Crossing boundaries: out-of-field teachers carrying out inquiry projects in physics

Out of field teaching is a widespread phenomenon, in particular in the context of physics courses for non-specialists in lower secondary school. Out-of-field teachers lack content and content-pedagogical knowledge, and their expertise in their primary disciplines is devalued. This results in their low self-efficacy and impairs students' learning. Engaging students in scientific inquiry practices, a central goal of school science curricula, is even more challenging for these teachers as physics inquiry is theory based (as opposed to inquiry in biology, which is more empirical) and requires proficiency in content areas beyond the standard curriculum.

We report a professional development framework designed to enable out of field teachers to effectively integrate the strengths they developed in their primary disciplines into their physics teaching. Using the boundary-crossing perspective, we analyze how participants, biology teachers, used various boundary objects to facilitate the implementation of inquiry in physics. In one case, a teacher investigated the chemical garden, a phenomenon from the chemistry curriculum, using theoretical modeling practices related to physics inquiry. In other cases, teachers investigated phenomena related to school physics but used their knowledge of microscopic interactions or experimental practices imported from biology instruction to investigate it. These findings contribute to our understanding of productive learning pathways for out of field teachers.