What We Learned from a Tomato: Partnering with a Content Expert Plants New Ideas for Instruction

The interactions described in this article represent an example of teachers expanding horizons of instructional plans as a direct result of outside expert contributions. After alerting teachers to oversimplified claims about the benefits of lycopene, the research fellow presented the team with a wider range of instructional options to consider that might better support their learning goals. In follow-up focus groups, teachers described how their lesson plans became more focused on helping students think critically about the scientific process than would have been possible without the outside assistance. They also described how these lesson changes directly supported important learning outcomes for students.