Understanding Collaboration

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Understanding Collaboration
A synthesis of knowledge joanne twining, MLS,
Ph.D.http//intertwining.org
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Understanding Collaboration Fundamentals

• Garmston (1997)
• Communication skills
• Structures for inquiry, deciding,
  problem-solving, and resolving conflict
• Capacities for self assertion
• Integration
• Metacognition
• Self-control

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Understanding Collaboration Assumptions in
Education

• Green Etheridge (1999)
• Collaboration is necessary to bring about
  improved student performance
• Central leadership must reflect stakeholder
  participation
• Redefinition of purpose of unions and their
  relationship with the school district is
  necessary
• Teachers must become leaders taking a total
  school and district-wide perspective
• Personal development in school districts must
  take on a holistic perspective
• An established sense of purpose must drive
  decisions.

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Understanding Collaboration Four ongoing
Stages of

• Urwin Haynes (1998)
• Preconditions (problem setting) identifying the
  parties involved and acknowledging common issues
• Process (direction setting) expressing values
  that guide individual efforts and identifying
  common aims
• Outcomes (structuring) deciding on a course of
  action and set tasks and roles
• Evaluation (strategizing) - envisioning new goals
  and expanding the partnership

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Understanding Collaboration Ten Commandments of

• McQueen and DeMatteo (1999)
• Find a need
• Find a champion
• Prototype
• Develop new, dynamic application
• Seek external, nonbiased help
• Address needs of mobile user
• Market, market, market
• Provide training and support
• Link to important information in legacy systems
• Adopt open standards

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Understanding Collaboration Behaviors and
Attitudes that Support

• Empathic listening
• Flexibility
• Questioning
• Precise language
• Risk-taking

• Muronaga and Harada, and Gross and Kientz (1999)
• Varying roles and responsibilities
• Valuing strengths
• Emphasizing teamwork
• Viewing planning as nonlinear
• Persistence
• Impulse control

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Understanding Collaboration Seven Steps for
Creating

• Pearson (1999)  
• Start with the experience of the participants
• Look for commonalities
• Add new information
• Practice skills, strategies, and plan for action
• Action
• Reflection
• Return to step one

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Understanding Collaboration Factors that Affect
Muronaga and Harder (1999)

• Internal factors
• Climate of trust
• Mutual Respect
• Shared participation
• Agreed upon goals and shared vision
• Willingness to collaborate
• Mutual respect
• Holistic and dynamic approach

• External factors
• Flexible scheduling
• Administrative support
• Curriculum planning time
• Budgets for adequate facilities and resources

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Understanding Collaboration Impediments to

• Abramson and Mizrahi (1996)
•  
• Role competition
• Role confusion
• Turf issues
• Discrepancies between perceptions regarding
  function
• Variations in the socialization process, and
  interpersonal dynamics.

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Understanding Collaboration Things to Avoid

• McQueen and DeMatteo (1999)
• Seeking organization-wide consensus
• Building static information environments
• Underestimating on-going cost of maintenance
• Getting comfortable change is continuous  

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Understanding Collaboration The Feel of it

• Raspa and Ward (2000)
• A willingness to listen playfully and joyfully,
  and for surprise
• Participation as a conscious act of recreating
  the others reality in our mind before we react
• Embracing interdependence and the state of not
  knowing
• Learning to live with the question, being
  present, and giving up complaining
• Being willing to chop the wood and carry the
  water"

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Understanding Collaboration The Feel
(continued)

• Being in the flow state of full sensory
  cooperation
• Seeing ourselves as bundles of actualized energy
  or potency packs
• Having a commitment to make something real
• Functioning in an integrated, thoroughly
  interpersonal relationship
• Creating a bond of belonging to a holistic,
  committed, indivisible learning community
• Enjoying a dance of belonging.