Breaking the Fourth Wall: Reaching Beyond Observer/Performer Binaries in Studies of Teacher and Researcher Learning

Abstract Researcher-practitioner collaborations often stop short of engaging researchers and teachers in collectively negotiating the moment-to-moment improvizational decision-making of instructional practice when students are present. We consider the potential for learning at one boundary that often exists between researchers and practitioners as they collaborate on instructional practice: the boundary between performing-teaching and observing-teaching. We draw on performance studies to conceptualize this boundary as a fourth wall. Our analysis examines researcher-practitioner collaboration across four sites in which participants were learning together about the complex work of facilitating student discussion. We analyze how one boundary crossing routine provided opportunities for researchers and practitioners to interact at the boundary of the fourth wall during enactment of discussion-based instruction with students. To analyze episodes of this routine, we draw on conceptualizations of potential learning mechanisms of boundary crossing in research-practice partnerships. Our findings identify and describe the mechanisms for researcher/practitioner learning that arose when our participants crossed the boundary of the fourth wall: perspective taking, boundary spanning, and recognition of shared problem spaces. We argue that these learning mechanisms create potential for researchers and practitioners to wrestle with and learn about the challenges and opportunities within facilitation of student discussions.