplinary collaboration. Field work is commonly occurring and the Swedish biology syllabus specifies content relating to ethics and social issues (The Swedish national agency for education 2011). Therefore, external and interdisciplinary collaborations can be important for biology teachers. To investigate teachers’ collaboration from within a discipline allows for detection of subject specific needs, but the results can also have a wider reach, applicable to teachers in other subjects and contexts.

The teacher license for biology differs from the license for teaching science studies. All teachers interviewed in this study were licenced in biology, and some had chemistry or science studies as a second subject. The level of experience differed between the interviewed teachers, ranging from less than one year to up to 30 years of experience as a teacher (Fig. 1). The teachers worked in seven different municipalities of various sizes (between 15,000 and 320,000 citizens) at eleven different schools. The number of biology teachers employed at each respective school ranged from one up to more than seven depending on the number of students taking biology, opportunities to interact with subject colleagues therefore varied. In most of the schools in my sample, the local municipality functioned as organiser. However, a couple of them were independent schools with corporate organiser, still solely relying on government funding without tuition fees for students. All schools were managed by a headmaster and assistant headmasters.

Fig. 1
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The interviewed teachers’ aliases with stated years of experience in the profession

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Sampling of participants

I strived for maximum variation sampling (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison 2011) in terms of the biology teachers’ level of experience, as well as the size of the schools and cities or municipalities they worked in. This enables a diverse picture of different conditions that biology teachers might experience in their work in relation to collaboration. In order to gain access to biology teacher informants, I sent out requests to headmasters of upper secondary schools in municipal regime in four of the largest municipalities in the region of Scania, southern Sweden. The request was to come and present the study to the biology teachers at a subject meeting and to ask them to participate in the project. To increase the representation of different schools, I contacted additional biology teachers working in different cities in Southern Sweden and asked them to participate. Early in the sampling process, my material was highly skewed toward biology teachers with vast experience and large responsibility at their schools. I thus directed my efforts to include teachers with less experience in the profession in order to broaden the picture of how teachers at different stages of their careers experience collaboration. Through a contact at one of the initial schools, I was put into contact with teachers who had less experience. By snowball sampling, I then managed to include additional teachers in the beginning of their career (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison 2011). However, the selection of interviewees was not randomised and due to the volunteer sampling used, teachers with interest in the topic might have been more inclined to participate (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison 2011).

Data collection in form of questionnaire and interviews

The data were collected in two steps: a questionnaire followed by individual interviews with biology teachers. Five of the 14 schools that I contacted initially responded positively to my request to come and present my study to the biology teachers, and 15 out of 19 biology teachers in those schools answered the questionnaire. The initial meetings and the questionnaire allowed me to develop the questions for the interviews and therefore functioned as a pilot study. In the questionnaire, I asked about gender, level of experience and position, as well as Likert scale questions on perceived autonomy and perceived amount of collaboration in relation to perceived need in different aspects of the work. The respondents could comment on all questions and at the end there was one free-text question concerning pros and cons of collaboration. After preliminary analysis of the answers, I moved forward with individual interviews to go in more depth into the issues and conditions surrounding different types of collaborations. The interviews were conducted between November 2018 and June 2019 and the final material included interviews with 12 biology teachers. They were all given aliases to help distinguish them and keep them anonymous (Fig. 1).

The interviewees were first asked to draw social network maps consisting of themselves in the middle, surrounded by groups or persons with whom they had collaborations with concerning biology education; this is an adaptation of a method used by Poole, Iqbal, and Verwoord, (2019). In the social network maps, the participants were asked to include information about how frequently they interacted with each collaborative unit (which could be one person or a group) in the map. In relation to each unit, they were also asked to grade degree of consensus (1–5), as well as how much they valued each collaboration for the biology education at their school (1–5). Drawing the maps functioned as a warm-up for the interview, where the participants had the opportunity to recall collaborations they had, and gave an overview of the collaboration landscape they worked in.

The interviewees were then asked to provide an example of a collaboration they considered valuable for their professional development or the biology education at the school; these are referred to henceforth as valued collaborations. Follow-up questions were asked on the following topics: on whose initiative the collaborations started, the starting point and motive, the time perspective, prerequisites, difficulties, effects on themselves as well as on others (such as other teachers and students), feelings involved, and power structures in the collaboration. The interviews were semi-structured with an interview guide approach (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison 2011). Additional follow-up questions that became relevant due to the context were sometimes asked, as were confirmatory questions to ensure that I understood the meaning correctly. The participants were also asked to exemplify a collaboration they had experienced that did not function well or that they considered less valuable (these accounts are referred to henceforth as less valued collaborations), with the same follow-up questions as for the valued collaborations. Full transcriptions of the spoken words in the interviews were conducted.

Data analysis

In the analysis of the interview responses, I used content analysis in an iterative process (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison 2011). The purpose was to identify aspects of benefits and difficulties in collaborations of different types. Answers to the free-text questions in the questionnaire concerning pros and cons of collaboration were used as a starting point since the answers contained clear statements regarding difficulties and benefits which biology teachers might experience in relation to collaborations. In the iterative process, I identified additional aspects of benefits and difficulties present in the related collaborations until I could categorise all the benefits and difficulties mentioned by the biology teachers in as few aspects as possible, while still maintaining relevance for the issues presented. The identified aspects were then used to depict the narratives from the interviews in shorter forms (so-called culling, Cohen, Manion, & Morrison 2011). The condensed forms enabled presentation and analysis from the perspective of benefits and difficulties related by the teachers in relation to contextual conditions they included in the narratives, in line with the case-based methodology (Svensson and Doumas 2013).

The method might have some limitations and uncertainties; for example, teachers may choose to relate a situation that makes themselves look good, or the reasons for choosing a specific collaboration could differ and be more or less strongly related to the teacher’s professional development or the biology education at the school. These limitations have been considered during the analysis and the interpretations have been made with this in mind. The identification and categorisation of the aspects of benefits and difficulties were an interpretation that was made to enable the analysis. However, there is always a risk of misinterpretation. To reduce that risk, I implemented the iterative process by which the transcripts were read multiple times, focusing the search on different aspects (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison 2011).

The collaborations can include different types of collaborative partners and, depending on their role, different conditions might be relevant for how the collaboration is perceived in terms of value. In the search for contextual conditions of general importance for different types, the valued and less valued collaborations were grouped into different categories depending on the collaborative partners included. Since the number of collaborative partners may impact the need for a structured organisation around the collaboration, a further division was made into small-scale collaborations (two to three collaborative partners) and large-scale (more than three collaborative partners) collaborations. Svensson and Doumas (2013) argue for the need for thorough descriptions of similarities and differences between cases and groups of cases in order to develop basic understanding and generalization. I therefore focused on common features and differences within the different types of collaboration in relation to the identified aspects of benefits and difficulties, together with contextual conditions that appeared to have been of importance for how the collaborations were perceived by the teachers.

The social network maps with related audio transcriptions were used to triangulate the results by checking whether the collaborative partners in the examples given of valued and less valued collaborations were included in the maps and, if so, how they were rated in terms of value for the interviewed teacher’s development (1–5), consensus in views on teaching (1–5), and frequency of the interaction (weekly, monthly, yearly, more seldom).

Results—benefits and difficulties in relation to type and value of collaborations

The aspects of benefits and difficulties of collaborative work that I identified from the answers to the questionnaire and the interviews were clustered into 12 overarching categories: six for benefits and six for difficulties. The aspects of benefits identified related to teachers’ professional development and work-situation (teacher-oriented aspects 1, 2 and 3, Table 1), as well as student effects, grading and curricular demands (student/curriculum-oriented aspects 4, 5 and 6, Table 1). The aspects of difficulties identified concerned time, motivation, autonomy, structural or practical issues, competition between teachers, and understanding and consensus (categories A–F, Table 1).

Table 1 Aspects of benefits (1–6) and difficulties (A–F) with collaborations for biology teachers in upper secondary school in Sweden, identified from free-text answers to a question about the pros and cons of collaborations in the questionnaire and from collaborations narrated in the interviews
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Three major types of collaborative work, depending on the collaborative partners, were identified in the examples of valued and less valued collaborations. These were intradisciplinary within the school, interdisciplinary within the school, and those involving external contacts. The intra- and interdisciplinary collaborations were also identified as small-scale (two to three teachers) or large-scale (more than three teachers). Two of the teachers, Emma and Edward, gave additional examples of collaborations (marked as 2nd in Table 2). Charlotte’s example of a valued collaboration contained both external and interdisciplinary collaborators within the school and was therefore grouped into both categories.

Table 2 Overview of the valuable (unshaded) and less valuable (shaded) collaborations and how they related to the aspect of benefits and difficulties (Table 1) in collaborative work identified in the data
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In eight out of the 12 valued collaborations related, the interviewed biology teachers were among the initiators; two of these were initiated by school leaders and one by subject colleagues. In the less valued collaborations, only one was initiated by the interviewed teacher. It was common for two or three aspects of benefits to be mentioned in the valued collaborations, often relating both to teacher-oriented aspects (Aspects 1, 2 and 3 in Table 1) and student/curriculum-oriented aspects (Aspects 4, 5 and 6 in Table 1). In the less valued collaborations, the biology teachers usually only referred to one, sometimes two, aspects of benefits that were either teacher- or student/curriculum-oriented (Table 2).

Only two out of the 27 narratives concerned professional development programmes; one was valued and one was less valued. Both examples were given by the same teacher, George (Table 2). Below are brief descriptions of the collaborations the interviewed teachers chose to exemplify as valuable or less valuable ones, grouped according to type, scale and value. Aspects of benefits and difficulties identified as relevant for each type is presented.

Intradisciplinary collaborations

In the described valued intradisciplinary collaborations, common aspects of benefits were professional development, well-being, and assessment and grading. Difficulties were related to time aspects or practical difficulties (Table 2). The less valued intradisciplinary collaborations appeared to be associated with a lack of consensus in teaching practice in addition to time aspects and practical difficulties (Table 2).

Small-scale intradisciplinary collaborations; valued. Five teachers—Fredrick, Edmund, Elinor, Anne and Henry—chose collaborations between two or three biology teachers within the school as examples of collaborations valuable for their professional development or the biology education at the school. The collaborations differed in aim but all had a positive impact on the professional development of the interviewed teachers. Frederick described a collaboration concerning developing a new programme profile, initially involving an open and creative process between two teachers with a rewarding impact on the professional development due to reflections about goal and purpose, variation and thinking in new ways in terms of teaching practice. Problems emerged when the profile was actualised and management support was lacking. Fredrick has since left the school and identified it as an example of a valued collaboration due to its impact on his own professional development. The joy of the collaboration and the feeling of doing a good job and developing was coupled with frustration about not being given the prerequisites needed.

Edmund had been the only teacher in his subject at the school, where he had worked since graduating as a teacher four years earlier, when a new colleague with experience of teaching his subject started at the school. A collaboration concerning assessment and grading was initiated, as well as an exchange of ideas about how to work with the course. Edmund pointed out that the positive aspects of the collaboration were that the teachers had a similar attitude towards the subject and that it was inspiring to work together. He stated that he was learning structure and new ways to plan the course, which he felt “make everything easier to handle”.

Elinor’s, Anne’s and Henry’s valued collaboration narratives are similar, although Elinor described a collaboration in which two teachers share responsibility for a course while Anne and Henry described teaching a course parallel with other teachers. Both mentioned the benefit of working together, getting support from a colleague, having someone to talk to who can back you up in assessment for equality and reliability. Elinor mentioned a colleague who had a slightly different background and how this made her see new possibilities for practical work with the students. In Anne’s and Henry’s case, consensus about what to teach and on what level was identified as a major benefit, together with a structured way of working. Henry emphasised the importance of teachers helping each other develop, since he had only recently started working as a teacher, but this was also expressed by Anne, who had more experience (Fig. 1). Elinor expressed that the shared responsibility provided a more robust system if one teacher became ill. The only problem that Elinor related was that it was sometimes difficult to find time to plan together. Anne and Henry shared working space with their subject colleagues and also had scheduled meeting time set aside for the collaborative work, so they did not experience difficulty finding common time for planning.

Small-scale intradisciplinary collaborations; less valued. A lack of consensus about teaching strategies and a lack of structure were identified as problematic aspects in collaborations between a few biology teachers. The former issue was identified by Elinor, Anne, Edmund and Harry. Elinor struggled to remember a specific example of a less valued collaboration but related that it was sometimes difficult to find the time to reach consensus on issues and that scheduled meeting time was needed. She mentioned two biology teacher colleagues who had difficulties collaborating due to a lack of consensus on assessment, but this problem was managed in that teachers remained autonomous regarding how they set up their own courses. Elinor claimed she was able to work well with both. Anne described a shared course with another biology teacher; the other teacher had taught the course before, while Anne was going to take over and they taught it together her first time. She described a lack of consensus regarding how they viewed the content and the preparatory process and difficulties in assessing the students, since the two teachers managed this in different ways, which the students noticed and were critical of.

A collaboration on field trips with the students was initiated by a colleague of Edmund. He related in the interview that the other teacher came unprepared and “dumped her students on him”. He stated that he was not upfront with her about it in the beginning and talked behind her back instead, but that things got better once they discussed it directly. Since then, the collaboration had continued and Edmund said it had been going well lately. A different attitude towards the subject and how to teach it was related as one reason for the difficulties. Edmund emphasised that he respects the other as a person and that he should have been upfront from the beginning.

Anne and Edward mentioned problems with structure in the collaborations between a few biology teachers. Anne wanted more structure and a clear strategy to convey to the students regarding assessment and grading criteria. The content of the course, which was created at the school, was not completely clear to her. The two teachers did not have time to sit down and do the assessment work together as she would have liked. However, she appreciated being introduced to the course in this way, before delivering it alone the next time it would run. She pointed out that clearer structure would have helped, and compared this with her example of the valued collaboration (subject colleagues teaching parallel courses) in which a clear structure for assessment was in place. Edward narrated a handover of a course from another teacher going on leave as an experience of a collaboration that did not work well. Edward stated that his predecessor had gone through the material too slowly and there was too much left to do. He related that the information he received was scarce and compared it with another handover that included assessment matrices and information on the students. When I asked about the organisation of the handovers, he said that there was a meeting but that it was vague and that the work description at the school in general was vague.

Large-scale intradisciplinary collaborations; valued. Two teachers narrated collaborations within subject that included all biology teachers at the respective schools as valued collaboration for their professional development or the biology education at the school. Both collaborations ended but for different reasons. The colleagues at George’s school were working with professional development modules offered by Swedish National Agency for Education. The teachers planned and evaluated lessons together as a group, restructured and learned from each other’s competences. George said it was the most rewarding thing he had done in a long time (he is an experienced teacher, see Fig. 1). According to George, the problems encountered had to do with the organisational structure, the meeting time became allocated by other things, and stress levels and the risk of burn-out for a teacher in the team made them reluctant to continue. Sidney related a collaboration to construct written exams in a previous grading system. He described a structure of collaboration that was timesaving, developmental, caused unity in the teacher team and gave the students a sense of security in their grades. The development of the collaboration was put on ice while waiting for a new curriculum that was delayed. Sidney related that once the new curriculum came into place, the teachers all “started doing their own thing”. The collaboration fell apart and, at the time of the interview, the teachers had a hard time finding consensus around assessment and grading, so they were doing it individually. He recalls the collaboration as providing equality in grading and being legally certain, but questioned the validity. Sidney also described the joy of working together and being able to celebrate a job well done with his colleagues—something that had become lost when they stopped collaborating on the assessments and exams.

Large-scale intradisciplinary collaborations; less valued. Frederick narrated a collaboration on common tests in all biology classes in order to strive for equality in grading between the teachers and to offer the students an opportunity to show their knowledge at the end of the courses. The collaboration involved developing the tests and agreeing about how to assess the questions. However, according to Frederick, different teachers still assessed the test differently and emphasised areas they had studied more thoroughly in their classes. The collaboration was a long tradition at the school that had already been in place when Fredrick started working there. He believed it was initiated by the teachers themselves. Fredrick identified power structures based on subject knowledge and on gender but could not see a correlation between power structures in the group and who broke the agreed premises for the test. He valued the discussions in the teacher team concerning problems in equality in assessment and pointed out that it is important to get over the prestige in order to be able to discuss these important issues. He also stated that the subject teachers were requesting more time for subject meetings, which he thought would be valuable.

Interdisciplinary collaborations

In the interdisciplinary collaborations, aspects relating to student effects were commonly mentioned as a benefit (Table 2); for example, to see that a problem can be looked at from different perspectives, that biology is connected to other subjects, as well as increased variation in teaching methods that might benefit student learning. In three of the six valuable collaborations and one of the five less valuable collaborations, the teachers also mentioned their own learning as a benefit. The large-scale interdisciplinary collaboration was often referred to as time-consuming, and motivation was often mentioned as a difficulty, both for teachers and students (Table 2). On the other hand, the small-scale interdisciplinary collaboration was often referred to as beneficial due to sharing and saving time, even though it was sometimes difficult for the teachers to find the time to plan together. Curricular demands were often mentioned as a motivation for undertaking the less valued interdisciplinary collaborations, while student learning was commonly mentioned as the motivation for the valued collaborations (Table 2).

Small-scale interdisciplinary collaborations; valued. As an example of valued collaborations, four of the teachers chose to narrate interdisciplinary collaboration involving two or three teachers of different subjects. In all four cases, the initiative came from one of the teachers involved. Elizabeth initiated a joint course on environmental politics with a social science teacher. The collaboration presented a new way to view certain parts of the biology courses for Elizabeth, who stated that biology teachers often see things in a similar way. She especially mentioned parts of the syllabus concerning individual and societal effect. She also mentioned benefits for the students, such as insights in different perspectives on environmental issues. Difficulties with differences in subject traditions were minor and Elizabeth did not mention any other problems. Catherine related an interdisciplinary collaboration including biology, English, and Swedish concerning scientific writing. She claimed that the students improved their scientific writing compared to when she worked alone within her subject. While there was a shortage of time for planning, Catherine stated that it probably would have been easier if they repeated it again and that the different approach benefitted the teaching and learning in all three subjects involved. Edward narrated an interdisciplinary collaboration with two other teachers, social sciences and Swedish. The students were to prepare and hold a debate on genetically modified organisms. According to Edward, the different subjects offered different perspectives on the debate and the issue, a clear structure was developed between the teachers and the workload for the teachers was reduced, although the students also benefitted. The debate was assessed, which caused some difficulty since the teachers thought differently about how active their roles should be; whether they should solely be observers or should be guides to the students during the debate. This was not discussed afterward, since changes in course order prevented them from repeating the collaboration. Emma gave an additional example (Emma 2nd, Table 2) similar to Edward’s, with benefits in increased quality on the teaching on ethical aspects in genetic technology, and difficulties expressed related to schedule.

Small-scale interdisciplinary collaborations; less valued. Two teachers narrated interdisciplinary collaborations with two or three other teachers as less valued collaborations. Both teachers (Catherine and Henry) were at the beginning of their careers, with less than two years of experience in the profession (Fig. 1). Catherine related a collaboration with a mathematics teacher that she described as being in need of development. The collaboration concerned the students using statistics on ecological questions. Catherine felt that while the teachers got along fine, there was a lot of stress and the value for the students in the biology course was low. However, the intentions were good and Catherine saw potential for development, making the biology parts more prominent and valuable for the students’ biology knowledge. Catherine attributed the difficulties to her being a new teacher, the only biology teacher at the school, and developing her practice as she went along. She stated in the interview that she now had an idea of how to make the collaboration work better.

Henry related a collaboration concerning sustainability, where the students worked on interdisciplinary projects that involved three subjects. He described it as functional but with potential to be developed further by involving more subjects, such as psychology and social science. The students enjoyed the variation the project brought, but Henry thought it was difficult to assess the students in the projects. It was also difficult to get the students to really work on the project and to ensure they got what they needed, in terms of subject knowledge, to be able to develop their understanding of the topics.

Large-scale interdisciplinary collaborations; valued. Two of the teachers, Emma and Charlotte, related interdisciplinary collaborations involving several subjects as examples of collaborations they experienced as valuable for their own professional development or for the biology education at the school. In both narratives, the students’ schedule was interrupted for a week or two in order for them to work in an interdisciplinary manner on projects concerning sustainable development. In Emma’s case, the school was small and had a sustainable development profile, so the teachers were expected to have this focus and the management support for the collaboration was strong. Emma said that the project allowed the students to see how biology was coupled with other school subjects and that it also helped her to think more about how her subject connected to the different topics included over the years, and to work with different methods to include the course content and make assessment. She pointed out that one difficulty was that some teachers, mostly mathematics and language teachers, did not think that the form was suitable for their subjects. Charlotte explained that acquiring more insights into the subject helps the students see how the subjects come together in a unified way.

Large-scale interdisciplinary collaborations; less valued. Three of the teachers chose to relate large interdisciplinary collaborations as examples of collaborations that were less valued. Emma, whose valued example of collaboration also was a large scale interdisciplinary one, described a similar project set-up for a less valued collaboration on the topic of “water”. The collaboration was decided upon by the school management, led by the headmaster, and despite an initial sense of value for the biology subject, Emma had difficulty finding enough material relating to the biology course she was teaching. Emma also related that several of the other subjects had this difficulty and there was not enough time to prepare to make the collaboration valuable.

Elizabeth described an interdisciplinary project on sustainable development where some of the subject teachers did not want to participate as a less valued experience of collaboration. The initiative came from a few of the biology teachers at the school and the management decided that most of the subjects should participate. The situation led to an uneven workload and negative feelings in the teaching team. Sidney related a large interdisciplinary collaboration involving an overnight field trip as a less valued collaborative experience. The initiative came from another teacher in the team and was funded by external means. Sidney felt that he became responsible because other subject teachers related excursions to biology, even though it was supposed to be a joint effort. He felt that the other teachers involved did not take the responsibility they should have, which skewed the workload towards him.

Collaborations with external contacts

The external contacts brought professional development as well as student learning as aspects of benefits, while difficulties were related to them being time-consuming and having practical challenges. Four of the 27 narratives (Table 2) involved external contacts, ranging from teachers on other schools, to university researchers, as well as municipal employees working on sustainable development issues.

Collaborations with external contacts; valued. The large interdisciplinary collaboration that Charlotte narrated as valued included external contacts with representatives of the municipality who worked on sustainable development issues. She had a personal contact there that she turned to and got directed towards other possible collaborators for the interdisciplinary project. She claimed to have learned much from the collaboration, explaining that it helped fulfil curricular demands of teaching social aspects and sustainability. She also expressed that the teaching became varied and the students had some preparation for their exam projects, ideas and opponent-respondent practice. She describes joy and engagement but also hard work making it all come together.

Collaborations with external contacts, less valued. George related a less valued collaboration between schools, from primary to upper secondary, facilitated by a university. The focus of the meetings was on how to develop collegial learning at the schools, an important issue to George. Nevertheless, he felt that the researcher from the university had a low degree of understanding and respect for the conditions of the work at the upper secondary school. They had a low degree of consensus on teaching practice between them, and George had a feeling of being overrun by the researcher. A lack of understanding prevented them from moving forward in the collaboration and they became stuck in an argument in which the researcher insisted “You need to do this, make time for it.” and George replied “We can’t.”.

The less valued collaboration narrated by Charlotte was described as just a bit more difficult than the valued one, involving the sustainable development municipal employees. It concerned an exchange with a Danish school where the motive was to get the students from Denmark and Sweden to collaborate in biology. Getting the students to interact was difficult due to the language barriers, which persist despite the short distance between southern Sweden and northern Denmark (about an hour with train). While the students considered it to have been a fun excursion, Charlotte felt it did not fulfil its intended purpose and that it was time-consuming. It also involved administrative obstacles such as how to pay for train and bus tickets.

As a second example of a less valued collaboration, Edward (Edward 2nd, Table 2) described how he became the organiser for an international exchange programme given by the school, where a few students should go abroad for placement. Edward related how his successor, another teacher, did not fulfil his duties; Edward wondered if this was because the other teacher did not have time or was simply too stressed and forgot. Edward argued that this should be up to management and the principal but that the principal delegated to teachers. Edward clearly expressed disappointment that the time was not sufficient for all the tasks they were expected to fulfil. He stated that they were now trying to build more stable routines so that things would work more smoothly, although this also took time, which added to the stress, but he could see an improvement due to the newly developed routines.

Triangulating the results against the social network maps

Some of the collaborative partners from the narratives were included in the social network maps, sometimes as a group and sometimes as individuals. When the narrative came from a previous workplace, it was common that the collaborative partners were not included in the maps; when they were, the frequency of the interaction related to how it was during the time of the interview and not when they worked together as described in the narratives (Table 2).

For three of the valued collaborations, collaborative partners were lacking from the maps, all from a previous workplace. In the valued collaborations where the collaborative partners were included in the map, the perceived value of the interaction was estimated as four or five out of five (Table 2). In the less valued collaborations, the collaborative partners were not included in the maps in seven of the cases (Table 2) and the perceived value estimation made in the maps ranged between one to four (Table 2). The same trend can be seen in the grading of consensus in the social network maps but with larger variation in the estimations; sometimes a difference in viewpoints was mentioned as a benefit of the collaboration and sometimes as a difficulty (Table 2).

Patterns in the results and their relationships to previous studies

The aim of this study was to identify aspects which can help increase the gain and reduce the cost for biology teachers in different types of collaborations. This was accomplished by gathering and analysing biology teachers’ experiences of benefits and difficulties in collaborations they considered valuable or less valuable for their professional learning, or for the development of teaching and learning biology at the school.

Benefits and difficulties in valued and less valued collaborative work

Concerning the first research question, some patterns could be seen in how the biology teachers represented benefits and difficulties in collaborative work of different value. While both teacher-oriented and student/curriculum-oriented aspects of benefits were commonly emphasised in valued collaboration, the teachers typically only mentioned one of these orientations as benefits in the less valued collaborations (Table 2). The examples the biology teachers chose as representations of less valued collaborations varied largely in respect to perceived value; for example, from “not successful yet” to “not valuable at all”. Thus, the less valued collaboration sometimes did play an important role, even though they did not always function as well as the interviewed teacher would have liked, and increased efforts to continue and improve them, by reducing cost and increasing gain, might be beneficial for the development as well as the well-being.

The benefits and difficulties identified in this study relate to both professional learning and well-being. Joy and support are benefits that connect to well-being by our innate need of relatedness (Deci and Ryan 2000). Joy and support as a beneficial aspect was commonly occurring in the valued collaborations but not mentioned in any of the less valued ones (Table 2). However, also the aspects of benefits and difficulties connecting to professional development and autonomy (Table 1 and 2) relate to well-being through innate needs of feeling competence and autonomy to stay healthy (Deci and Ryan 2000). The aspects of benefits and difficulties concerning time is also of relevance to teacher well-being. Swedish teachers have a heavy work load and stress-related illness is a problem (Arvidsson, Håkansson, Karlson, Björk, Persson 2016). The time-saving and time-costing aspects of collaborations are therefore an issue and the initial time–cost when developing a new collaboration can be high. Long-term gain can be time-savings but in light of the many disrupted collaborations presented here, it certainly is an uncertain investment to initiate collaborations.

Many of the valued collaborations had encountered problems and had ended, but were chosen by the teachers because of the benefits they brought. These examples enable reasoning around which kind of support is required in order to maintain, and reduce negative impact of, collaborations. The significance of time to develop consensus and structure, and to find ways to increase the gain for the students was expressed by several of the biology teachers in both valued and less valued examples of collaborations, pointing towards a need for more continuity and less abruption of collaborative projects concerning biology teaching.

Reasons for interruption of collaborative work can be diverse, as exemplified by the many collaborations that have ended presented here. However, an awareness of the importance of continuation can help avoid unnecessary interruptions. Different perspectives on development between school leaders and teachers can lead to interruption of continuity of collaborative work, in favour of top-down-initiated developmental work (discussed in Vangrieken, Meredith, Packer, & Kyndt 2017a). For example, as a result of explicit learning opportunities being prioritised over implicit learning opportunities, perhaps both in practice as in research on teacher learning shown by Webster-Wright (2009). Hargreaves (1992) identified four types of school cultures in relation to collaborative work, individualism, balkanisation, contrived collegiality and collaborative culture, and advocated that schools should strive to move towards collaborative cultures. Further, Hargreaves emphasised that, in collaborative cultures, the pace of change is slow and the school leaders lack control over direction; therefore, it might be an unattractive choice for them to facilitate such a culture, and they could instead choose to foster contrived collegiality (Hargreaves 1992). In contrived collegiality, the collaborative process is controlled externally, others set the topic and time for teachers’ collaborative work, as well as its pace, which means that the structure supporting collaborative cultures might be interrupted by more controlled professional development work.

The issue with predictability of outcomes also relates to implicit and explicit learning (Evans 2019), where collaboration might support implicit professional learning to a high degree, as indicated by the results of this study. Only two of the 27 narratives in this study concerned professional development programmes (George’s, Table 2). Still, the teachers highlighted their own professional learning in many of the collaborations, especially in the valued ones. This implies a skewness towards implicit rather than explicit learning opportunities in collaborations, without pre-set learning goals to achieve. Since implicit learning is difficult to measure, it might be overlooked in research and evaluation efforts (Webster-Wright 2009). Experience based research on teachers’ voluntary collaboration can thus be one way to balance the strong focus on professional development programs in teacher learning research and bring to attention the importance of teacher-initiated collaborations.

In a majority of the valued collaborations, the interviewed teachers were among the initiators, compared to only one out of the less valued ones. The teachers might be inclined to choose a valued collaboration that they themselves have initiated in order to demonstrate their own competence, but it might also relate to the collaborations being sprung from needs perceived by the teachers in their context (Sawyer 2002), motivation, efficacy beliefs and engagement (Durksen, Klassen, & Daniels 2017). If teachers can be in control of their professional development, and encouraged and supported in this enterprise, valuable development can be enabled (Nelson 2009). However, the measurable effects might be low (Evans 2019) and the direction of change unpredictable (Hargreaves 2001).

Collaborations of different types in relation to organisational support

The second research question concerned the different types and value of collaborative work and the underlying conditions the teachers brought forward in relation to these.

Intradisciplinary collaborations

In the intradisciplinary collaborations, close and long-term interactions prevailed. Learning within the subject has been identified by Swedish upper secondary school teachers as the most important area of professional learning, with subject colleagues as a highly valued resource (Parding and Berg-Jansson 2017). In the present study, learning, development, and well-being were emphasised, both by new and by more experienced biology teachers, in intradisciplinary collaborations. Equality in grading was often mentioned as a motivation for collaboration. This might have particular importance in biology in Swedish upper secondary schools since no standardised tests are held in that subject, in contrast to many other school subjects in Sweden. Biology teachers thus need to find common grounds for interpretation of the grading criteria in the syllabus without the guidance that standardised tests can provide.

When comparing valued and less valued collaborations between biology teachers, personal affinity appeared to play a role. Within the intradisciplinary collaborations, the less valued examples appear to have been chosen for being deficient, rather than of little value, and the teachers pointed at different factors that might improve them, such as being up-front, setting time for planning and reaching consensus on important issues, pointing towards the importance of developing trusting relationships and respect for each other’s differences as previously identified as important by for example Lieberman and Miller (1981) and Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2017).

Continued collaboration might be especially important to strengthen equality in grading when consensus is low. Therefore, it is important to develop organisational support for this. Additionally, continuity is important for developing trust and consensus as shown by Nelson (2009) and Vangrieken, Dochy, Raes, and Kyndt (2015). The possibility for teachers to remain autonomous in the collaboration might be essential in order to maintain collaboration and continued discussion when consensus is low. Therefore, time set aside for this could be an important organisational support as indicated in the examples of both valued and less valued collaborations within the subject. Possibility for the teachers to remain autonomous coupled with time for discussion could facilitate discussion on important issues (Little 1990) to stimulate development towards collaborative cultures (Hargreaves 2001) without hindering teacher autonomy (Vangrieken, Grosemans, Dochy, Kyndt 2017b). If autonomy and interdependence can be balanced, development of teaching and learning as well as well-being can be strengthened due to teachers learning from and developing increasing understanding for each other. Based on this reasoning, the level of interdependence should be balanced with the level of consensus to allow for individual autonomy. When consensus is high, it might be easier to achieve valued collaborations with high interdependence without hindering autonomy, while low consensus might call for collaborations of lower degree of interdependence (see Littles categorisation of different levels of interdependence 1990).

Interdisciplinary collaboration

If a collaboration involves joint work, but with a lack in consensus between the collaborators, this might lead to a lack of autonomy followed by decrease in motivation, rendering people reluctant to continue in accordance with Self-Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan 2000). Furthermore, problems might occur due to uneven workload, as related by Elizabeth and Sidney in the less valued large-scale interdisciplinary collaborations, and lead to negative feelings and balkanisation. The role of the school leaders appeared to be important for the large-scale interdisciplinary collaborations, as pointed out by both Elizabeth and Emma (see transformational leadership in Vanblaere and Devos 2016). The examples related by the teachers of large-scale interdisciplinary collaboration could all be classified as joint work according to Little’s (1990) categories of interdependence. In accordance with Little’s discussion of risk in joint work, there were indications that the loss of autonomy was often a problem, especially when the collaboration was not voluntary for the teachers. A common problem in this type of collaboration appeared to be difficulty in seeing how the teachers’ own subject could fit into, and benefit from, the collaboration. A motive for implementing such collaborations can be curriculum demands on an overarching level which might conflict with time to prepare for subject-specific syllabus demands (Bryce, Wilmes, & Bellino 2016), as exemplified in the less valued interdisciplinary collaborations presented here. The cause of the conflict can be due to trade-offs between width and depth in interdisciplinary collaborations (Weinberg 2017), as well as blurry expectations (Lindvig 2018), causing frustration if teachers feel students do not reach the depth of understanding they could have done if the subjects were taught separately. Henry and Catherine in the current study mentioned such frustration in interdisciplinary small-scale collaboration. Emma, Elizabeth and Sidney mentioned it in interdisciplinary large-scale collaboration. They highlighted the importance of clear frames as well as understanding and consensus of the motive and expected outcome among the collaborating teachers.

In the small-scale interdisciplinary collaborations, lack of motivation among the teachers were not emphasised as a difficulty in the same way as in the large-scale interdisciplinary collaborations. These collaborations were, to a larger degree, initiated by the teachers themselves and voluntary, albeit supported and encouraged by school leaders.

Collaboration with external contacts

The experiences related in connection with the type of collaborations that involved external contacts also point at the importance of structure, consensus, and autonomy, in agreement with Postholm (2012). Apart from this, I could not detect any internal relations between the narratives with external contacts since it was such a broad category in respect to collaborative partners. The less valued collaboration involving a university researcher narrated by George illustrates difficulties due to lack of understanding for each other’s conditions. Lack of consensus between researchers and teachers is also explored by Olitsky (2017) who points to the importance of informal talk, laughter and other solidarity-producing interactions to help ease conflicts and make them productive instead of leading to alienation as it did in George’s example.

Triangulation with the social network maps

The results from the social network maps showed that the partners in the valued collaborations were often present in the maps. Those contacts were highly valued and usually frequent, indicating that certain collaborators filled an important role for the teachers’ professional learning. Huberman’s (1992) call to increase teachers’ opportunities to form such networks deserves to be emphasised again. How such efforts could be realised for biology teachers, or teachers in other small subjects, requires more attention in future studies.

Limitations of the study

The results need to be interpreted with some limitations of the study in mind. In this study, even experienced teachers like Elisabeth and George (Fig. 1) emphasised their own learning in the valued collaborative work. This was interesting in relation to the result in Richter, Kunter, Klusmann, Lüdtke, and Baumert (2011), where more experienced teachers generally had lower appreciation of collaboration, but with large variation between individuals. Since the selection of teachers was not random in the present study, teachers who were especially interested in collaborative work might have been more inclined to participate. Johnson (2003) showed that some teachers do not appear to benefit from increased collaboration and that it might be damaging to their personal and professional lives; for example, due to increased work load, loss of autonomy, conflicts and competition. These teachers might especially benefit from an awareness of costs involved in collaborations, and organisational measures that can reduce these costs. However, it may also be more difficult to get these individuals to inform research on the matter.

Another precaution concerns the aspects of benefits and difficulties identified; they are not to be viewed as a complete list in general for collaborations, but rather as aspects of relevance to the collaborations described by the teachers. The level of detail in the aspects is a trade-off between generality and case-specific details and must be considered in relation to the descriptions of the valued and less valued collaborations in accordance with the case-based methodology used. The study focused on biology teachers’ collaboration and teachers in other subjects might have subject specific aspects of collaborations relating to their field; however, the consistency of the results in relation to previous studies indicates that many of the aspects of relevance for collaboration valued by biology teachers can be more generally applicable.

Conclusion

The main contribution of this study was how the aspects of benefits and difficulties of collaborative work emphasised different functions of collaborations for biology teachers in schools and gave insight into how these relate to organisational conditions. Management support surfaced as essential to reduce difficulties and costs in large interdisciplinary collaborations in particular, although clear structure seemed to be important in general. Additionally, autonomy stands out as particularly significant when consensus is low, if collaborations are to be supported and maintained while still promoting well-being of the teachers.

Most related examples offered informal learning opportunities for the teachers and most of the valued collaborations were initiated by the biology teachers themselves. This indicates that implicit learning and autonomy are important drivers in professional learning, relating to authentic professional learning (Webster-Wright 2009). Continuity appeared important to increase the benefits and gains of collaborations by allowing the teachers to reach consensus on important issues and develop structured well-working practices.

Continuity and autonomy as important issues were emphasised in this study in accordance with so many previous ones. However, we seem to need constant reminders of this, perhaps because of the lack of control and lack of easily measurable effects of development through collaborative cultures. School leaders need to find ways to enable collaborative developmental work based on contextual condition and teachers’ needs while also allowing for autonomy. It is a matter of prioritising—stop doing good things to enable continuity in even better things—which is an adaptation of the quote by Williams (2015):

… the essence of effective leadership is stopping people doing good things to give them time to do even better things.

The teachers’ experiences of benefits and difficulties, in relation to different types and value of collaborations investigated in the present study, can be useful to guide such priorities.