The 'c' word

You may have guessed it.. COLLABORATION... In all areas of my readings this semester it seems always to come back to this c word. It's not a word that daunts me. I do my best work when bouncing ideas off others and sharing knowledge to come to the best possible solutions. I love it when others inspire me to keep learning and to do better and I hope I do the same in return sometimes. I am well aware,however, that not everyone enjoys this process and that some teachers will purposely avoid collaboration at all costs. It is a shame but their experiences and personality have shaped their views which are pretty hard to change I can imagine. Therein lies the first barrier I can see to a TL aiming to boost collaboration.  The barrier of time also comes to mind but as Lyn Hay states in the Assignment 2 Forum (Weds 18th Jan 2012)this argument becomes more of a set of excuses for a TL not proactively engaging with the school community in their capacity as an information and teaching specialist.  As we do not wish to be labelled whingers or excuse-makers, the importance of collaborative practice must be balanced with the time allocated to it.

I quite like how Johnson (2002) words his opinions on the matter: Too many teacher-librarians create lovely programs that have very little to do with what transpires in the rest of the school. He goes on to state that we need to work with every teacher on staff and that this will only happen with 'initiative and persistence'.  He suggests working one-on-one with 4 additional teachers each year which seems a wise and achievable goal to work towards whole school collaboration.  Strangely, I'd thought about the possibility of students with challenging behavior but it hadn't really registered before starting this course how much of a challenge it might be to get teachers involved in changes or innovations to the learning environment.

I have been quite inspired this week by the excerpt from Boss and Krauss' 2007 book, Reinventing Project-Based Learning in our recommended reading list.  They claim that collaboration can range from professional learning communities...to more informal conversations.  They suggest ways to open the door for dialogue, virtually and in person. I might just have to purchase this book to find out more..

Well as usual, I have scratched the surface of the topic and perhaps maintain a fairly superficial understanding of the issue but will return to my readings and hope for further enlightenment to inspire future blog posts!