Wullschleger, Andrea
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Improving teaching, teamwork, and school organization. Collaboration networks in school teams
Whereas previous studies on teacher collaboration have focused almost exclusively on improving teaching, this paper investigates collaboration in three highly important school improvement areas. Data for three collaboration networks were collected in four secondary schools in Switzerland in 2018 on teachers exploring new ideas on teaching (teaching improvement), teamwork (team improvement), and school organization (organizational improvement). Using social network analysis, we examined to what extent the collaboration networks overlap, how network structures differ, and what factors explain these differences. The results revealed substantial differences between collaboration in the three areas. This suggests that future research should examine collaboration from a multidimensional network perspective.
Preconditions of teachers’ collaborative practice. New insights based on time-sampling data
Previous findings on the preconditions of teachers’ collaboration are inconsistent. This might be related to the research methods used to assess the teachers’ collaborative practice. Retrospective assessments by self-report on a relatively general level prevail. The validity of these self-reports is limited, however. In contrast, time-sampling methods have the potential to investigate collaborative practice specifically and longitudinally as a day-to-day process over time validly. But to date, no research on collaborative activities in schools based on time-sampling methods is available. In this study, we extended the current state of research by analysing the variability and preconditions of teachers’ collaboration at four secondary schools over three weeks based on time-sampling data collected by a newly developed online practice log. Recorded were collaborative activities outside of teaching with a focus on administrative and organisational tasks and on school subject-specific tasks. The results revealed that teachers’ collaborative activities varied significantly between weekdays, showing a linear decrease from Monday to Friday, regardless of the content of collaboration. Collaboration that focused on administrative-organisational tasks seemed to be quite stable over the weeks and was hardly influenced by teachers’ individual characteristics. Instead, collaborative activities that focused on school subject-specific tasks varied significantly between weeks; moreover, they were influenced by teachers’ leadership role and gender. The results indicate that rather stable routinised patterns of day-to-day collaboration over the weeks decrease the influence of teachers’ individual characteristics. Hence, by collecting data that is closer to content-specific day-to-day collaborative activities, time-sampling methods can be seen as a driver for new insights.
Wird Kooperation als nützlich wahrgenommen und zeigen sich bereichsspezifische Unterschiede? Soziale Netzwerkanalysen in Schulteams in Bezug zu drei Schulentwicklungsbereichen
Der Beitrag verfolgt das Ziel, die Qualität der Kooperation in Primarschulen in den drei Schulentwicklungsbereichen Unterrichtsentwicklung, Teamentwicklung und Organisationsentwicklung zu vergleichen. Dazu wurde die wahrgenommene Nützlichkeit von Kooperationen von 1,627 Schulleitungen und Lehrkräften der Deutschschweiz mithilfe von sozialen Netzwerk- und latenten Profilanalysen analysiert. Die Ergebnisse verweisen darauf, dass die Nützlichkeit von Kooperationen im Bereich Organisationsentwicklung generell am niedrigsten eingeschätzt wird. Allerdings handelt es sich um eine relativ kleine Gruppe von Lehrkräften, die die Nützlichkeit der Kooperation in diesem Bereich systematisch negativer einschätzt als jene der Unterrichtsentwicklung. Bei den anderen beiden Gruppen zeigen sich diesbezüglich keine Unterschiede. Personen mit positiver Nützlichkeitseinschätzung in einem Schulentwicklungsbereich haben in der Tendenz auch hohe Ausprägungen in den anderen beiden Bereichen. Damit zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass der Nutzen der kooperativen Praxis von einem großen Teil der Personen bereichsunspezifisch erlebt wird. Diese Erkenntnisse haben Implikationen für die Professionalisierung von Lehrkräften und Schulteams.
Social interactions within school teams concerned with new ideas for teaching, teamwork and whole-school issues
Teachers involved in school improvement. Analyzing mediating mechanisms of teachers’ boundary-crossing activities between leadership perception and teacher involvement
Teachers are drivers for change in school improvement. However, not all teachers participate in further developing schools' educational practice. This study aimed to understand conditional factors in teachers' involvement. To this end, we analyzed teachers' leadership perception and boundary-crossing activities aimed at increasing professional capital. Structural equation modeling analyses based on a sample of N ¼ 1232 teachers at N ¼ 59 schools indicated partial mediations of cognitive and social boundarycrossing activities on the relationship between leadership perception and involvement. This study contributes to the literature by illuminating the potential of teachers’ activities to enhance professional capital for school improvement.
Schulentwicklungskapazität als Voraussetzung für die Qualitätsentwicklung von schulischen Prozessen. Eine Bilanz
School teams’ regulation strategies for dealing with school-external expectations for school improvement
School-external expectations regarding implementation of reforms and innovations often do not lead to successful school improvement processes in schools. To better understand these processes in schools, this paper aims to investigate school improvement processes on a deep level by focusing on cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational regulation strategies used by school teams and by exploring what school-external and school-internal factors are related to this strategy use. Principals, teachers, and specialist teachers ( N = 1328) at 59 primary schools responded to an online questionnaire indicating their school’s use of regulation strategies on school improvement. Results from descriptive, variance, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that school teams use all forms of school-based regulation strategies but that schools differ significantly in their strategy use. These differences were mainly explained more by school-internal deeper structures (e.g., task cohesion) and less by school-internal surface structures (e.g., school size) and not at all by school-external factors (e.g., governance systems).
Was zeichnet eine hohe Schulentwicklungskapazität aus?
Schulentwicklung ist ein langfristiger Prozess, der in den Schulen kontinuierlich und mehr oder weniger explizit realisiert wird. Die Weiterentwicklung von Routinen ist dabei von hoher Relevanz. Wie gelingt das und was zeichnet Schulen mit einer hohen Entwicklungskapazität aus?