The Many Sides of Teacher Collaboration (original) (raw)

Teacher Collaboration and Student Achievement

Professional collaboration amongst teachers is well recognised for its benefits and there exists a great deal of research highlighting the positive aspects of robust collaborative interactions. Less abundant is research into the inhibitors of effective teacher collaboration and the realities that make it difficult to implement and embed a culture of effective collaboration within teaching teams, particularly from a leadership perspective. There is also a danger in assuming the types of collaborative interactions that work in one school environment will always extrapolate to others. Participants in this research provide a case study into the effectiveness of professional collaboration amongst teachers on student achievement in reading comprehension.

Components, Models and Operational Mechanisms of Teacher Collaboration

Rethinking Teacher Education, 2019

Teacher collaboration could play a key role in the development of education systems, as this approach helps to improve student performance through teachers' professional learning (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012; OECD, 2005). TALIS-research (OECD, 2009) highlighted that an 'exchange and cooperation' type of collaboration is dominating more significantly in Hungary than in Europe in general, while 'professional col-laboration' rarely appears. During the recent trend of developing teacher collaboration, a significant body of research has pointed out the importance of school leaders in forming a school culture based on teacher collaboration (Ashley, 2017; Hord and Sommers, 2008). This research aims to examine the elements and components of the two aforementioned types of teacher collaboration, with an in-depth investigation of the operation of two schools, identifying the characteristics of school leaders impacting the different cultures of collaboration. In this comparative case study the system that Vangrieken et al. used in their literature review (Vangrieken et al., 2015) serves as a base for our analysis of impact factors of teacher collaboration. The results enumerate the factors, which are directly connected to school leaders and their views, and that reveal the mechanisms that effect teacher collaboration. These results serve as a foundation for a future teacher collaboration development program aiming to train principals.

A Case Study of Teacher Collaboration in the Middle Grades

The purpose of this study was to examine the collaborative relationships in a team of teachers. One team of three core teachers and one special education teacher in a suburban town were interviewed and observed. Additionally, the participants wrote journals in response to prompts about collaboration throughout the data collection phase of this study. The findings show that the individual team members share similar values, work to support each other, take time to work together, and work together to solve problems. The team found collaboration as a way to share the workload, resulting in an ongoing idea exchange that benefits instruction. These findings suggest the importance of a team’s desire to collaborate and shared values in making collaboration successful. Time to work together, use of tasks that require data analysis and explicit understanding of the benefits of collaboration are essential to foster collaborative teams.

Collaboration in the Elementary School: What Do Teachers Think?

Journal of Curriculum and Teaching

Teaching is often seen as an isolated profession in which individual teachers work behind closed doors independentlyfrom other teachers. However, this view of teaching as primarily an individual activity belies the reality of modern,collaborative educational practices that most significantly impact student learning. In this study, we examineelementary teachers’ perspectives on common collaborative practices and discuss what teachers believe are the biggestbenefits of and barriers to teacher collaboration. The results from this investigative survey suggest that althoughteachers do not regularly participate in many collaborative activities, they believe that collaboration is valuable and aneffective use of their time.

Building a Culture of Collaboration in Schools

Although collaboration between teachers is increasing in many schools, much of that collaboration is doing little to fundamentally change how teachers work and schools function. Working to transform itself into a problem based learning (PBL) school, a public high school in the Pacific Northwest has embraced collaboration as a pillar of school improvement. The school’s effort to build and deepen teachers’ expertise around PBL pedagogy, through relevant and collaborative professional learning, has sparked a dramatic shift in teaching and learning. The result has been a markedly more collaborative school culture that has continued to sustain ongoing professional learning.

Teacher collaboration in the context of theResponsive Classroomapproach

Teachers and Teaching, 2007

This mixed-method study examined characteristics and predictors of teacher collaboration. Limited research exists that describes the characteristics of teacher collaboration, and surprisingly little work explains the ways in which teaching experience and teachers' perceptions of the school environment influence teacher collaboration. Questionnaire data were collected from a sample of 118 elementary school teachers in six schools in a northeast urban school district, and interviews were conducted with administrators in each school. Three schools were in their second year implementing the Responsive Classroom ® (RC) approach, and three schools were comparison schools. Teachers reported collaborating approximately once or twice per month, generally with fellow grade-level teachers about student-centered topics. Teachers in RC schools reported more frequent formal collaboration than comparison school teachers. In regards to predicting teacher collaboration, teachers who used more RC practices and/or resources reported collaborating more, valuing collaboration to a higher degree, and perceiving greater involvement in school decision-making, controlling for whether they taught at a RC school. Also, teachers' perceptions of the school environment related positively to teacher collaboration. The current study adds to the understanding of teacher collaboration and its antecedents, contributing uniquely to the literature on how a schoolwide educational initiative is associated with teachers' perceptions of their school environment as well as their collaborative behaviors and beliefs.

The Call for Collaboration in Teacher Education

Focus on Exceptional Children, 2005

Abstract: As the number of students who are struggling in school grows, the need for general and special education to come together to create the vision and capacity to educate all students becomes more and more pronounced. Collaboration by teachers is called for in ...

Teacher Collaboration as a Core Objective of School Development

2020

The fact that benefits related to teacher collaboration are associated with characteristics of successful schools makes collaboration particularly relevant for school development processes. The goal of the present study was to identify patterns in perceptions of collaboration and compare them with regard to its perceived benefits, such as professional development, reduced workload, and improved student focus. Results based on cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, and analyses of variance revealed four collaboration patterns that also differed with regard to the benefits of collaboration perceived by teachers. Findings indicate that teachers apply forms of collaboration that are connected to a relatively small decrease in their own autonomy. Teachers who collaborate also perceive benefits, and teachers who feel pressurised by the principal to collaborate neither collaborate more nor perceive more benefits to collaboration. All findings are reviewed with a focus on school development processes, and recommendations for practice are offered.