Research has identified collegiality, encouraged by the school leader, as one of the factors present in highly effective schools. However, there is not a widely accepted understanding of what collegiality is or how it is fostered. This study examined teachers' perceptions about collegiality and leadership practices that supported its development in schools. This investigation of the collegial experiences and understandings of teachers in three elementary school settings was conducted primarily through interviews and observation. A high level of collegiality existed among the staff at the three schools, and staff perceptions of the factors that impacted those collegial experiences yielded important data. Three basic questions guided this research: (1) How do teachers demonstrate their own collegial behaviors in schools?; (2) What conditions do teachers identify that enhance teacher collegiality?; and (3) What are the leadership behaviors that foster and support collegiality? A summary of the findings suggested that teachers talking about practice and teachers teaching one another were the two most often discussed and practiced indicators of collegiality. The findings of this study strengthen the connection between well-established transformational leadership practices and teacher collegiality. Both aspiring and practicing leaders need to understand the theory and research behind the practice of transformational leadership and its link to collegiality in schools.This study has added to the body of research, supporting the link between leadership behavior of principals and the collegiality of teachers. Transformational leadership practices contribute to school effectiveness and continuing teacher growth and development. This has implications for the day-to-day practice of leaders, for the professional development of teachers, and for leadership development. A deep understanding of collegiality and the leadership practices that support and sustain it is necessary in an era of continuous school improvement.

Currently in secondary education, there is an impetus to have educators collaborate; however, teaching has often been perceived as a solitary occupation, and often logistics prevent collaboration from occurring. Furthermore, the stress of the job, teaching of different disciplines, and low morale can often prevent teachers from collaboration. The research problem addressed in this study reflects the challenges that teachers have with engaging in collaboration. The purpose of the qualitative case study was to understand how teachers are affected by collaboration, the barriers that prevent collaboration, and the possible benefits of collaboration. This case study is grounded in the constructivist theory, which holds that people learn from sharing in social settings. A qualitative case study design focused upon interviews with 18 educators, observations of collaborative sessions, and document analysis. Textual analysis of the interviews and documents through a taxonomic system of coding helped to generate themes about collaboration. Furthermore, these interview data were triangulated with observations and collaborative documents and showed consistent themes. This resulted in an aggregate of five themes including consistent definitions of collaboration and morale, an understanding that collaboration has positively affected the morale of these teachers in terms of more planning time, and a more collegial atmosphere; however, barriers such as time , which was still perceived as preventing the collaborative process. Implications for positive social change include a higher morale throughout the school that will foster a greater sense of community and environment more conducive to learning as teachers are better able to dedicate themselves to their profession, colleagues, and students.

abstract: ABSTRACT Teachers working in isolation to overcome instructional challenges are left to their own devices, but teachers working together can benefit from others' perspectives. Teacher collaboration can increase communication and open doors to increased collective knowledge and rapport. Collaborative knowledge sharing and decision-making that focus on student achievement can go far in improving instructional learning. This action research focused on increasing collaboration among members of a middle school team of teachers. Involving teachers in a collaboration development processes was intended to improve productive interactions and contribute to instructional learning as a professional learning team. Study participants were involved in an eight week professional development initiative that involved techniques to promote collaboration along with instructional learning tools to promote professional learning in regard to guiding students to high levels of cognition. A mixed methods set of data was generated including a research journal, artifacts, surveys, meeting transcriptions, and interviews. Findings concluded that focusing on collaboration contributed to positive changes in the middle school team's interactions. Setting and revisiting norms of collaboration were crucial steps in this focus, leading to increased buy-in and active participation during team meetings. Focusing on relevance contributed to multiple aspects of the team's instructional learning. Participants valued their collaborative efforts especially when they found direct links between their professional learning and their individual classroom situations. Focusing on an action plan also contributed to participants' instructional learning. Setting manageable short terms goals gave the team direction and fostered accountability. Finally, working as a professional learning team contributed to the team's instructional learning. Taking the time to meet frequently allowed teachers to share classroom experiences, assist one another, and develop professionally. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Leadership and Innovation 2011

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The enactment of teacher leadership can be challenged by both policy initiatives and school contexts (Anderson & Cohen, 2015; Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012). However, teachers can have a positive influence on each other and their broader school community by building capacity for leadership, innovation, and student achievement through the relationships, or networks, they develop and maintain (Baker-Doyle, 2015; Hovardas, 2016; Hunzicker, 2012; Moolenaar, Sleegers, & Daly, 2012). This single exploratory case study takes place in a Title I elementary school and uses a combination of Social Network Analysis and content analysis to uncover patterns in teacher professional networks, the context in which they exist, and teachers’ perceptions of the influence of these networks on their sense of themselves as teacher leaders. The study focuses on four constructs: teacher leadership, teacher efficacy, instructional innovation, and professional networks. The concept of social capital is used to explore the connection between networks and teacher leadership. Symbolic interactionism frames the analysis of the nature of relationships that emerge within these networks. Findings indicate that teachers linked their identities as leaders with a culture of leadership, exchange of advice, shared values, and high expectations for themselves and their students. Interview responses demonstrated they believed in their collective capacity to accomplish a shared mission of student achievement; they trusted in and supported each other through their professional networks.

In 2004 as many as 25% of teachers in Sweden, Denmark, and England were willing to leave their profession immediately; in the United States much effort has been invested in studying why teachers leave the profession. In this paper, four teachers who left the profession were interviewed from within the life-story tradition. In the narratives, which were rendered in a poetic style during the analysis, colleagues were mentioned both positively and negatively. The theme of having colleagues, and especially trust or mistrust between colleagues, was thus explored. The existence or non-existence of lateral trust between teachers can be connected both to school development and to student learning outcomes.

Abstract The research study discussed in this doctoral dissertation illuminates the interpretative repertoires used by teachers when describing collaborative team work. The focus of the study has been guided by an interest to investigate the ways in which teachers interpret and conceptualise their team work experiences. The topicality of the study is related to current conflicts found between the importance of professional collaboration in todays schools and the challenges of productive teacher collaboration. The theoretical framework of this study approaches teacher team work from three dimensions, namely from the viewpoint of current changes in educational policy, the working culture of teachers, and from the viewpoint of productive teacher collaboration. In this research study, teacher team work is defined as a process during which teachers work together as a team in order to plan, carry out and reflect on their classroom practise. The methodological basis of this research study is based on the social constructionist theory of discourse. This approach has been applied in order to identify what kind of discursive repertoires teachers use when describing collaboration in their team. Repertoires are seen as culturally and socially constructed discourses that specify the possibilities of relevant interpretation in a particular social organisation. The interpretation of repertoires involves the investigation of functions, contexts and dynamics of teachers verbal language. The main goal of the analysis is to clarify and model the complexities of teacher collaboration. Five interpretative repertoires defining teacher team work were identified in the empirical data of this study. These are defined as collegial, practical, group, organisational and hurry repertoires. These repertoires describe the main contents of teachers collaboration of which construction appears to be based on the dynamics between and within them. A joint feature across the repertoires seems to be in an orientation towards an interpretative conflict between restricting and progressive reasons. The different repertoires and their dynamics form an interpretative model of teacher team work through which the teachers interpretations on team work can be evaluated. The challenges of teacher collaboration appear to arise from a disintegration of teacher goals and incentives during team work. Critical incidents of teacher team work seem to be found in collaborative problem solving situations during which cultural assumptions and the meaning of reform efforts are often evaluated. Discrepancies between the teachers interpretative repertoires lead easily to narrow and restricted solutions that can be in conflict with the reform efforts linked to teacher team work. Furthermore, the discrepancies in repertoires appear to strengthen group dynamics that orient towards restricted teacher collaboration. The conflicts in repertoires appear to increase the need to emphasise alikeness, unity and stability among teachers, despite the fact that the potential of team work is usually found in distributed expertise, the construction of global views and in creative learning. This research study suggests that teacher team work is best supported by activating teachers to create joint conditions and possibilities for collaboration. On the basis of this study, positive results in teacher team work are related to teachers active role in solving emerging conflicts and to the adjustment of strong oppositions in teachers targets for collaboration. The lack of community structures in teachers profession and the tendency towards contradiction appear to support dynamics that effectively restrict teacher collaboration. The theoretical model build in this research study on teachers interpretative repertoires of team work serves a good starting point to develop and support teacher collaboration efforts in future studies.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a three-year Professional Learning Community (PLC) staff development initiative that took place in a suburban school district in Connecticut. An operational definition for PLCs was developed. This definition may prove beneficial for future research on PLCs. A comprehensive review of the current literature base was conducted, including the detailed examination of one earlier literature review (Vescio et al., 2008) and six empirical studies which examined the relationship between PLC-like initiatives and student performance. The present study builds upon the relevant literature base, specifically by attempting to determine the relationship between teacher collaboration and two dependent variables: changes in teachers’ instructional practice and student achievement outcomes. In addition, the study considered the relationship between the support provided by administrators to PLCs and student achievement outcomes. Achievement outcomes were measured by performance on Connecticut’s annual standardized assessments. Correlational and multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between the variables. Survey data viii were drawn from a sample of 325 teachers, while student achievement data were drawn from a sample of approximately 2,270 students. A modest, statistically significant relationship was noted between administrative support for PLCs and student performance in both reading and writing. No statistically significant relationships were observed between collaboration and student achievement outcomes. A significant relationship was noted between collaboration and changes in instructional practice as measured by responses on the survey instrument. In addition, the interaction of teacher collaboration and administrative support served as a predictor for student performance in both reading and writing, suggesting that optimal learning occurs when teachers in PLCs collaborate at high levels while simultaneously receiving strong administrative support. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for policy, professional practice, and future research on the topic of PLCs.

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.

Geography education has been relegated to a subset of social studies standards in most of the United States and has been overshadowed by a history-centered curriculum. Student achievement in geography has not improved for several decades due to the focus on history content in the social studies curriculum. Rooted in a conceptual framework encompassing elements of self-efficacy and the whole teacher approach, the purpose of this case study was to examine the impact of the West Virginia Geographic Alliance (WVGA) professional development workshop on teachers' practices in delivering cross-disciplinary geography education. The research questions addressed teachers' perceived self-efficacy in delivering cross-disciplinary geography and literature instruction and the long-term changes they made to their classroom pedagogy. Data collection involved open-ended, semistructured interviews with 6 teachers (3 geography and 3 literature) who attended the WVGA training. Analysis of interview transcripts with open and axial coding revealed that teachers perceived geography as an important discipline and an effective means of enhancing literature instruction. Perceived obstacles to cross-disciplinary geography instruction included rigid content standards, scheduling conflicts, and time constraints. Findings indicated that future geography professional development should be relevant to teachers' needs and based on state standards for geography instruction. Findings may be used to promote cross-disciplinary geography instruction through professional development.