Over the past five years the author and a number of other teacher educators from the University of South Australia have worked as "academic associates" in several collaborative research projects with schools. These have included the Innovative Links Project (Innovative Links between Schools and Universities for Teacher Professional Development (1994-1996), the National Middle Schooling Authentic Assessment Research Circle (1997) and the School-based Research and Reform Project (1998-1999). Each of these projects had particular expectations of the ways the university participants would work with school participants, encapsulated in descriptors such as "partners" "collaborators", "critical friends" and "consultants". This paper reports on research the author conducted into the experiences of the seven teacher educators who worked in the Innovative Links Project in South Australia. The research reveals that for these teacher educators, the expectations of that Project that school and university participants would work in "partnership" proved to be problematic because of the personal, structural and cultural conditions which impacted on participants at that time. The author then draws on experiences in later projects to look at what forms of collaboration are possible in the light of these conditions.

There has always been some expectation that teacher educators should work with schools in their attempts to provide the best possible education for the teachers of the future. In the past this expectation has been confined largely to the placement of student teachers in schools for fieldwork, with teacher educators visiting at regular intervals for the purposes of clinical supervision. More recently, in some countries, there has been a move towards a closer relationship between teacher educators and school based educators in which they collaborate in both the design and delivery of teacher education courses. For instance, in Britain there has been a move towards a much greater proportion of teacher education courses becoming school-based, with teachers and teacher educators sharing the responsibility for delivering the content (McIntyre, Hagger and Burn, 1994).

As well as greater collaboration on the delivery of teacher education, there is a growing trend for schools and universities to collaborate in professional development and research programs. In the USA this has led to the creation of Professional Development Schools, in which teacher educators and teachers engage in collaborative professional development activities (Center for Educational Renewal, 1994). In Australia, the 1999 Accord with the Teaching Profession committed all funding for professional development to programs promoting partnerships involving teacher organisations, education authorities and universities.

There are a range of reasons for this trend towards higher levels of collaboration between schools and universities. These include a belief that there are improved learning opportunities for both teachers and teacher educators when they work together (Garmston, Lindner and Whitaker, 1993; Louden, 1992; Yeatman and Sachs, 1995) which, in turn, have the potential to bring about reciprocal development in both schools and teacher education programs (Center for Educational Renewal, 1994). Sachs (1997) highlights increased relevance of educational research as a further benefit of greater school/university collaboration, as well as the potential to break down isolation and positively change the climate of schools and universities.

There is recognition, however, that although such collaboration has the potential to be beneficial, it can also be problematic. Goodlad (1990) and Gore (1995) point to features of universities which discourage teacher educators from more actively involving themselves in professional learning through closer links with schools; features such as the low esteem or priority of education programs within schools of education, especially programs with school-based field service, and the lack of rewards for academics engaged in practical school-based activities compared to other research. The literature also explores the dilemmas and challenges experienced by both university and school-based participants in negotiating partnerships in which power is shared equally and learning is reciprocal (Zeichner, 1994; Haggerty and Postlethwaite, 1995; Messner and Rauch, 1995) It is generally recognised that for such partnerships to be successful, there needs to be significant changes in the cultures and structures of both organisations in order to create conditions which facilitate reciprocal professional development of teachers and teacher educators. (Nystrand, 1991; Somekh, 1994)

The Innovative Links Project was an action research based professional development project initiated in 1994 as a National Professional Development Program. The grantee for the project was the National Teaching and Learning Consortium and comprised 14 universities at 16 campuses, each of which hosted a Roundtable consisting of academic associates and representatives from schools, employers and the National Schools Network. The project was funded on a year by year basis until the end of 1996. Schools involved in the project worked with academic associates to use collaborative action research to implement programs of school reform aimed at improving teaching competencies and learning outcomes for all students.

In the first year of the Project in South Australia, five schools were selected and were teamed with six teacher educators (two university participants worked as a team in one of the schools) A sixth school joined the Project in the second year, and a further teacher educator replaced one person who retired from the university. Most of the teacher educators were invited to participate because of their work in the "Teacher Development" specialisation of the Master of Educational Studies. All were members of the University's two Schools of Education and when the Project began they were spread across three metropolitan campuses. Each participant had a history of working closely with schools through the practicum, consultancy and/or collaborative research projects.

Each university participant opted for a school which was planning to research an aspect of school reform with which he/she had some previous experience or current interest. A significant factor for two of the university participants was that their schools were in country locations which meant that opportunities for face to face contact were limited to once or twice a term. In the metropolitan schools university participants were able to attend the school on a more regular basis.

This study was conducted over the final eighteen months of the Project. Data was collected through three semi-structured interviews between the author and each other university participant at regular intervals throughout that period. All interviews were taped and transcribed. The author's research journal was also used as a source of data.

The Innovative Links Project's aim was "to provide professional development opportunities for teachers working in partnership with ‘academic associates’ from the university sector." (National Teaching and Learning Consortium, 1994, p 1) This overall aim was translated into a number of expectations of school and university participants. Schools were expected to be affiliated with a Roundtable for up to three years; to engage in research work reform in order to facilitate improved teaching competence and the enhancement of the learning of students and to release one or more staff members to provide research leadership. (National Teaching and Learning Consortium, 1994). There was also an expectation that reform would involve the majority of staff at the school and that schools would engage in some form of written reporting (National Steering Committee, 1994).

The expectations of university participants as "academic associates" were described in the original submission as providing, as appropriate:

• access for teachers to current research and theory in relation to the area of concern;
• access to other schools and teachers who have been undertaking work in a similar area of concern;
• a ‘critical friend’ with whom teachers can discuss aspects of the school program;
• a conduit for learning about current school practices, issues, and concerns by other teacher educators from their own university and others associated with the Consortium (National Teaching and Learning Consortium, 1994, p 5)

Implicit in the final dot point above is the expectation that the university participants would be active learners in the partnership.

At the state level, the University of South Australia Roundtable emphasised and elaborated the national expectations about the use of action research and placed considerable emphasis on the principles of social justice underpinning research and reform. In the first year of the project university participants organised workshop sessions at Roundtable meetings to help school particpatns to develop and use knowledge and skills in action research and critical reflection. The university participants also interpreted some of the national expectations to fit with their particular areas of personal commitment and expertise. These included encouraging school participants to document and interpret research through the use of reflective journals and to report on their research processes and outcomes verbally and in writing.

University participants cited a number of reasons for agreeing to participate in the project. Chief among these were their perceptions that collaborative work with schools was highly relevant to their work as teacher educators and would further develop understandings of aspects such as school improvement, teacher professional development, school based curriculum development, social justice, reflective practice, school organisation and management and different levels of schooling.

University participants also saw the collaborative work with schools as an opportunity to develop stronger links between schools and the university, contribute to significant change in schools and apply theory to practice. A further attraction was the opportunity to work with like-minded colleagues.

For some of the participants the decision to participate was also informed by their perceptions that there was pressure form university administrators to become more involved in research, consultancy and publication. They saw the project as an opportunity to achieve some of these outcomes. The fact that the project provided some funding for release time was an added incentive.

When viewed in total, the combined national, state and personal expectations for university participants in this particular construction of partnership can be summarised as:

• providing expertise in the school's focus area for reform and in action research
• acting as a critical friend to schools and promoting a focus on social justice
• engaging in collaborative learning as a means of improving teacher education
• developing stronger links between schools and the university
• contributing to significant change in schools
• achieving research and publication outcomes valued by the university

Although it is possible with the benefit of hindsight and research data to identify these expectations, they were not clear to participants at the beginning of the Project. This meant that one of the initial challenges for university participants was living with uncertainty about the Project and their roles within it.

Even the person who took on the role of coordinating the Project in the first year had little idea of what was expected

For some, these feelings of uncertainty remained throughout their involvement.

The lack of clear expectations and role definitions meant that, in practice, there were considerable variations in the ways schools approached reform and research and in the ways that university participants interpreted their roles. The next section of the paper examines the university participants' perceptions of the ways they engaged with the Project expectations.

The expectation that university participants would provide expertise in the school's focus area for reform and action research proved problematic in a number of ways. Even though there was some attempt to pair schools with university participants who had an interest in, or some previous experience in the schools' focus area, this was only possible for some of the areas of reform. For some university participants the school's focus area was one with which they had little familiarity, leaving them feeling anxious about their ability to respond to this expectation.

For other colleagues, action research was a relatively unknown process:

A further problem was that the university participants were aware that in many schools there is suspicion that those in universities are highly theoretical, out of touch with the realities of schools and prone to making unfair judgements about school colleagues. All were keen to break down these perceptions and did not want to present themselves to schools in the guise of "experts", but rather as fellow inquirers into reform and good practice.

Where some university participants did assume the role of organising professional development activities and providing reading material for school, they were sometimes frustrated by the teachers' unwillingness to give their time, either because of the hectic nature of their professional lives, or because they saw their commitment to teaching as confined to the hours of the school day.

Although schools made a commitment to undertake action research when they joined the project, and the early Roundtables also focussed on this expectation, there was considerable variation in the extent to which schools took a research-based approach to their reform. This was partly because there were varying levels of commitment to, and previous experience in action research amongst school participants, school leaders and university participants. The schools that used the methodology most rigorously were those where both school and university participants had previously used an action research approach to change. The difference in schools levels of engagement in action research can be seen in the contrasting perceptions of two of the university participants:

In those schools that did take on an action research approach, the university colleague took a leading role in supporting the research through information, dialogue and, in some cases, active involvement in data collection. It was clear to these colleagues that action research placed demands on teachers' time and energy that were often in conflict with the heavy workload and highly structured time commitments in schools.

There was a common interest in social justice and critical reflection across several of the university participants, and this was also a focus in three of the initial school applications for funding. As a result there were activities at a number of Roundtables that explored critically reflective issues and processes further and most university participants interpreted the role of "critical friend" as one of trying to challenge school participants to question their reforms from a social justice point of view. This role proved to be a challenging one to enact in practice, as university participants found that critical reflection was a difficult and uncomfortable inclusion in the normally comfortable and supportive culture within some schools.

Most of the university participants entered the Project believing that regular documentation in reflective journals was one strategy that would help teachers to take a more critical stance towards their research and reform work. What they found in reality was that most teachers did not want to engage in regular writing. For some teachers this was because of the many competing demands on their time, and for others it was because they did not consider writing to be a useful tool for reflection,

Despite these difficulties, most university participants felt that schools gained something from having the chance to interact with someone from outside of the school situation.

One of the things that initially attracted the university participants to become involved was the opportunity to work in a team with like-minded colleagues. All participants felt that they had benefited to some extent from the collaborative learning through the Project.

However, a disappointing aspect of the Project for all university participants was the lack of opportunity to meet for planning and de-briefing on a regular basis. Although those on the same campus were able to support each other informally, through corridor and staff-room conversations, there were very few occasions when the whole team was able to meet together.

Participants felt that the main obstacles to regular meetings were the separation on different campuses and too many competing demands on available time.

Not only were there limited opportunities for the university participants to work collaboratively, but they were so busy working in the schools that they did not have the time or energy to inform colleagues about the Project. This meant that any expectation that there would be "spin offs" in non-participant staff's understandings of school reform were misplaced. A further consequence of this lack of communication was that the participants received little or no recognition or acknowledgment from leaders or colleagues. In fact, some of the participants felt that their work in the Project damaged relationships with colleagues in that they were seen as shirking some everyday responsibilities in favour of working with schools in the Project.

Although the opportunities for collaborative learning proved to be disappointingly scarce, university participants were able to identify many positive outcomes from their work in the Project. At a personal level some colleagues reported greater confidence and self-esteem in regard to their work with schools.

They also cited improved understanding of school research and change, school reform in particular areas such as middle schooling, teachers' work, school context, reflection and critical reflection and project facilitation.

Most university participants felt that their work in the schools had enriched their work as teacher educators.

Overall, however, there was a shared perception that the Project was largely focussed on school participants’ learning, and that the benefits for university particpants' learning tended to be incidental.

In several of the schools, university participants found that the processes for decision making and communication about the project did not extend to all staff and that only a small percentage of staff were actively involved over the life of the Project. Many staff members remained largely unaware that any kind of school/university collaboration was occurring. A consequence of the limited involvement of staff was that university participants developed strong links only with those who were heavily involved, rather than with school staffs as a whole. However, they felt that even this limited contact with staff resulted in a greater level of understanding and respect for the teachers and their work.

There was also the perception by most participants that the collaboration with schools had a positive effect on school participants' perceptions of academics.

A concern expressed by some university participants, was that of balancing their involvement in schools in such a way that they did not take too dominant a role in the reform process.

Finally, for some university participants who were closely involved with schools over a number of years, there was a strong sense of loss when the time arrived for the schools to move on independently.

On entering the project university participants were optimistic about the opportunity to contribute to teacher professional development and school reform. All were able to identify some positive changes in schools over the life of the project, particularly in approaches to teacher professional development.

However, having worked with schools for significant periods of time (two to three years) most colleagues expressed some frustration and concern about the slowness of the change process and the lack of tangible evidence of significant change.

University participants felt that although significant change occurred for some individuals and groups in the school, it had proven difficult for most schools to achieve school-wide change in the limited time frame of the Project.

Some of the factors which were seen as impeding school-wide change included high staff turnover, competing demands on teachers' time, restrictive school structures and a percentage of staff who were resistant to change.

There was also growing recognition by some university participants that significant changes in practice were preceded by changes to teachers' thinking which were not easily observed or measured.

The Project occurred at a time when there was intense pressure on university staff to earn money through research, consultancy and publication and to complete higher degrees. Although the university participants were aware that this Project was not funded sufficiently to have much significance in this regard, they entered it with an expectation that it would provide opportunities to produce the kinds of research and publication outcomes valued by the University. Instead, most found that their ever-increasing workloads, together with the time demands of working closely with the schools, largely prevented them from devoting time to their own writing, or to meeting regularly to engage in collaborative research and documentation.

They did, however, support schools to write about their work reform. This occurred largely in response to a decision made at the Roundtable level to produce a book of case studies in the second year of the Project, and a further series of broadsheets in the final year of the Project. To a large extent this expectation was pushed by the university participants and DETE representatives at the Roundtable, but school representatives were in agreement that some form of documentation was a good idea. When it came to the actual writing of these case studies, university participants found that there were few school participants with the time, experience and inclination to produce case studies of the quality needed for publication for a wider audience. It largely fell to the university colleague and one school participant in each school to both draft and polish the school’s case study.

A frustration for the university participants in this time-consuming writing process, was that the final products did not meet the criteria used for the Research Quantum, and so were not recognised in the University’s reward structure.

The university participants' perceptions of their involvement in the Project revealed that they experienced considerable difficulties in meeting the expectations of partnership. These difficulties can be attributed to the conflict between the expectations and a range of personal, structural and cultural conditions that impacted on the working lives of the university participants.

At the personal level, confusion about what was expected, beliefs about how academics should work with schools and feelings of professional vulnerability arising form perceived lack of experience and/or expertise, all made the university participants' personally demanding and involvement stressful.

A range of structural conditions in both the schools and the university also made it difficult for either teachers or the university participants to fully meet the expectations of research and collaborative learning. In schools, the rigidity of school time structures, whereby teachers have the majority of their time committed to in class teaching or other professional commitments, meant that project participants found it difficult to find the time to meet together, meet with the university colleague or engage in reading, writing or action research. This condition was compounded by the intensification in the teachers' and university participants’ workload arising from staff reductions, cost cutting and an ever-increasing influx of bureaucratic requirements. Although there was a small amount of funding made available to university participants, the amount was not sufficient to buy release time from teaching, and although buying release time from marking was an option, it was often impossible for participants to find a suitable qualified person to undertake the work. For the two university participants working with country schools, distance was seen as a further inhibiting condition. The fact that there was no significant release for project coordination also meant that none of the university colleague put in the time and effort needed to promote the project within the university, and so it remained a largely unknown quantity to most non-involved staff. This situation was compounded by the fact that the seven participants were spread across three different campuses.

There were also cultural factors that had an impact in both work sites, and were the cause of a considerable amount of frustration for university participants. In particular, some teachers' perceptions that professional development should only occur within school hours meant there was a lack of interest in some of the research, reading and writing activities that the university participants saw as important. The comfortably collaborative environment in some schools meant that many teachers were unconfortable with the level of challenge involved in the critically reflective processes being advocated by the university participants.

At the university, the predominant culture of isolation, together with the lack of structures to support communication, meant that the university participants found it difficult to find opportunities to collaborate with each other and did not communicate their learning from the Project with other colleagues. The high value placed on academic research and publication was in conflict with the school-based work of the Project, and was not recognised as important within the university reward structure.

Experiences in two more recent projects have confirmed that there is always a range of hindering conditions present in school/university collaborative ventures. For instance, the four university participants who participated in the Middle Years of Schooling Authentic Assessment Project found that distance, the structuring of time in schools, intensification of workload, cultural differences between school and university participants and feelings of professional vulnerability gave rise to significant tensions over the life of the Project (Johnson, Peters and Williams, 1999). However, there were a number of differences in the way this Project was structured that enabled the university participants to more effectively engage with the expectations. These included much more substantial funding for the involvement of the four university participants, which enabled some release from university workload and enabled one university colleague to take on the administration of the Project and employ two part-time administrative assistants. There were clearer and more specific expectations of the ways school and university participants would work together, with the main focus of the collaborative work being materials development (a set of curriculum materials and a Project research report). Although this focus was a source of pressure for all participants, it gave a clear direction for their respective roles and guaranteed outcomes that were recognised within the university reward structure.

The School-based Research and Reform Project, a South Australian Project funded by DETE, has also been structured in a way that has benefits for the three university participants. This Project has no expectation that university participants will work as partners in the schools’ research. Rather they are funded to take on the role of consultants who work closely with the DETE based Project Manager to plan and facilitate Roundtable meetings for participants. The focus in these meetings is on providing participants with opportunities for sharing, critical reflection and professional development. University colleague spend the majority of their time and energy in the Project working with the Project Manager to devise processes and materials that will help to scaffold teachers development as action researchers and critically reflective practitioners. The Project Manager takes the major role in supporting each school in their research and reform work, although university participants make some time available to individual schools on the basis of need.

The clear and realistic expectations of how the university participants will use their time in this Project, together with adequate funding for release, has meant there have been more opportunities for the university participants to work as a collaborative team on researching their own practice, which in turn has meant a greater output of academic writing. The opportunity to collaborate with a highly skilled Project Manager from DETE has meant that university participants feel their own professional learning about ways to scaffold research and reflection for participating teachers and their own teacher education students has been enhanced. Finally, the less intense relationship with individual schools has proven to be less emotionally demanding and stressful (Johnson, Johnson, Le Cornu, Mader and Peters, 1999).

The study of South Australian teacher educators' work in the Innovative Links Project, together with the analysis of recent experiences in two other collaborative projects, indicates that school/university collaboration can be fraught with difficulties for university participants. This is particularly so when the Project expectations are in conflict with a range of personal, structural and cultural conditions which impact adversely on participants. Expectations for university participants working with schools need to be framed with these adverse conditions in mind. The following recommendations are aimed at avoiding some of the pitfalls that can occur in school/university collaborative work.

When planning collaborative work with schools, university participants should:

• recognise the emotional demands of collaborative work and establish mechanisms for personal support.
• clarify expectations of roles and expectations prior to committing to the collaboration and ensure that these are realistic in the light of prevailing personal, structural and cultural conditions.
• negotiate sufficient financial resourcing to enable administrative support and some release from normal workload.
• plan and implement communication structures that will facilitate both collaborative learning for university participants and sharing of insights with university leaders and colleagues who are not involved in the Project.
• allow for the cultural differences between schools and universities in planning what will be done. In particular planning should take account of the different valuing of theory and practice, and comfortable collaboration and critical reflection between university and school participants.
• recognise that changes in practice need to be preceded by changes in thinking about practice and the assumptions, values and beliefs that underpin it. This means valuing changes in thinking as important outcomes from research and development work, even if changes in practice are not discernible in the short term.
• recognise that to achieve significant school wide outcomes can take many years, certainly more than the limited life of most funded projects.
• have realistic expectations about the extent to which collaboration can be school wide, and help schools to plan and implement strategies for informing and consulting those who are not involved throughout the process. Particular attention needs to be paid to developing effective strategies for informing and consulting staff members who are new to the school.
• monitor the time and energy demands of research and development partnership work and adjust expectations, processes and time-lines accordingly.
• think strategically when planning the research and publication outcomes of collaboration, so that where possible they conform with those valued by universities.
• lobby university administrators to recognise school-based research and publication as worthy of recognition in university reward structures.

Finally, although this paper concentrates on the many challenges faced by university participants in collaborative work with schools, it must be stressed that every one of the teacher educators whose views have been reported in it would agree that the benefits do out-weigh the difficulties. In the words of one participant: