Presentation of Educational Collaboration

Teacher-Teacher Collaboration Overviews.

Restructuring schools for collaboration: promises and pitfalls By Diana G. Pounder

This book (preview) discusses the need for and problems in achieving collaboration in schools. It focuses on inter-teacher collaboration. It states the 2 main benefits as:

1) To increase the democratization of schools
2) to enhance school effectiveness and/or increase productivity


Sociology of Education: Major Themes By Stephen J. Ball

This book (preview) expounds the virtues of collaboration, again focussing on teacher-teacher collaboration, citing research that goes into point 2 above in great depth- improving teacher effectiveness, morale, and willingness to take risk. It also reduces the dependence on outside experts, and with today's (the past few decades') more diverse, inclusive, classrooms, allows teachers to face these demands by sharing their differing strengths- e.g. sharing strategies on coping with ADHD students.

Conversely the book goes on to list critiques of such collaboration in 2 ways:

1) the difficulties of implementing collaboration e.g. teacher competition and insecurities.

2) the many different forms of collaboration, which if done poorly will not all produce positive results. For example 'contrived collaboration' is rarely as effective or welcome as spontaneous and sincere collaboration.

Ella's tentative presentation

1. The ACCC's mandate on collaboration/partnerships, within Northe America Colleges/Universities, and International collaborative projects.
2. Canadian effective collaboration by ACCC
3. Resources /funding available
   

More on the ACCC re promoting partnership

Governments Act to Renew Universities and Colleges: Canada and British Columbia Invest in Research Capacity

VICTORIA, British Columbia, April 8, 2009 — The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry of Canada, along with the Honourable Murray Coell, Minister of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development of British Columbia, today announced investments totalling more than $455.1 million in 29 projects at post-secondary institutions throughout British Columbia.

As part of Canada's Economic Action Plan, the Government of Canada introduced the Knowledge Infrastructure Program, a two-year, $2-billion economic stimulus measure to support infrastructure enhancement at Canadian post-secondary institutions, including universities and community colleges. Today's announcement celebrates the first round of projects to qualify under the program in British Columbia.

"Our government's investment provides significant short-term economic stimulus in local communities throughout British Columbia, while at the same time strengthening Canada's long‑term capacity for research and innovation," said Minister Clement. "The renewal of college and university facilities will encourage more world-class researchers to work in Canada and give them the tools they need to make further discoveries that will benefit Canadians and people around the world."

The program is helping to provide economic stimulus and promote employment by creating jobs for engineers, architects, tradespeople and technicians. It is also helping to generate the advanced technological infrastructure needed to keep Canada's research and educational facilities at the forefront of scientific advancement.

"Through our partnership with the federal government, these projects will create almost 3000 jobs across British Columbia, while continuing to build the assets our post-secondary institutions need to support our province's future growth and development," said Minister Coell. "We are working with the federal government to accelerate projects that will support post‑secondary education and provide the jobs our province needs to stay strong for the future."

One example of a project that will be funded is the six buildings being renewed at the University of Victoria that average 40 years of age. The renovations to the six buildings — the University Centre and the Cornett, Clearihue, Elliot, MacLaurin and Cunningham buildings — are expected to extend their useful lives by another 40 years, while improving safety and updating facilities to support today's education programs. The project is expected to get under way in May.

Canada's Economic Action Plan sets out to stimulate the Canadian economy over the next two years and to improve our long-term competitiveness through $12 billion in new infrastructure investment, which includes the $2-billion Knowledge Infrastructure Program. This new support is the next substantive investment in the Government of Canada's multi-year Science and Technology Strategy, Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage.

Content of my presentation

Here are several aspects I would like to cover in my presentation:

1. Current situation of inter-disciplinary collaboration: government, industry, universities, and faculties/departments
2. Barriers faced by universities
3. A case of Inter-disciplinary Collaboration in a Chinese university

Basically, my presentation is based on the two articles I posted on our blog. I have sent the PPT file to Weijia since she needs to know what we will talk about. Peter, please let me know if you need this file as well for your conclusion J

Doris

Our group presentation

According to our discussion last week, we should work on our own topics and put them together finally. I post this just to make our tasks clearer :-)

1. Weijia introduces collaboration in general and the problems encountered (5 minutes);
2. Peter talks about collaboration within school (5 minutes);
3. Wejia talks about collaboration within faculty (5 minutes);
4. Doris talks about inter-disciplinary collaboration (5 minutes);
5. Ella talks about collaboration among colleges (5 minutes);
6. Peter gives the conclusion (5 minutes).

Does this schedule look fine to you? If you all agree, we could start to work on our own part. By the way, do you think we need a PPT for our presentation? If we do, we need someone to put several parts together. If you don't mind, I could do this. Please send your PPT files before Wednesday midnight. Then I could put them into one file on Thursday and bring it to classroom. If you want to talk without PPT, it is just fine. Please let me know what you prefer :-)

We may not need a rehearsal, but I guess we need to know each other's work and make our presentation flow smoothly. How about we meet half hour before the class, 5pm in our classroom?

Doris

Intra-school collaboration

Here are some issues I intend to research:

Teaching sturctures- what organisational structures are used in schools and how do they support collaboration?

What measures are there in place to support collaboration between teachers? How successful are they and what benefits do they bring?

To what extent do teachers collaborate with other staff such as educational psychologists?