Collaboration in teacher teams

Abstract

In order to deal with innovations and the associated complexity of work, ongoing collaboration between teachers has become more important in secondary education. Teacher collaboration is one of the factors that contribute to the successful implementation of innovations in secondary schools. However, there is no consensus regarding the definition of the concept of collaboration. As a consequence, there is little agreement as to whether and to what degree collaborative processes actually occur in schools. Hence, the general research question of this dissertation was formulated as: What is the nature of collaboration in teacher teams? Four empirical studies were conducted in the context of seven interdisciplinary teacher teams from an innovative secondary school in the Netherlands. The first study reports on different perspectives on collaboration. The aim of this study was to conceptualise the nature of collaboration in teacher teams. We explored the usefulness of four existing conceptual frameworks for research on collaboration in teacher teams: the social network perspective, the interpersonal perspective, the interdependence perspective, and the community of practice perspective. The community of practice perspective was most useful because it’s discriminative potential and intervention potential. The second study reports on the status quo of collaboration in teacher teams using the community of practice perspective. The first aim of this study was to explore the extent to which communities of practice occur in schools. We concluded that the overall degree of community in the teacher teams was moderate. The second aim was to explore the relationship between the degree of community and diversity in team composition. We concluded that diversity in terms of the educational level and gender was positively related to the degree of community, while diversity in terms of tenure and work experience was negatively related to the degree of community. Study 3 reports on ways to stimulate collaboration between teachers. The aim of this study was to formulate a set of design principles in order to foster community development of teacher teams. We concluded that the set of design principles should be aimed at developing group goals, developing group norms, organising group roles, stimulating a critical reflective attitude, promoting trust, promoting perceived interdependence, promoting ownership, and organising a collective memory. Study 4 reports on the design principles that teacher teams have already integrated into their daily practice. The first aim of this study was to explore whether and to what extent the community development of teacher teams takes place. We concluded that the community development of the seven teacher teams was limited. The second aim of this study was to investigate what community-building efforts teacher teams undertake themselves. We concluded that, in spite of limited support from the school management, the teacher teams made a considerable amount and range of community-building efforts.