We share and discuss the results of a study of our own experience in a didactic research project where intense collaboration between researchers and teachers was foreseen. The research practice with teachers turned out to be very different from what we had in mind while writing the project application. In order to see what happened, we have studied the qualitative data collected during the project work in schools, together with project artefacts -  like our project agenda, project application, e-mail correspondence, meeting reports - from the point of view of the interaction between researchers and teachers and the factors that influenced it. By organizing the selected data in layers and looking at the structure as a whole, we get a perspective on the complexity of the collaboration between researchers and teachers in this didactic research project. By separately looking at the different layers, we identify levels and contexts in which obstacles had to be faced. Some of the encountered obstacles, with origin external to the collaboration, raise concerns about the condition in which teachers have to work in schools today. Looking back to our project application, we find out that, despite our experience in other didactic projects and as teacher educators, the project setup was based on a rather naïve picture of the collaboration between researchers and teachers and of the concrete practice of teachers in schools.

In the study of our research practice we have been inspired by the work of Bruno Latour and Tommaso Venturini (focus on artefacts and visualizing complexity) and its application to the study of research practice (project ‘Research in Motion’).

The idea to set up the didactic research project in the first place originated from the outcry of teachers concerning a secondary school subject, called ‘Integral Tasks’. This school subject is an integration of Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Food & Nutrition and Self-Expression and is taught by a team of teachers covering, together, the needed expertise.

Self-Expression teachers approached an arts education researcher. They pointed out that, despite the school subject Integral Tasks already existed for more than ten years, teachers and schools were still struggling with its concrete realization. Integral Tasks represented, in general, an unwanted teaching task, with older teachers escaping from it when possible, leading to unstable teaching teams often involving young unexperienced teachers. However, some teachers approaching the researcher were older and showed engagement with the school subject Integral Tasks, with which they had been experimenting since the very beginning. While pointing out to difficulties and obstacles in their practice, these teachers wanted to improve the school subject and not leave it. The researcher saw the possibility for a didactic practice-oriented research project centered on the school subject Integral Tasks and involving these engaged teachers in the didactic research.

A project application, involving three schools as research partners, was written and eventually selected for funding. The project aimed at improving the situation with the school subject Integral Tasks by setting up a didactic learning community. In this community, Integral Tasks teachers of the three schools together with didactic researchers would develop a framework for the design of Integrals Tasks learning activities. Implicit assumption of this setting was that teachers would be involved in the development of the didactic framework on equal footing with the researchers. Teachers would actively be engaged in the whole research process and not only in the data-taking phase as objects of observation in their school practice. In the same way, the project setup had foreseen participative observations where didactic researchers would work side by side with teachers in the school practice of Integral Tasks.

We have to consider two levels: (a) the didactic research project involving the collaboration between researchers and teachers; (b) the reflective study of our own research practice with focus on the collaboration between researchers and teachers. While in this contribution we report on the results of the latter, it is crucial to also describe the methodology used in the former. (a) The didactic research project had the goal of developing: - three concrete examples (cases) of Integral Tasks learning activity. These would be developed separately in three schools: in each school one researcher together with the local teachers would form a local didactic learning community. This community would develop a case reflecting the school culture, and test it in the classroom. - a framework for the design of Integral Tasks learning material. This framework would be developed in a larger didactic learning community involving the teachers of the three schools and the researchers. In the original proposal teacher students would also be involved in the communities. We had foreseen the following timeline and methods: - Orientation: group interviews with teachers in the three schools; desk research on the subject Integral Tasks - 1st Meeting larger learning community: brainstorming, sketching a framework - Participative observations in the three schools of a (six week) integral task as normally done in the school; reflection in relation to the sketched framework - 2nd Meeting larger learning community: reporting on the work in the three schools; brainstorming, improvement of the framework - Development by the local communities of three integral tasks based on the framework - Participative observations in the three schools of the developed integral task; reflection in relation to the framework - 3rd Meeting larger learning community: reports on the three cases; finalization of the framework. (b) The study of the research practice of our collaboration with teachers, has the goal of making the complexity of this practice visible in terms of different layers and structures. For this research we use the following methodology: Separate researchers - Collect project artefacts - Select relevant fragments from project artefacts - Select relevant fragments from diary of work in schools (classroom practice and meetings with teachers) Researchers together - Create master document with all selected fragments - Brainstorm: list possible layers - Classify fragments in terms of layers; find missing layers, links - Brainstorm: build visualizations, identify structures - Finalize visualizations; analyze contexts and obstacles.

The main goal of our didactic research project was to create a didactic learning community where teachers would collaborate on equal footing with researchers, aiming together at improving the didactic approach to a specific integrated, team-taught school subject. This learning community involved Integral Tasks teachers with different subject expertise from three different schools. A project design that looked good on paper and allowed us to be selected for funding, turned out to be less successful in practice. A diversity of obstacles at many different levels presented themselves from the very beginning, affecting the collaboration between researchers and teachers and making the project deviate from course. We make the complexity of this collaboration, as it took place in practice, visible. We identify layers relevant for the collaboration between researchers and teachers in this specific research project, focusing on an integrated team-taught school subject. We discuss encountered obstacles in these different layers. In particular, we consider obstacles pointing out to a problematic situation in the practice of school teachers. In this contribution we have investigated the complexity of the collaboration teacher-researcher in a specific didactic research project. We have learnt that, already at the level of project design, one should seriously consider the mutual positions and the relation between secondary school teachers and researchers in the relevant context. The fact that the project idea had originated from engaged teachers taking initiative to approach a researcher, supported our belief that the foreseen collaboration between researchers and teachers would work. Unfortunately, the outcry of engaged teachers asking for help - to researchers considered as experts who could concretely solve their problems - was an indication of the problematic situation with the considered school subject, and of the distress of these teachers (who signed off work during project duration).

On the didactic research project involving a collaboration between researchers and teachers: Practice-Oriented Research Project ‘On the way to an integral learning community for the study direction Social and Technical Sciences. Qualitative approach for the Integral Tasks’ (2016-2019), funded by University College Leuven-Limburg. Information about this project (in Dutch) can be found at: https://www.ucll.be/onderzoek/call-research/goedgekeurde-pwo-projecten/goedgekeurde-pwo%E2%80%99s-2016 On the Belgian-Flemish school subject Integral Tasks: Official description for teachers of the school subject Integral Tasks (leerplan, in Dutch) for the study direction Social and Technical Sciences, for 3rd and 4th year of Technical Secondary Education, of the network of schools Flemish Union of Catholic Secondary Education (VVKSO – BRUSSEL D/2015/7841/015), can be downloaded at: http://ond.vvkso-ict.com/leerplannen/doc/Sociale%20en%20technische%20wetenschappen-2015-015.pdf Tamassia L., Frenssen T., ‘Over vakkenclusters en leerkrachtenteams: naar basisprincipes voor integraal werken. Een documentenstudie van de Integrale Opdrachten als casus.’, published in the Belgian-Flemish journal ‘Impuls - Tijdschrift voor onderwijsbegeleiding’, number 49/03 (2019). Inspiring work for our approach to the study of the research practice: Bruno Latour (1987). Science in Action - How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society, Harvard University Press. Bruno Latour (2000). When things strike back: a possible contribution of ‘science studies’ to the social sciences. British Journal of Sociology, 51(1), pp. 107–123. Tommaso Venturini (2012). Building on Faults – How to represent controversies with digital methods (Public Understanding of Science, vol. 21 no. 7 796-812); Controversy mapping archive (student works): http://controverses.sciences-po.fr/archiveindex/ Research in Motion project (‘Onderzoek in Beweging’, in Dutch), website: http://www.onderzoekinbeweging.be/ and teacher guidebooks: http://www.onderzoekinbeweging.be/?p=materiaal