This study is exploratory research examining the relationship between the news media and environmental collaborations. It reports the results of a 2008 online survey of the 250 members of the EPA's National Roster of Environmental Conflict Resolution and Consensus Building Professionals. The study asked about the impact of the media on environmental collaborations, but the major finding actually concerned the significant impact that the process of collaboration has had on the press and its role in environmental problem-solving. Collaboration professionals in this study apparently no longer see the press as a major influence in environmental dispute resolution. The most common estimate of press impact was "slight". A large majority of respondents (71%) said the news media overall have a positive or neutral impact on environmental collaboration outcomes -- surprising numbers, considering the past negative history of the press and environmental issues. From the practitioner's perspective, the most important finding may concern Media Ground Rules (guidelines that govern how collaborations interact with the news media). With Media Ground Rules in place, 74% of collaborations reported the press had a positive impact. In contrast, a negative press impact was reported by 60% of collaborations without Media Ground Rules in place. Since 2008, we have seen growth in environmental collaboration, but at the same time, wholesale closures of American newspapers, along with a stunning decline in the number of environmental reporters and environmental coverage in local news. This study looks at the implications of these developments for accountability and environmental collaborations. / Ph. D.

LAUNCH is a multi-organizational initiative led by NASA, Nike, USAID, and Department of State to seek and accelerate disruptive innovations to address intractable sustainability issues. The focus of this embedded case study is the evolution of the idea of LAUNCH through the lens of group practice. The empirical evidence includes detailed documentation of artifacts, group practice constructs, interaction and process maps for the five embedded cases, sentiment analysis of 25,000 email interactions, as well as a unique contribution of insights from a LAUNCH co-founder and participant-observer that were continually woven back into the conduct of LAUNCH group practice. The study looks at the conduct of group practice in a continual pull and tug across four construct continuums: tall-flat governance, expedite-explore deliberations, control-create idea generation, and electron-proton behaviors. Process maps of the group activities and artifacts demonstrate the continual tension along these continuums, which is supported by sentiment analysis of email interactions among group members. Plotted over time, sentiment analysis illustrates successive waves of positive and negative interactions during deliberation around development and implementation of ideas and processes. These findings are described using scientific metaphors from atomic physics and quantum mechanics. The behaviors of individuals within the LAUNCH core group resemble subatomic particle behaviors, while the group interactions sentiments resemble quantum theory wave behaviors, such as light waves. The quantum revolution resolved the scientific dilemma of wave and particle behaviors of matter and energy" which is much like the duality of the conduct and behavior of individuals and the interconnected interactions in group practice, and its effect on the rise and fall (wave) of ideas. The particle-wave duality in quantum theory sparked the big idea for a quantum theory of social dynamics, proposed in this study. The proposed theory applies to the conduct of group practice, behaviors exhibited by individuals and groups of individuals, and the generation of ideas evoked by disruption through social interactions. The proposed theoretical tenets may shed light on the broader understanding of the social dynamics embedded in group practice: 1) group practice is convened around and bound by a shared goal " the strong force; 2) individual actions influence the conduct of group practice in positive and negative ways; 3) individuals convened in group practice interact with one another through interconnected wave patterns of sentiment that affect the rise and fall of ideas; 4) individual behaviors and group interactions fluctuate in dynamic patterns of interference that disrupt the conduct of group practice; 5) individuals and groups of individuals mutually reinforce one another and amplify ideas with in-phase behaviors, while obstructing people and progress with out-of-phase behaviors; 6) disruptive thinking is a discomfort factor necessary for idea generation in a socially constructed world; and 7) creativity that arises in response to disruption can evoke idea-generation, new knowledge, and new ways of knowing. / Ph. D.

The need for more collaboration and co-teaching emerged from the standards-based and accountability movement as a result of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) legislation. The purpose of this study is to identify the perceived skill set needed by general and exceptional education teachers in order to be successful in a co-teaching classroom, discover if collaborative coursework is being offered to pre-service teachers as part of their university experience, and identify specific strategies, programs, and field experiences in which pre-service general and exceptional education teachers can engage in to better prepare them for their first co-teaching/collaborative teaching assignment. This qualitative study was based on the naturalistic inquiry design (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) and was comprised of one focus group from each of the three school divisions. The purposeful sample selection of teachers for each focus group included five to eight general and exceptional education probationary (zero to five years experience) teachers who have current or previous experience in a collaborative or co-taught classroom, and who graduated from a Virginia institution of higher education. A focus group protocol was used for data collection based on the ten revised (2011) Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium standards. When comparing the data of what general education teachers perceived were most important compared to what training, coursework, and experiences were actually provided as part of their pre-service training, 53% of the training received matched the skills they felt were most important. Forty-seven percent of their pre-service training focused on "other" skills, knowledge, performance, and critical dispositions. When comparing the data of what exceptional education teachers perceived were most important compared to what training, coursework, and experiences were actually provided as part of their pre-service training, 60% of the training received matched with the skills they felt were most important. Forty percent of their pre-service training focused on "other" skills, knowledge, performance, and critical dispositions. These data suggest that there is a disconnect between what pre-service teachers perceive as important and what is actually being taught through coursework and experiences in teacher preparation programs. / Ed. D.

Significant importance has been placed on STEM education to encourage students to enter into careers related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. United States education system is looking ways to provide a positive student-learning environment to improve student achievement, critical and rational thinking, analysis, and synthesis of information. In higher education, the role of community colleges is undergoing a major transformation in the United States education system. Researchers place community colleges as one of the most important innovations for higher education in the 20th century. Community colleges not only provide affordable education, but also offer a wide variety of programs ranging from vocational to transfer. With the growing number of adult/ nontraditional learners across higher education, it has now become an utmost national priority to engage and retain this student population. As per the 2011 data by National Center for Education Statistics, the adult population in undergraduate courses is growing steadily over the last many years to the extent that it could overtake the numbers of the traditional students enrolled in four-year colleges and universities. The AACC (American Association of Community Colleges) released Reclaiming the American Dream: Community Colleges and the Nation's Future, A report from the 21st Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges in 2012 during the 21st Century Initiative to offer recommendations and ideas to promote skills that are needed for students to be successful in college, careers, and life. Later, in 2014, they released Empowering community colleges to build the nation's future to help community colleges build a stronger community of students. P21's Framework for 21st Century Learning offers 4Cs, of which collaboration is mentioned as an important pedagogical technique, an educational outcome, and a key skill in various levels of education. This guide suggests that students learn best when they are provided collaborative learning environments; student achievements are higher when they are engaged with others in their learning environments. Students collaborate by working in teams; learn content by identifying problems and finding solutions. This can not only help build content knowledge, but can also develop critical thinking and creativity. Collaboration can actually help develop the other 4Cs. By implementing this unique pedagogical mode of instruction, in the form of collaboration in biology classrooms, improved student content achievement could be seen, thus improving STEM literacy across the nation. The purpose of this study was to explore the learning benefits of collaboration in a community college STEM classroom. The participants in this study consisted of students (n= 155) enrolled in Biology 101 or Biology 141 at Blue Ridge Community College (BRCC). A descriptive analysis of the students' assessment scores (pretest and posttest), science vocabulary familiarity scale (SVFS), and demographic surveys were conducted. Results revealed that collaborative learning approach in the community-college classroom results in changes to students' biology science content knowledge. The results of this study have direct implications for the STEM educator within biological sciences, and in future for not only other fields of integrative STEM education, but for non-STEM courses in higher education. Collaboration enables STEM disciplines to increase opportunities for knowledge sharing and exchange, thereby increasing knowledge and competence. In other studies, researchers have found that students who worked in collaborative environments retained information much longer and deeper as compared to students who worked individually in traditional classrooms. In addition, students who studied in an active and collaborative environment scored better in cognition and psychological activities as compared to students taught in traditional classrooms. The results of this study supported that collaboration was an effective means to improve students' learning outcomes in a biology-based classroom at the community college level. / PHD

Yes

Research on collaboration between regional planning and public health promises project cost sharing while achieving the missions of the respective organizations. The objective of this research is to apply the theoretical framework of critical contingencies to assess the current level of inter-organizational relationships between planning district commissions (PDCs) and health districts in the area. Using a case study approach, I collected data through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the directors of four PDCs and four health districts of southwest Virginia. The results from this study reveal that PDCs and health districts collaborate in three areas: physical/environmental health, access to primary health care, and economic development. However, collaboration is not consistent across the four districts. In districts with minimal collaboration, directors at both PDCs and health districts cite conflicting missions and a lack of understanding about the other organization. In districts with the highest number of common projects, the directors at both organizations attribute collaboration to a dependency on technical and professional resources, the need for legitimacy and authority, and the ability to achieve internal objectives. All directors claim that limited time and human resources impede collaboration. The directors' views on resource constraints (predominantly time) and organizational philosophy corroborate the general findings of the collaboration literature. Future research should address means of enhancing collaboration between planners and health districts through improved communication about programs and actual, not perceived, skills, resources, and mission of the complementary organization. / Master of Urban and Regional Planning

There is a lack of tools available to support cross-cultural communication and collaboration. Current research is comprised of assessments of the need for better cross-cultural communication tools and discussions of simple guidelines for developing such a tool. Existing programs such as chat or video-conferencing have been altered to be used in a cross-cultural setting, but little data has been gathered on their effectiveness. There is a need, according to the literature in the field of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), that cross-cultural tools be developed, researched, and comprehensively studied. The purpose of this research was to show that a simple cross-cultural communication tool can be developed to support electronic cross-cultural collaborations. BlissChat was developed in Virginia Tech's Macroergonomics and Group Decision Systems Laboratory for this purpose. The dependent measures for the study consisted of the time of completion and errors committed. The experimental design was a 2 x 2 between factor design. The factors were divided into a concordant (same language culture) group versus a discordant (different language culture) group. The other independent variable was the environment, whether they used the communication tool BlissChat, or in the ideal setting of face-to- face (FtF). The two culture groups used were Chinese first language speakers and English first language speakers. Participants who used BlissChat were able to perform their tasks as accurately as those who met FtF by not committing significantly more errors (p<0.05), but they did not perform as efficiently. The participants using BlissChat did not perform as efficiently as those meeting FtF (p<0.05). It took participants using BlissChat much longer to perform their task than participants in FtF conditions (p<0.05). The consequence of these outcomes will effect both the current use as well as the future outcomes of CCSCW. / Master of Science

Cette recherche a pour but de connaitre le rapport au travail en collaboration du personnel enseignant d'écoles secondaires du Québec. Ce rapport comporte deux dimensions, à savoir les représentations dont les dispositions à collaborer et les pratiques de collaboration. La recension des écrits soulève quatre types d'éléments qui sont mis en cause dans le travail en collaboration chez le personnel enseignant : des facteurs de contexte, entre autres, la réforme de l'éducation au Québec (1997-1998), les représentations du personnel enseignant au regard du travail en collaboration, des représentations au regard des pratiques d'enseignement, l'identité professionnelle des enseignantes et enseignants. Sur le plan méthodologique, cette étude s'inscrit dans le paradigme compréhensif, interprétatif. La cueillette des informations, par entrevues semi-structurées, a été réalisée auprès de trente-cinq enseignantes et enseignants issus de trois écoles de tailles différentes en 2006 et en 2007. Les résultats révèlent qu'une forte proportion du personnel interrogé montre des dispositions positives ou plutôt positives à la collaboration. Par ailleurs, un peu plus des trois quarts des participantes et participants ont des pratiques de collaboration très développées ou développées. Quant au rapport à la collaboration, une majorité des participantes et participants présente un rapport positif ou plutôt positif. Les résultats de notre recherche ont permis d'identifier quatre types de collaboratrices et de collaborateurs : la personne solitaire et individualiste, la collaboratrice ou le collaborateur occasionnel, la collaboratrice ou le collaborateur sélectif, la collaboratrice ou le collaborateur engagé. Plusieurs facteurs conditionnent le travail en collaboration et ils se regroupent en quatre catégories : les facteurs personnels, la relation, la production, la dimension organisationnelle et contextuelle. Les résultats de cette recherche contribuent à mieux connaître le rapport au travail en collaboration du personnel enseignant ainsi que ce qui influence la dynamique de collaboration.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Finnish teachers continue to receive significant attention among educators, educational leaders, and policy makers in the United States and around the globe. In addition, teacher collaboration continues to receive support as a meaningful part of teacher work and practice. Teacher collaboration is frequently described in various ways within different contexts. This study aims to: (a) better understand the nature of Finnish teacher collaboration by examining three teacher collaboration behaviors (sharing information and knowledge, planning, and problem-solving); (b) explore the extent to which Finnish teacher collaboration is formal (or school-required) collaboration and informal (or voluntary) collaboration; and (c) investigate the extent to which Finnish teachers attribute teacher learning to teacher collaboration. Using both qualitative and social network methods, the sample included 19 teachers from two comprehensive Finnish schools (1st–9th grades) who completed an online survey of professional network and open-ended questions. Analyses highlights the following: (a) Finnish teachers at a comprehensive school engage in the three teacher collaboration behaviors (sharing information and knowledge, planning, and problem-solving); (b) Finnish teachers at a comprehensive school value and collaborate in both formal and informal network structures; and (c) Finnish teachers at a comprehensive school attribute a degree of teacher learning, in terms of teacher improvement, to teacher collaboration.