Session Information
10 SES 12 F, Special Call: Mapping Teacher Education across Europe and Beyond
Paper Session
Contribution
Teacher collaboration is a key factor to improve teacher professionalism (Reh, 2008). Nevertheless, teachers do not yet collaborate sufficiently (Johnston & Tsai, 2018; OECD, 2009; Wei, Darling-Hammond, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009).
The Social Academic Learning Study (SALS) identified three collaboration barriers shared most frequently by teachers: A lack of personal time, a lack of collegial time and low administrative priority. However, the findings also indicated that when the teachers share the same goals and values, collaboration is more likely despite the barriers (Sawyer & Rimm‐Kaufman, 2007).
The results from the Rand Change Agent Study showed that successful change in schools occurs when teachers learn together through doing. In school districts where the growth of teachers and administrators is supported, the required changes happen (McLaughlin, 1990). Continued growth requires the ability and willingness of both the system and the individuals (Huffman & Hipp, 2010). Studies focused on improving teacher collaboration are either based on inventions at the teacher level or at the administrative level. The results show that without facilities for collaboration, interventions on the teachers’ level are not successful (Vangrieken et al., 2015). If a school administration provides a collaboration-friendly environment, teachers are more likely to work together (Hallinger & Heck, 2010).
Resulting from this, we do not only need a top-down solution to change the structure of school but also a bottom-up solution to change the culture within the teaching staff.
A bottom-up approach is to change the culture within the teaching staff. Since the ongoing practical turn in university-based teacher education, the possibility to improve teacher habits already within university-based education was brought into focus (Janssen, Westbroek, & Doyle, 2014; Rothland, 2012). Lubitz (2007) asserts that social competences like cooperativeness are not immutable but develop during the teacher training.
A possible context to train collaborative habits could be internships, where teacher students start to experience their later job and therefore begin to form their teacher personality. An increasing number of universities and institutions implement field experience phases with a focus on Scholarships of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in their teacher education programs. In Germany, the universities have also started to include supervised field-experience semesters in the master’s degree programs. During a 5-months field-experience semester, students give lectures and conduct research in school.
The field-experience semester in the new master program offers many opportunities to train students important skills which they need in their later teaching careers. The previously mentioned bottom-up approach aims to implement collaborative behaviours already in the academic education. The students then can transfer them into school after completing their education studies. However, before concrete methods can be developed, it is important to examine the current situation of the students’ collaborative actions in their field-experience phases.
The cross-sectional study (N = 1687) investigates how future teachers rate collaboration and intend to collaborate. Two cohorts also reported how they already perform collaboration in school.
In a longitudinal sub-study, we examine how the attitude towards collaboration and the intention to collaborate changes in the field-experience semester. This study runs till March 2019.
Method
This study is the main survey of a mixed methods study to investigate collaboration in teacher education. In a pre-study, interviews were held with field-experience semester students to find out how, with whom and why they collaborate. Afterwards, a questionnaire to survey teacher collaboration from Soltau (2007) was adjusted to fit the sample group. In this quantitative, cross-sectional study, N=1678 future teachers were questioned at four points in the teacher education. The four cohorts are (T1) first-year students in their bachelor’s degree, students in their master’s degree (T2) before and (T3) after their supervised field-experience semester and (T4) student teachers in school. They were asked how they rate collaboration, intend to collaborate and performed it so far. We will also present a smaller, longitudinal study of the practical semester cohorts T2 and T3. As the inquiry took more than 2 years, several students were questioned before and after the field-experience semester. To enlarge the resulting sample group, the longitudinal study continues until March 2019. The results will show how the students’ attitude towards collaboration changed during their field experience. Moreover, we will see whether the students performed collaboration according to their intention to collaborate. The theory of planned behaviour by Ajzen (1991) states that intention is the best indicator for the conduction of behaviour. The intention is influenced by the individual’s attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. Therefore, this study investigates not only the collaborative actions but also the attitude and intention towards them. To investigate collaboration, it is important to classify different collaborative actions. Gräsel, Fussangel, and Pröbstel (2006) provide a three-level model of collaboration with the categories exchange, division of work and co-construction. Exchange is the lowest level of collaboration and describes an action where two people share information, materials or knowledge. The medium level is division of work, where the participants agree on a joint goal and divide the tasks to reach it. In the end, the individual accomplishments will be combined to one group outcome. The third and highest level of collaboration is co-construction. Here, the partners work together concurrently until the task is finished. A classic example is team teaching, where two teachers lecture concurrently in one class (Gräsel et al., 2006). A last sub-study within the mixed methods approach will be a qualitative interview study. It will be held with field-experience students and student teachers in fall/winter 2019.
Expected Outcomes
The cross-sectional study results show that especially T1 students rate collaboration low and have the lowest intention to collaborate compared to the other cohorts. This is an indicator that the universities should start early to teach them why collaboration is important and how it can be performed successfully. The other three cohorts differ slightly between each other but rate collaboration significantly higher than T1 students. The gap between the first-year students and the other cohorts that already finished their bachelor’s degree shows that the university education already might have had a positive impact on the student’s attitude towards collaboration. Exchange is the highest rated and most intended form of collaboration. Therefore, the university seminars should focus especially on the higher-level collaborations such as division of work and co-construction. The students should learn what actions are included in these categories and how to perform them. It is important to let them experience the benefits of collaboration in order to motivate them to collaborate. T3 and T4 students already perform collaboration in school in their field-experience semester and student teacher phase. T3 students predominantly perform exchange. T4 students perform significantly more division of work and co-construction than exchange. This was unpredictable in relation to their attitude and intention results. In the longitudinal study, we expect a rise regarding the rating and intention of collaboration. Based on the cross-sectional findings, we further assume that T3 students do not collaborate as much as they intended to before the practical semester. Implementing collaborative habits in the university-based teacher education can have positive impacts on the collaboration of students in their field experiences. Universities should aim to train collaborative skills in their seminars.
References
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211. Gräsel, C., Fussangel, K., & Pröbstel, C. (2006). Lehrkräfte zur Kooperation anregen: Eine Aufgabe für Sisyphos? Zeitschrift Für Pädagogik, 52, 205–219. Hallinger, P., & Heck, R. H. (2010). Collaborative leadership and school improvement: Understanding the impact on school capacity and student learning. School Leadership and Management, 30, 95–110. Huffman, J. B., & Hipp, K. K. (2010). Demystifying professional learning communities: School leadership at its best. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Education. Janssen, F., Westbroek, H., & Doyle, W. (2014). The Practical Turn in Teacher Education. Journal of Teacher Education, 65, 195–206. Johnston, W., & Tsai, T. (2018). The Prevalence of Collaboration Among American Teachers: National Findings from the American Teacher Panel. Retrieved from https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2217.html Lubitz, I. (2007). Soziale Kompetenzen im Lehrerberuf: Konzeption und Evaluation eines Kurztrainings in der Lehrerausbildung. Zugl.: Braunschweig, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2006 u.d.T.: Lubitz, Ilona: Konzeption und Evaluation eines Kurztrainings sozialer Kompetenzen in der universitären Lehrerausbildung. Schriften zur pädagogischen Psychologie: Vol. 27. Hamburg: Kovač. McLaughlin, M. W. (1990). The Rand Change Agent Study Revisited: Macro Perspectives and Micro Realities. Educational Researcher, 19, 11–16. OECD. (2009). Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: First Results from TALIS. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/education/school/43023606.pdf Reh, S. (2008). "Reflexivität der Organisation" und Bekenntnis: Perspektiven der Lehrerkooperation. In W. Helsper & R. Tippelt (Eds.), Pädagogische Professionalität in Organisationen: Neue Verhältnisbestimmungen am Beispiel der Schule (pp. 163–183). Wiesbaden: VS Rothland, M. (2012). Lehrerbildung und Lehrerkooperation: Programmatik, Ausbildungsrealität und Befunde zu den Voraussetzungen von Lehramtsstudierenden für die kollegiale Zusammenarbeit im Beruf. In E. Baum, T.-S. Idel, & H. Ullrich (Eds.), SpringerLink Bücher. Kollegialität und Kooperation in der Schule (pp. 191–204). Wiesbaden: VS Sawyer, L. B. E., & Rimm‐Kaufman, S. E. (2007). Teacher collaboration in the context of the Responsive Classroom approach. Teachers and Teaching, 13, 211–245. Soltau, A. (2007). Zusammenarbeit in Schulkollegien: Teamorientierung und Einstellungen zu Formen der Lehrerkooperation bei Bremer Lehrkräften. Retrieved from http://elib.suub.uni-bremen.de/dipl/docs/00000080.pdf Vangrieken, K., Dochy, F., Raes, E., & Kyndt, E. (2015). Teacher collaboration: A systematic review. Educational Research Review, 15, 17–40. Wei, R. C., Darling-Hammond, L., Andree, A., Richardson, N., & Orphanos, S. (2009). Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the U.S. and Abroad. Technical Report. Dallas, Texas, USA: National Staff Development Council.
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