Standards of Collegiality and Collaboration

Abstract

The absence of collaboration points create differences between schools that develop as learning communities and schools that form as insular, compartmentalized “egg crates”, where teachers experience the “ceiling effect” in their learning, growth, and development. Instructional supervision can be a way to enhance the work of teachers individually and collectively, and in theory embraces the purposes and intents needed to support collaboration, collegiality, risk taking, and the development of a learning community. A learning community consists of “school staff members taking collective responsibility for a shared educational purpose, and collaborating with one another to achieve that purpose”. Successful supervision reduces isolation by encouraging teachers and other school personnel to collaborate by engaging in critical discussions about instructional practices that transcend individual classrooms. Successful supervision promotes a culture of cooperative work and risk taking among teachers. Risk-taking is tied to learning and requires overcoming fears and facing new challenges.