Collaborative Teaching - Research Paper Example

Collaborative Teaching Introduction Collaboration in education leads to the building of a community consisting of caring individuals whose aim is to work for a common goal. Collaboration in education may be between educators, parents, researchers, and administrators encourage the students to learn together and benefit everybody in the school setting (Nicholls & Nicholls, 2014). One of the collaboration is the teacher collaboration in which two or more teachers do the co-teaching in one class, which helps in brainstorming of ideas and reflecting on the sessions before or after the school. Collaboration has the effect of creating teacher effectiveness as the educators can divide the tasks and manage the classroom activities. Exchange of ideas is quite important in any teaching environment as teachers can share lesson planning ideas and other classroom activities during their weekly meetings. The educators can also discuss the negative and positive aspects of the project to enable everybody in the group to learn. The teachers can also collaborate with the school administration to create a shared education goal and increase the success of the students as explained in Panel (2011). Collaboration therefore encourages teachers to feel on at equal level with the administration, which helps in relieving their workloads through delegation of duties. Parental involvement in education helps in improving the education outcomes such as the students’ grades, self-esteem, and reduced dropout rate. Student collaboration is also important in any education setting through student teamwork, group projects, collaborative research, and discussions improve cooperation, social, and interpersonal skills (Chilvers, Maidment & Crichton-Hill, 2012. The purpose of this work is to determine the importance of collaboration in education by different parties such as the teachers, administration, parents, and students. The results of the research show that collaboration is an important aspect of education to ensure that the students achieve good results. Collaboration may have its shortcomings, but the research has showed that in many occasions collaboration has good results. The research question for this work is: Why is collaboration in education important? The hypothesis for the research is: Collaboration contributes to the success of the students and the other stakeholders in the education sector. The research will provide important information on the effect of the collaboration of different stakeholders on the students' success. Research Article Reviews Collaborative Teaching and Self-study: Engaging Student Teachers in Sociology Theory in Teacher Education This article provides information on the impact of collaborative and self-teaching for primary and early childhood education teachers. The article explores the effect of changes in the learning and teaching in a sociology paper for first years for the ECE students. Teacher educators wanted to know the effect of the paper changes influenced on learning and teaching the students. The teachers had a collaborative teaching relationship for three years creating an environment, which recognized the voice of the students through student-teacher engagement (Hogan & Daniell, 2015). Research question: What are the strengths and challenges of collaborative teaching in enhancing teaching and learning? The research question is important as it seeks to identify the successes and challenges of collaborative teaching, which is the basis for this research. Research hypothesis: Collaborative teaching influence teaching and student learning. The aim of the research was to test different approaches to teaching and learning in big classes through self-study by examining personal values and professionals practice. The research took three years from 2010 to 2012 involving two-teacher educators and a primary and ECE first year teachers. The students were enrolled in the paper with the title of ‘Whanau’, which was taught to both the ECE and primary teachers doing Bachelor of Education degree (Hogan & Daniell, 2015). The paper was focusing on the New Zealand Society, and the teachers kept journals to explore the strengths and challenges of collaborative teaching for enhancing learning and teaching. The participants worked together, shared feelings of satisfaction, joy, disappointment, and frustration and made room for solutions. The design of the research was an action research through personal situation inquiry, collaborative teaching, improved learning, collegial discussions, and sharing the learning experiences through practice. The participants kept on writing in their journals to help in identifying the experiences during the collaborative and supportive teaching. The team shared their experiences of teaching shared with the students t make them understand certain education theories. The teachers who were participating in the research focused on the improvement of their teaching and the student’s learning experiences due to large classes and student evaluations. During the research period, the teachers realized the importance of self-reflection also called the landscape transformation (Hogan & Daniell, 2015). As they engaged in the literature on self-study, they were able to understand the importance of self-review through learning from others’ experiences. This article is important and helpful as it highlights the usefulness of Self-study in teacher education to both teacher educators and students. The shared reflections and risk taking is good for enabling effective sociology teaching through the creation of a learning space between the teacher and the student. The strengths of the research include the use of real life situation and characters in the experimentation and openness for the participants. Sharing personal life experiences is not easy but the participants were free to do so and give the research the best as it deserved. The weakness of the study is that it involved only one group of students studying sociology instead of incorporating other disciplines. The article is very important as it seeks to explore the importance of collaboration in a school setting for teachers and students. I recommend other students and scholars to use the article for research as the study yielded accurate and reliable results. The role of supportive school environments in promoting academic success The article focuses on the effect of a supportive school environment through stakeholder collaboration on the students regarding their academic success. The research also explores the effect of a supportive environment on the students' attitudes, engagement, motivation, and their goal setting in addition to remaining in school and, higher grades, and the test scores (Schapps, 2003). Poor school achievements indicate a problem in various students such as the ones in elementary schools. Research question: How do the school conditions such as community help or hinder academic achievement? The question is of great importance, as it tends to inquire about the things, which hinder the performance of students in schools. Answering this question will enable the stakeholders to have an insight of the changes they need to make in their schools to improve their students' performance. Interventions required to ensure the success of the students will be analyzed by this study. Research hypothesis: A school's social environment influences the student’s learning and growth emotionally, socially, and ethically. A supportive and caring school environment helps students to live an ethical life by avoiding indulgence in drugs, violence, and other bad behaviors. A supportive environment is achieved by parental involvement, the collaboration of the administration, teachers, and students, and a caring school climate. The research of this article involved correlation studies focusing on schools and finding the factors associated with the academic attitudes of students (Schapps, 2003). The research also concerned the students' engagement and motivation about their achievement. The study tried to find the relationship between community and achievement by students in schools. One of the studies was in 12 secondary schools in London testing the characteristic of schools and the effect on the academic, attitudes, and achievement. The other correlation study involved 80,000 students from 7th to the 12th grade involving school connectedness and the grades. School connectedness is feeling as part of the school and close to the people in that school such as the teachers and administration. Another correlation study was for suburban middle school students consisting of urban Latino and African-American middle school learners to determine whether collaborative relationships through caring and support influenced interest in learning. Another sample came from Suburban and rural elementary learners of grades three to six to establish how student support contributes to their academic progress. The design of the study-involved investigation of the relative importance of community in influencing the students' performance through collaboration by sampling various correlation research studies carried in various schools representing different classes. The correlation research revealed that community in schools has a positive association with many positive academic outcomes. The sense of community is school improves the attitudes of the students towards the school and class enjoyment (Schapps, 2003). It also improves academic expectations, motivation, and engagement. Community in Schools reduces absenteeism and tardiness and the students with a strong connection with teachers perform better than those that are not. Community building is important to ensure academic success and effective learning. The research is important as it provides enlightenment on the importance of community through the collaboration of the teachers and the students. The research also gives the important academic programs to improve the sense of community such as Child Development project for influencing children’s social, intellectual, and ethical development. The strengths of the study are the emphasis on creating a sense of spirit in schools through other programs such as the Positive Action Through Holistic Education. The program increases the students' attachment to the school and is involved in school activities. Other programs mentioned include the school development program, responsive classroom, turning points study, and others aimed at creating the spirit of community in schools. The conclusion is that building in-school community is one way of fostering academic success through the connection of teachers and students and with fellow students. The weakness in the study is that it does not define parental involvement in building a community for students in school yet they are big contributors to the students’ success. The research does not mention the role of other stakeholders such as the administration in building a school community through collaboration. However, the study is a good one as I learned that a sense of community in schools has positive effects to the learners. I recommend other people to use the research study since it has reliable, accurate, and relevant information related to the collaboration of teachers and students. The researcher also used reliable sources for the study with good samples representation the bigger population. Establishing a Collaborative School Culture through Comprehensive School Reform The article is about the development of a school culture, which considers educational needs of all students through collaboration (Waldron & McLeskey, 2010). Comprehensive school reforms lead to the improvement of teacher practice and students outcomes through the development of a collaborative culture by improving teacher practices. The principal and other school leaders have a role in creating a school culture, which facilitates the participation of students including those with disabilities. The research question: How does collaborative culture improve teaching practices and student achievement? The research question is important as it tries to address the importance of collaboration of different parties in schools to bring out change to all students including those with disabilities. Collaborative teacher learning is one important aspect of the study in addition to professional development, which provides a good answer to the question. Research hypothesis: Successful school change depends on the high level of collaboration among the professionals in the institution. The research study involved the use of literature materials from different researchers on collaborative culture and school reforms (Waldron & McLeskey, 2010). The researchers used qualitative research in which evidence of study was obtained from sixty-six literature materials such as journals, periodicals, and academic literature. The study criteria involved literature review of various academic materials through sampling in which the researcher filtered 66 materials from the academic libraries. The search yielded more than 200 results on collaboration in schools, and the researchers selected the ones related to collaborative culture. The study analyzed the selected academic materials to get ideas, which supported collaborative culture as a practice, which can improve students’ performance. In those materials, the researchers examined how change can be accomplished in schools to improve on the teaching practices and increase the achievements of the students. The study also included the initiatives for students with disabilities through collaborative culture. After going through all the selected literature materials, the researchers found that the best thing is to change a school culture and create a more inclusive school a process called re-culturing. Re-culturing leads to new forms of interactions and professionalism in activities such as information sharing, problem solving, leadership, and decision-making among others (Waldron & McLeskey, 2010). To have a good collaborative culture schools will need to improve on the teacher practices, which will bring positive improvement to all students. According to this article, one of the steps for the collaborative culture is the process of comprehensive reforms to help in improving outcomes for all students. A school with a collaborative culture has a different kind of leadership and many individuals make decisions through collaboration. Changes that will improve the students’ outcomes will require re-culturing of schools to ensure the development of a collaborative culture. The parties, which will play a vital role in changing the culture of schools, are the psychologists, special educators, counselors, and other stakeholders such as the administration and parents. This research is a good one as it enlightens the school leaders to see the importance of changing the culture of their school. The strengths of the article include the use of several literature materials as the sources of the research and the in-depth information on methods and importance of re-culturing schools through collaboration. The research also answers the research question and supports the hypothesis. The weakness of the research is the lack of quantitative research as it has dealt with searching information from existing literature. However, I have found the study quite interesting and educative and would recommend other to study it and gain knowledge on the importance of a collaborative culture in schools. I will also recommend it to school principals, teachers, students, and other stakeholders to help them set up a good school culture for the success of the students. Collaborative Research and Teacher Education The article examines the role of the collaborative research in providing a way for teachers to take part in the examination of classrooms and schools to help in shaping policies. Research collaborations between teachers, administrators, university professors, and students have helped the student’s candidate in understanding the theory improving their performance (Christianakis, 2010). The collaboration future teachers the models for participating in educational research and the collaboration have ensured a system with a wider views, voices, perspectives, and ideas. This article explores the effect of collaboration and teacher research issues such as policy-making and decision-making instead of being implementers and technicians. Research question: What is the importance of collaborative research for teachers, educators, and students in shaping the education system? The question is important as it helps in understanding the importance of collaboration between the teachers, scholars, students, and other stakeholders in enhancing the education system and student performance. Since teachers are close to the students, they can come up with good recommendations if they engage in research work with the other professionals. Research hypothesis: Collaborative research for teacher education helps in shaping policies and bringing the gap between teachers, statehouses, and academics. The research involves the review of the historical antecedents of collaborative research, and the challenges teachers have faced due to their misrepresentation in the educational research. The researcher uses qualitative analysis of literature materials to support the arguments regarding the importance of collaborating in research involving education matters by the teachers. The researcher sampled eighty-six literature materials to support the argument of the research on collaborative teacher research. The researcher highlighted some collaborative approaches to demonstrate the importance of collaboration in transforming the entire education system to benefit the students. By quoting various academic resources, the researcher gives suggestions of the programs, which can help in incorporating teachers in the collaborative research. Collaborative research can be from teacher to teacher, teacher and academic, the whole school team, community, which can help in building solidarity and lead to the success of the school according to Christianakis (2010). Collaborative research may lead to explorations of areas beneficial to the entire fraternity. For instance, the collaboration among graduate students, teachers, and university researchers will produce results, which will be beneficial to the entire institution including the students. The results of the research show that collaborative research can disrupt hierarchy and protect teachers from exploitation as all the research parties will interpret data together. The collaboration will also ensure that the teachers’ views are represented to widen the knowledge base (Christianakis, 2010). Another effect of collaboration in research according to this research is that it facilitates publication for teachers to reduce strains in accessing research tools and journals for their work. In addition, a community for educators is created with professionals with common goals and agenda for the education system and the students. Mentor and pre-service teachers benefit from collaborative research, which helps in deepening the relationship between them, and enrich teacher education. There are some challenges with collaborative research such as leaving some work for some participants such as data collection or typing instead of doing it together. The strengths of this research include the use of enough literature materials to support the arguments and thorough acknowledgment of the authors. The information is, therefore, reliable for scholars and school managers in various institutions. I like the research addressing collaborative research as it provides all teachers with an opportunity to engage in other field activities other than their daily classroom routine. The research is also helpful to students since the teachers will implement the recommendations of their research in the classrooms to improve their students' performance. The weakness of the study is that it leaves the parents out of the collaborative research yet they are part of the school systems. However, the research is good for educators, and other academicians and I recommend it for use by anyone interested in academic work on any level. Collaboration between Multicultural and Special Teacher Educators: Pulling together the Threads in the Conversation This article highlights the importance and difficulties of multicultural and special educators since the two fields have many things in common. The article argues that there are serious barriers to collaboration between the two due to practical and disciplinary differences (Villegas, 2012). The article discusses the collaborative teacher education and its importance in schools in helping the students have good performance. The other thing addressed in this article is the tension that exists between the multicultural and special education, which hinders collaboration. Teachers encounter student who are influenced by different races, classes, language, and disability or the intersection of one or more. For instance, a teacher may teach a student with a learning disability who is Hispanic and poor and, therefore, the teacher requires knowing how such factors affect the student's learning. Research question: What is the importance of collaboration between multicultural and special teacher educators? The question is of great importance as it aims at finding solutions for the challenges faced by teachers with students with special needs and different cultures. Research hypothesis: Multicultural and special teacher educators’ collaboration is necessary for encountering educational challenges and achieving student success. The research methodology involved careful studying of different research materials from various authors to compile the information on this issue. The researcher defined collaborative teacher education using academic work by Blanto and Pugach and continued to highlight the challenges involving multicultural and special teacher collaboration in details (Villegas, 2012). The author sampled some academic sources including journal articles to provide the evidence of the difficulties, which exist when these two parties try to collaborate. By using the academic resources, the author explains that collaboration between multicultural and special teacher education is challenges as some suspects that the African-American children have been over-represented. These children are in the categories of mental retardation, learning disability, and emotional disturbance and teachers have no multicultural framework for understanding African behavior, which they mistake for special needs. The results of the research showed that collaboration between special teacher educators and multicultural has been hindered by lack of dialogue. More so, the over-representation of the African American and the Hispanic students in special education poses a threat to the collaboration (Villegas, 2012). To achieve collaboration between these categories social-cultural consciousness by teachers is important to ensure understanding the world. The collection of articles in this research shows that collaboration between multicultural and special teacher educator is important to ensure that students from the minority groups achieve quality education just like the other students. The strengths of this article are its thorough address of multiculturalism and special education and the difficulties experienced in trying to collaborate. I like the idea that the multicultural teacher educators should collaborate and do a reconstruction of teacher education in transforming the teachers to prepare for all kinds of students. The weakness of the article is that it only researches on existing literature materials and physical engagement with the students or the teachers. The research results are good for ensuring that the challenges of collaboration between multicultural and special teacher educators. Collaboration between these two groups is important to ensure quality learning for students as it prepares all teachers for all students. I recommend the article to the teachers and students especially who are from different backgrounds to help in preparing teachers for a diverse student population. Conclusion Collaborative learning is important as it ensures that education stakeholder work together to achieve a common goal. Collaborative education involves several parties depending on the institution and collaboration may be between teachers and students, administrators, special teacher educators, multicultural, and parents. Collaborative teacher research is also important as it also influences the outcomes of the students especially in classroom activities. This research is important, as it has highlighted on the importance of collaborative education system through analysis of various methods of collaboration. The overall importance of collaborative education is good performance by the students a good relationship between the teachers, administration, parents, researchers, and minority students. References Chilvers, D., Maidment, J., & Crichton-Hill, Y. (2012). Promoting learning and teaching about research through collaborative work integrated learning: implications for students, agencies and practitioners. In 2012 Australian Collaborative Education Network National Conference (p. 32). . Christianakis, M. (2010). Collaborative Research and Teacher Education. Issues in Teacher Education, 19(2), 109-125. Hogan, V., & Daniell, L. (2015). Collaborative Teaching and Self-study: Engaging Student Teachers in Sociological Theory in Teacher Education. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 40(4), 1. Nicholls, G., & Nicholls, G. (2014). Collaborative change in education. Routledge. Panel, I. E. C. E. (2011). Core competencies for interprofessional collaborative practice: Report of an expert panel. Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel. Schapps, E. (2003). The role of supportive school environments in promoting academic success. Sacramento, CA. Villegas, A. M. (2012). Collaboration Between Multicultural and Special Teacher Educators Pulling Together the Threads in the Conversation. Journal of Teacher Education, 63(4), 286-290. Waldron, N. L., & McLeskey, J. (2010). Establishing a collaborative school culture through comprehensive school reform. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 20(1), 58-74. Read More