Academic literature on the topic 'Collegial cooperation'

Collegiality has been glorified as the strongest governance pillar for higher education institutions, especially in promoting independence of thought, impartial decisions on leadership, mutual respect, and providing peer support. However, the recent corporate culture recently adopted by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and a system that rewards individual accomplishments, together with decreased state funding had steadily weakened the collegial philosophy, while toxicity takes the center stage - thereby threatening unity, harmony and institutional visibility. As a result, institutions have turned toxic. Unfortunately, although easily identifiable, toxicity is a difficult phenomenon to deal with, especially in dynamic academia environment, performance-based pay and personal traits notwithstanding. The paper concludes that the lack of conclusive empirical research to establish the depth and breadth of toxicity has made it difficult for personnel to make defensible decisions. The paper recommends that institutions should prioritize institutional inquiry in order to address work related behavior – among others to negate unacceptable behavior that have persistently harmed individuals as well as the institutions. Finally, institutions should make collegiality part of all “Personnel decisions” that clearly stipulate flawless indicators and measures of toxic behavior, in order to enhance collegial, civil and harmonious work environment that promotes staff engagement, productivity and institutional stability.

Abstract The organisational status and the main tasks of a university language centre are given different interpretations in different universities. Some language centres find themselves in a challenging situation where the centre’s existence seems to be at stake, whereas others prosper and find positively encouraging opportunities for the future. All this is reflected in the work of language centre directors across Europe. To discuss these challenges and to further develop the cooperation of directors, a Focus Group on Management and Leadership has been established by CercleS. The aim of the focus group is to create a low threshold-network for directors for sharing challenges and questions and by doing this to provide collegial support in management and leadership issues. The focus group conducted a survey in 2015 to learn more about the management and leadership challenges and the support needs of directors. In this paper, we will discuss the results of the focus group survey. The target is to discern common themes and develop recommendations for directors’ future professional cooperation. There will be a particular focus on sharing experiences and ideas for strategy work, staff development and funding, by creating a supportive professional network. Such a network includes a coaching and mentoring system for directors within the CercleS member language centres. The common theme is empowerment: supporting directors in a collegial framework to share experiences, develop their centres further, and increase their own personal well-being at work.

Background: Poor psychosocial work conditions are known to foster negative health consequences. While the existing literature on this topic focus mainly on white-collar workers, the influence of different aspects of the psychosocial work environment in physically demanding jobs remain understudied. Likewise, senior workers represent a population of the workforce at increased risk of adverse health outcomes and premature exit from the labour market. This study investigates the association between psychosocial work factors and perceived stress among the senior work force. Methods: Utilizing cross-sectional findings, this study reports associations between psychosocial factors (organizational justice, cooperation and collegial support, decision latitude, clarity of tasks, and quality of leadership) and the outcome of perceived stress quantified by Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale (CPSS). Currently employed senior workers with physically demanding jobs were included in the analyses (n = 3386). Associations were modeled using general linear models with weights to make the estimates representative. Results: For all individually adjusted psychosocial variables, the category of “good” was consistently associated with lower stress scores compared to the categories of both “moderate” and “poor” (all p < 0.0001). Likewise, in the mutually adjusted analysis, the category of “good” was statistically different from “poor” for all included variables, while the category of “moderate” remained different from “poor” for “clarity of tasks”, “cooperation and collegial support”, and “decision latitude”. Conclusions: Among senior workers with physically demanding jobs, poor ratings of organizational factors related to the psychosocial work environment are consistently associated with high stress scores. Blue-collar occupations focusing primarily on physical risk factors are recommended to increase awareness on psychosocial aspects that may be relevant to the local work environment.

Although this is a simple message, the time for community and kindness is now. Competing with other inquirers can yield individual rewards, but such moves risk sacrificing our collective futures for both immediate and rapidly diminishing gains. A commitment to inclusive and welcoming qualitative communities, however, opens different paths. As such, this conceptual article suggests that collaboration and cooperation are not simply collegial matters: they are necessary in these troubled times. Differences over whose approaches are “right,” “best,” or “most appropriate” can be not only unproductive but also counterproductive in sustaining futures that include us all. When threats to democratic inquiry seek to divide us, there is no need to divide ourselves and forgo the joyful work that can be found in qualitative inquiry.

Syftet med denna studie är att få en ökad förståelse för lärares syn på och erfarenheter av kollegialt lärande. Metoden som används är skriftliga intervjuer av fem lärare från olika skolor och två även från olika kommuner. Studiens resultat visar att begreppet kollegialt lärande är brett och kan innebära olika saker för olika lärare. Av resultatet går att urskilja ett antal faktorer som både ger möjligheter eller är utmaningar med kollegialt lärande. En faktor som lärare ser ger goda möjligheter är bland annat att det pedagogiska arbetet kan utvecklas till det bättre genom att ett utbyte av lärdomar sker mellan kollegor. En stor faktor till att det kan vara utmanande är tiden. Studien beskriver även kollegialt lärande som en del av kompetensutveckling i lärares arbete.
The purpose of this study is to gain and increased understanding about teacher ́s views on and experiences of collegiate learning. The method used is written interviews with five teachers from different schools and two teachers from different municipalities. The results of the study show that the concept of collegiate learning is wide and can have different meaning to different teachers. From the results a number of factors can be distinguished that either enables or challenges collegiate learning. One factor that teachers see provides good opportunities is, among other things, that the educational work can be developed for the better by the exchange of lessons between colleagues. A major factor that can be challenging is the time. The study also describes the collegiate learning as a part of the skills development of the teachers ́ work.

This diploma thesis deals with the possibilities of professional development of primary school teachers. The focus is on different forms of peer support for teachers, with an emphasis on inter-school observation as a natural way of practical development. There is also a collegial support project presented through the innovative program Step by step, which has been already implemented in many schools. The peer support project is presented in the empirical section, involving teachers from different types of schools who participated in inter-school observation visits. The pre-research was conducted through semi-structured interviews gathering information about the course expectations, followed by an experiment that was evaluated and analyzed during the recorded interviews. A dedicated website was also created providing a supporting environment for its users. KEYWORDS collegial support, professional development, teacher cooperation, teacher quality standard, supervision, mentoring, learning community, observation

Within Swedish Secondary Schools, truancy has been an increasing concern over the last eleven years. A specific form of truancy is so called in-school truancy where the student is basically within the school corridors but to a lesser degree attends the lessons. Despite the well documented risks concerning for example employment, income and health and the vast literature demonstrating the importance of teacher experience to promote successful student outcomes, little attention has been given to both teacher experience of truancy and in-school truants in a Swedish context. This master thesis explores Swedish secondary teachers’ experience of working with in-school truants. Four secondary teachers working on an Introduction Program in Sweden were interviewed. The interviews were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Through this analysis six comprehensive themes were constructed: Multifaceted Role- and Responsibility Description, Structure for Security and Consensus, Hope and Credence Embodied, Relationship building Obstacles and Value, Meaningful, Manageable and Rewarding Work and Solidarity as the Solution and Shield. Understanding of the results was deepened through theoretical connections to results that were particularly distinctive. Some of the issues discussed were theories related to work culture, collegial support, self-efficacy, roles, responsibility, relationship building and teacher-student relationships. The results show that the teachers who participated experience their work with this group of students as one with extra demands. Despite extra demands, neither an excess of demands nor unmanageability were experienced. Rather a conviction was evident regarding the possibility to influence these students despite their form of truancy as well as a feeling of purposeful work. This was something which partly distinguished the findings from previous literature found on the subject. The teachers' experiences further suggest that colleagues and work culture constitute important aspects of the work experience. It is also evident that the teachers involved in this study work within a dynamic field where the teacher needs to balance and continuously reflect upon their way of working. Finally, from the teachers’ perspective, in-school truancy was not considered the most problematic or relevant to distinguish from other sorts of truancy.
Inom svenska gymnasieskolor har ogiltig frånvaro blivit ett allt större bekymmer under de senaste elva åren. En specifik form av frånvaro är så kallad in-school truancy (på svenska korridorselever) där eleven i stor utsträckning befinner sig i skolans område men i låg utsträckning går på undervisningen. Trots väl dokumenterade risker avseende bland annat anställning, inkomst och hälsa och den utbredda litteraturen som finns på betydelsen av lärares upplevelse för gynnsamma elev utfall har både lärares upplevelser av frånvaro samt korridorselever fått sparsamt med uppmärksamhet i en svensk kontext. I föreliggande studie undersöktes gymnasielärares upplevelser av att arbeta med korridorselever. Fyra gymnasielärare på ett Introduktionsprogram i Sverige intervjuades. Intervjuerna analyserades med hjälp av Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Av resultatet konstruerades sex övergripande teman: Mångfacetterad roll- och ansvarsbeskrivning, Struktur för trygghet och samsyn, Hopp och tilltro förkroppsligat, Relationsbyggandets hinder och värde, Det meningsfulla, hanterbara och givande arbetet och Gemenskapen som lösning och sköld. Förståelsen av resultatet fördjupades genom att diskuteras i förhållande till studier, däribland har teorier kopplade till arbetskultur, kollegial stöttning, self-efficacy, roller, ansvar, relationsskapande och lärar-elevrelationer lyfts. Resultatet visar att de lärare som deltagit upplever sitt arbete med elevgruppen som ett arbete med extra krav. Trots ökade krav finns inte upplevelsen av överkrav eller ohanterbarhet. Snarare fanns en övertygelse om möjligheten att påverka dessa elever oavsett frånvaro samt känslan av att ha ett meningsfullt arbete. Detta var något som till viss del skiljer resultatet från tidigare litteratur på ämnet. Lärarnas upplevelser antyder vidare att kollegor och arbetskulturen utgör viktiga aspekter av arbetsupplevelsen. Det framkommer även att lärarna i studien arbetar i ett spänningsladdat fält där läraren behöver balansera och kontinuerligt reflektera kring sitt eget arbetssätt. Slutligen, enligt de intervjuade lärarnas upplevelser, framkommer korridorseleverna inte som mer problematiskt eller meningsfullt att skilja på från andra typer av frånvaro.

This chapter succinctly introduces the reader to the composition, jurisdictional scope, and methods of judicial review in Italy. Using both direct and incidental methods of judicial review, the Italian system combines certain elements of centralized systems (like the Austrian paradigm of Hans Kelsen) with elements of diffuse systems of review like that of the United States. The chapter highlights the highly collegial structure and process of the Court. Overall, the cooperative and multilevel character of Italian constitutional adjudication emerges as its most distinctive contribution to our understanding of the range of the varieties of constitutional models and experiences in the world.

The University of South Florida (USF) Libraries consist of five separate entities, two located at regional campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota and three libraries located on the main campus in Tampa. These libraries operate in a collegial, cooperative way yet each operates independently of the others. This arrangement allows the individual missions of each of the Libraries to be met while ensuring collaboration and cooperation. The many initiatives within and among the USF Libraries depend upon a reliable and advanced networked infrastructure and on staff, facility and financial decisions focussed on true programmatic cooperation. This paper addresses the interaction between the USF Libraries in defining and realising institutional commitment to its virtual library plan.

The ease of school relationships can wax and wane just as in any other group. When teachers get along well, the entire school can be a vibrantly productive and nourishing environ­ment. When teachers have conflicts, chilliness and fragmented collegiality can affect everyone. Why would we expect teachers to be happily cooperative all the time? Teachers likely do not have a hand in hiring their co- workers, and therefore they must adjust to all types of person­alities, pedagogical preferences, and teaching styles. Even with these sometimes strident differences, collegial relationships are essential to the health of schools and school personnel. Key to this vision is behaving with friendliness to others, rather than expecting all others to be our friends. When the “Be friendly, but not friends” mantra is given to student teachers and school interns, it is intended to help these novice educators maintain professional distances with students. But for teachers at any stage of their career, it also can be helpful to distinguish friendship and friendliness. We could define “friends” as: • Those with whom we spend time outside school hours • Those who know our family and home life • Those with whom we share personal, sometimes private information Using these criteria, we may have more acquaintances than friends at school. And those professional distances are not nec­essarily a hindrance to vibrant school communities. With courteous conversations, cordial comportment, and car­ing camaraderie, being friendly may be enough.