Teacher-teacher aide teaming: investigating collaboration using cogenerative dialoguing and CHAT

Abstract

n nGlobally, collaboration in teacher-teacher aide teams is under-researched. In Australia, there is a dearth of research into teacher-teacher aide team collaboration. This is despite school reform initiatives requiring staff to work together with the understanding that collaboration has the potential to improve teaching and student learning outcomes (Conley a Cooper, 2013). This emphasises the urgency and importance for research into the collaborative teams, as well as working relationships, of teachers and teacher aides in Australian schools. n nThe aim of this research is to contribute to understandings around collaborative practices in school settings. This study explored teacher-teacher aide team collaborative practices using cogenerative dialoguing (cogen), seeking to bring to light factors that may influence the effectiveness of collaborative practices utilising an analytical framework of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). Guiding this investigative study was the research question: How is collaboration practised in teacher-teacher aide teams? Supporting this question are the sub-questions: In what ways do the teachers and teacher aides collaborate in their teacher-teacher aide teams? What happened to the quality and the nature of communication between teachers and teacher aides when teacher-teacher aide teams used cogenerative dialoguing? and How can CHAT be used to conceptualise the affordances and challenges of cogenerative dialoguing for understanding and explaining collaborative teacher-teacher aide teaming? n nA collective case study approach was chosen for this qualitative study. Supporting this approach, the research took the form of observations, semi-structured interviews that included concept drawings and team cogen sessions. Data were obtained from ten teacher-teacher aide teams. However, due to changes in work commitments and the break-up of teams at the end of the year, only four teams completed the study. This is consistent with teacher-teacher aide teamworking where the purpose and need for these teams often depend on student needs and staff availability with teams sometimes reforming during the year and often splitting up at the end of the school year to reform as different teams in the new school year. n nThis study found that collaboration between teachers and teacher aides is not a linear process, rather, it is fluid and dynamic, cyclic in nature, occurring on an as needed basis depending on the task or activity team members needed to perform. There were no steps to true collaboration. Instead, participantsr experiences of collaboration involved face-to-face encounters that moved through different elements of collaboration, such as co-ordination, cooperation, reflective communication and carnivalisation. Collaboration was found to begin with team members voluntarily choosing to participate, being open-minded to collaboration. Key elements in how the teams practised collaboration were: engaging in pre-planning together; making time to talk and plan together; and using a variety of methods of communication, for example, texting, emailing, telephoning and leaving notes for each other, both in and out of school hours. n nCogen provided participants with a new means to: identify barriers to teamworking; reflect on and evaluate their team activities; plan future activities; and listen to and incorporate the ideas of the less vocal team members into these plans. Team members reported that cogen supported and enhanced their teamworking. This enhancement was identified as cogenerativity (Willis, 2016) where the equitable dialogic practices of cogen were continued outside the dialogic space of cogen sessions, acting as oil on the waters in relation to many problems associated with teamworking. n nFindings from this research offer a way to enhance collaboration in existing teams through the sharing of successful team collaboration strategies that demonstrate how teachers balance their supervisory role with their collaboratory role in relation to teacher aides, how teacher aides can enhance their role as team members, and how schools can support collaboration in these teams.