Practice into Pedagogy into Practice: Collaborative Postcards from Hong Kong

A collaborative postcard project completed by 22 students as part of a drawing course conducted at a university in Hong Kong is introduced. The project entailed inviting students into an art practice in which the author was herself engaged as a practitioner as well as a researcher. After introducing the educational context in which the project took place, the author provides an account – informed by ‘participant‐observer’ feedback from students – of how the project unfolded and was experienced. In the second section of the article the creative and pedagogic efficacy of the project is considered with reference to the experience‐centred and dialogic principles expressed in the educational philosophies of John Dewey, Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt and Paulo Freire. The third section draws on insights from scholars working in a range of disciplines – cultural history, anthropology, sociology and psychology – to argue that a particular set of organisational and collaborative dynamics catalysed students’ levels of engagement, creativity and motivation. The article argues that the collaborative postcard project is an example of an experience‐centred and practice‐based pedagogy that is founded on dialogue, mutual generosity and experimental play, and engenders in students the ‘quality of mental process’ that is, for John Dewey, ‘the measure of educative growth’.     

Teacher collaboration: 30 years of research on its nature,forms, limitations and effects

ABSTRACT

This article reprises and reflects on 30 years of the author’s work on teacher collaboration. The distinctive nature of this work has not been in making a case for teacher collaboration in terms of its benefits for students, teachers, or educational change. These arguments are widely available elsewhere. Rather it has examined ways of collaborating that are available to teachers, how formal or informal collaboration should be, how collaborative efforts can be misused or misdirected, and what factors must be considered when deliberately designing teacher collaboration so it will have the most beneficial effects. The article discusses the explanatory and strategic power of three concepts in particular—contrived collegiality, professional capital, and collaborative professionalism. Conclusions are drawn about next steps for educational research in terms of establishing clear typologies of teacher collaboration in relation to their impact and appropriateness in different circumstances.     

Inter-professional collaboration in action research

This article describes an example of inter-professional action research conducted by teachers and university-based researchers/teacher educators in a vocational college in the Netherlands. The research was aimed at the professional learning of the teachers on their pedagogical approach to a new curriculum initiative. Despite a difficult context in the Netherlands for a type of action research in which teachers and researchers work in democratic collaboration on the improvement of teaching practices, this inter-professional collaboration worked out well. The participants worked, inspired by shared commitment towards the students, as equal partners. In the findings and conclusion insights developed about key elements for inter-professional collaborative research, such as the importance of common relevance, shared responsibility for the research and mutual trust and respect for differences in professional identities and working conditions are addressed.     

Teacher collaboration and professional development in the workplace: a study of Portuguese teachers

This article reports on findings from research aimed at investigating teacher collaboration and professional development in the workplace. It draws upon a broader study carried out in a school in Northern Portugal. Data were collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and written reflective accounts. In total, 80 teachers participated in phase 1, 11 key informants participated in phase 2 and 10 teachers participated in an intervention/training project (phase 3). Findings suggest that problems and limitations in relation to collaborative work are situated at the organisational level, such as time and working conditions. Lack of training in collaboration, and issues such as motivation and personal difficulties, also emerged from the data. Teachers tend to stress the importance of interpersonal relationships at school, but they also identified formal meetings when they described the contexts and opportunities to work collaboratively in the workplace, namely department meetings and projects driven by central government or school administration initiatives. Implications for teacher collaboration and professional development are discussed.     

School climate,principal support and collaboration among Portuguese teachers

This article analyses the relationship between school principal support and teacher collaboration among Portuguese teachers. Data were collected from a random sample of 234 teachers in middle and secondary schools. The use of a combined approach using linear and multiple regression tests concluded that the school principal support, through the influence of the variables ‘emotional and informational support’ and ‘support for professional development’, can predict teacher’s involvement in collaboration. This global data is discussed in light of a theoretical framework and compared to data from previous research. The implications of the main findings are discussed and some recommendations are made.     

Teachers talking about teaching and school: collaboration and reflective practice via Critical Friends Groups

Reflective practice has potentially positive effects on an organization’s capacity to focus on student learning and teaching practices. In an effort to comply with policy and provide teachers with opportunities to reflect on their practice, districts, schools, and teachers have turned to various models that feature collaborative experiences. One such model is the Critical Friends Group (CFG), focusing on the improvement of practice and learning experiences for children, using protocol-driven structured conversations. This article examines the mechanisms that support and sustain reflective practice within a community of practice and utilizes Wenger’s three dimensions of practice – mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. The study followed a CFG in an elementary school using ethnographic case study methods to conduct a close examination of CFG meetings, protocol use, and analysis of teacher interviews. The propensity to ‘look out’ at school-wide issues vs. looking in at classroom practices, perceptions about feedback on classroom practice, and using protocols to guide conversation emerged from the data as prominent mechanisms in communities of practice. CFG facilitators and coaches, as well as participants must be explicit about the purposes of their work and protocol use alone does not ensure a focus on student learning and teaching practices.     

Educational development within higher arts education: an experimental move beyond fixed pedagogies

This paper explores creative educational development by asking what it is or might become. It is based on a singular pedagogical process within the fields of arts, design, and architecture in higher education. The exploration is framed by Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of difference, which allows for a movement beyond educational certainties that might sometimes limit developmental efforts in higher education. With the intersection of artistic-pedagogical processes and theoretical investigations, the paper aims to imagine potentialities for thinking and doing otherwise in educational development. Thus, this paper strives to become open toward expanding difference and creation within educational development processes.     

Examining what we mean by collaboration in collaborative action research: a cross-case analysis

The purpose of this paper is to report on the nature of collaboration in a multi-year, large-scale collaborative action research project in which a teachers’ federation (in Ontario, Canada), university researchers and teachers partnered to investigate teacher-selected topics for inquiry. Over two years, 14 case studies were generated involving six university researchers and 61 teacher researchers. As teacher researchers collected their topic-specific data, university researchers worked in parallel on case studies at the 14 sites in an attempt to gain insights into the types and value of collaboration in collaborative action research. University researchers gathered 20–30 points of data for each case-study site (including teacher researcher final reports as well as journal entries, focus group interviews, field notes, video footage and questionnaires). Through comprehensive cross-case analysis, researchers were able to examine common traits as well as relationships between the nature of the teams, the nature of the projects and their relative success, to highlight conditions that led to robust collaborations. Through pattern matching, hypothesised events were compared with observations to test the claim that a triad of relationships between the team, the team lead and the researchers functioned as a positive collaborative force that propelled teacher team success in a generative ethos, even when faced with substantial challenges.     

叙事行动研究：高校辅导员专业成长的有效途径

高校辅导员岗位是一个集思想教育、学业辅导、学生发展指导功能于一身的复合型岗位。如何加强辅导员队伍专业化建设,促进辅导员个体的专业成长成为新时期高校辅导员队伍建设的新课题。本文拟借用教育研究中叙事行动研究的思路,倡导辅导员通过自我叙述来反思个体的教育职业生活,并在反思中改进和重建自己的教育生活,使辅导员从教育研究和生活研究做起促进自身的专业成长,并进一步完成从“实践”型向“实践-研究型”人才的转变。     

民主与教育学——论一种新的教师专业发展观

在相当长的历史时期内,与民主相适应的教育学主要是一种专业教育学。这种专业教育学既是适应现代性情境的一套有效的沟通与组织技艺,又与那种与官僚体制结合的群众民主(旁观式民主)相依存。然而值得注意的是,民主情境中的教育学不仅仅是专业教育学,民主本身也并非必然要求教师或教师职业进一步专业化。事实上,杜威的民主教育学就试图重构不同教育学之间的关系,以不可见的民间教育学取代传统上可见的专业教育学。当然,这种取代只有在作为一种全新的制度教育学的参与式民主的基础之上才有可能真正实现。     

Tensions and complexities in school-university collaboration

This study, conducted over a one-year period, examined the collaboration practices in a large-scale school-university capacity-building collaborative action research project that was designed to help English language teachers develop the skills needed to deal with the reforms to assessment practices in Hong Kong's school curriculum. The study theorized collaboration as a complex construction that must be understood in the context of the prevailing ideologies shaping professional development practices for teachers. Online data generated from the collaborative action research project were analysed to explore the discursive construction of interpersonal relationships. Critical discourse analysis was used to examine the discursive strategies that were used in the emails of two university researchers and two school teachers to negotiate and manage collaboration practices. It examined the complexities of negotiating collaboration as a social practice in institutional cultures in a non-Western sociocultural setting. The implications of the findings for policy, professional development and future research are discussed.     

Moving beyond the barriers: supporting meaningful teacher collaboration to improve secondary school mathematics

The Collaborative Teacher Inquiry Project was a professional development initiative that sought to improve the teaching and learning of Grade 9 Applied mathematics by encouraging teachers to work collaboratively. The project brought together Grade 9 Applied mathematics teachers from 11 schools across four neighboring public school boards in the same geographic area of a large urban city in Southern Ontario, Canada. Teachers formed learning communities as a result of the Collaborative Teacher Inquiry Project through active collaboration to further teachers’ knowledge about teaching the Grade 9 Applied mathematics course and in developing teaching materials. Although it was reported that there were barriers to collaboration, teachers described various strategies that were (or could be) implemented to overcome these barriers. Teachers were enthusiastic in continuing to creatively find solutions to combat barriers as they saw the overall benefits of collaboration to their professional growth and noticed an increase in student engagement and achievement.     

Writers develop skills through collaboration: an action research approach

Collaborative approaches designed to increase writing productivity (amount written) as well as writing quality were implemented over a period of six months with a small group of 12 six‐year‐olds in a Primary School in Newcastle, NSW, Australia. The study demonstrated the positive nature of peer interactions with an increase in quality and productivity of writing products. The classroom teacher employed action research approaches where observations informed action, which in turn was reflected upon. Some central themes emerged from this study. It was found that collaboration often meant that students shared strengths and expertise, provided encouragement and assistance, as well as provided opportunities for peer tutoring.     

Educational poetics: an aesthetic approach to action research

In this article, Gitlin and Peck argue that much of the development of action research has been based on a reconstructed view of science (i.e., a science that is more contextual, less law‐like, less causal, but still accurately represents reality and is teacher centered as opposed to researcher centered). In contrast to this reconstructed view of science, the authors suggest it is time to look at the limits and possibilities of basing action research on an aesthetic view of knowledge production. Gitlin and Peck do so by providing an outline of educational poetics that uses imagination and creativity to unearth and challenge limiting conceptions of commonsense as the action research participants enter into a freedom quest, to utilize imagination and creativity, our inherent human potential, to think beyond the categories and codes that tie us to the status quo.     

创新能力培养--对清华大学两院院士的调查

本文主要论述了清华院士关于创新性人才培养的观点，包括创新能力发展的要素构成、创新能力培养的渠道和方法，以及学校教育、社会教育、教师队伍建设与创新能力培养之间的关系等。     

Problems in interagency collaboration: Lessons from a project that failed

Several institutions (e.g., child welfare, police, court, health, education, social service) are necessarily involved in the management of child abuse in all communities. The need for better cooperation among them has been acknowledged; inquests into child deaths resulting from abuse have often attributed some blame to faulty communication and/or poor cooperation between the institutions. The Community Child Abuse Team (CCAT) Project was designed by these same institutions in Hamilton, Ontario, to maximize interagency collaboration. The hypothesis, that this "interagency collaboration" model would provide more efficient and effective services to abused children and their families, was never tested. During its 30 months of operation the CCAT program never materialized as planned and funding was terminated. This paper describes selected problems and issues that arose during the struggle to implement the project. The central problematic issue was control. Those responsible for the project lacked the power to insist that the design be adhered to during the initial stage.     

Facilitating place-based environmental education through bird studies: an action research investigation

This study involved a workshop designed to support biology teachers in conducting birdwatching activities with their students and to promote place-based environmental education in Turkey. The instruments for collecting data were a workshop questionnaire and interviews. The findings revealed that initial response to the workshop was positive; participating teachers reported that the resources and strategies motivated them to conduct bird studies with students. They identified barriers and noted that the place-based education approach might help overcome many of these barriers. After the workshop, it became clear that participants’ initial intentions to integrate birdwatching into their lessons were challenged by lack of confidence and time. To gain deeper insights into the outcomes of the project, the project coordinator used action research strategies to reflect on her practice and reveal implications for her continued efforts to promote bird and environmental education. She kept a journal, used reiterative reflection, and content analysis to analyse workshop evaluations and interviews. The coordinator recognized potentials and challenges for facilitating birdwatching and environmental education as part of her teaching career. This study shares some of her efforts to provide ongoing support and emphasizes that facilitation of environmental education needs time, commitment, and passion.     

Characterizing cross-professional collaboration in research and development projects in secondary education

Collaboration between practitioners and researchers can increasingly be observed in research and development (R&D) projects in secondary schools. This article presents an analysis of cross-professional collaboration between teachers, school leaders and educational researchers and/or advisers as part of R&D projects in terms of three dimensions: reasons for collaboration, the division of roles and tasks, and the communication structure. Data were collected in interviews with participants from 12 Dutch projects, from documents and from meetings with participants. The results show that the parties involved can have the same reasons for cross-professional collaboration but that the external educational experts may also have additional objectives. Roles and tasks were divided in different ways, depending on who directs and guides the research and development, and whether teachers were involved as teacher researchers in the project. The communication structure appeared to be linked to the division of roles and tasks, but also to the number of participants in the project. The three dimensions proved to be valuable viewpoints to study cross-professional collaboration in R&D projects in Dutch secondary education. Furthermore, we distinguished four types of cross-professional collaboration in R&D projects. These types differ in the extent to which the school or the external party direct and guide the project: (a) School-directed collaboration; (b) School- and researcher-directed collaboration; (c) School- and adviser-directed collaboration; (d) Researcher-directed collaboration. Our findings can support participants to consciously choose a particular type of cross-professional collaboration that fits their purposes and specific situation.     

教师专业发展:教学法的视角

在新课程改革的背景下,探讨教师专业发展的要义,应该聚焦于教师的专业实践活动层面。在当今教师的专业实践活动中,既有先进、时尚的理念来引领,又有具体、丰富的经验作指导。问题在于,先进理念与实践经验之间常常存在着空白。那么,对教师专业发展而言,在先进理念与实践经验之外,还有什么关键因素?这些因素能否填补这一空白?本文试对此问题作一探讨。