Why collaborate in the Primary Education?

Collaboration is essential but difficult.  Collaboration is the key to success, especially in the school environment. The conception that educators perform better when they work together professionally is buoyed by elements of organizational theory models which emerged earlier in the corporate sector (e.g., Argyris, 1978; Covey, 1991; Drucker, 1985; Lawler, 1986; Senge, 1990). Such conceptions view authentic teamwork as being an essential characteristic of the successful organization as its members come together regularly to share ideas and develop common understandings of goals and the means to their attainment. Thus, schools benefit from teacher collaboration in several ways:

• Through formal and informal training sessions, study groups, and conversations about teaching, teachers and administrators get the opportunity to get smarter together.
• Teachers are better prepared to support one another's strengths and accommodate weaknesses. Working together, they reduce their individual planning time while greatly increasing the available pool of ideas and materials.
• Schools become better prepared and organized to examine new ideas, methods, and materials. The faculty becomes adaptable and self-reliant.
• Teachers are organized to ease the strain of staff turnover, both by providing systematic professional assistance to beginners and by explicitly socializing all newcomers, including veteran teachers, to staff values, traditions, and resources.

Process and Procedures

In a school context, collaboration is the direct interaction between at least two equal parties who voluntarily engage in shared decision-making as they work toward a common goal (Cook & Friend, 1991). First, the shared planning and goal setting process helps the participants gain ownership of the instructional process and establish mutually satisfactory goals; therefore, each party feels equally responsible for ensuring a positive outcome (Brookhart & Loadman, 1990). Collaboration encourages individuals to share goals and objectives, and to sublimate their own interests for the greater good (e.g., Lasley, Matczynski & Williams, 1992). Second, collaboration allows participants to learn from one another and to establish long-lasting and trusting professional relationships (e.g., Lieberman, 1992). Teachers benefit from exposure to others’ diverse philosophies, training and experience; the stimulation of new ideas and the increased communication among professionals at all levels (e.g., Brookhart & Loadman, 1990). Third, collaboration gives teachers an opportunity to work together to bring about school change.

Forms

http://www.ncwiseowl.org/kscope/impact/new2Impact/QScollaboration_form.html

http://www.italyhighschool.org/Library%20Folder/Collaboration%20Planning%20Form.doc

http://www.mckinneyisd.net/library/NewPage/LMCSupport/Curriculum%20Integration/Collaboration/collaborationlog2.doc

Links

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/studeous-schools-teachers-and-students-unite/

http://www.libraryinstruction.com/