The collaborative practitioner

Chris James and Allyson Jule

University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Glamorgan, 14-17 September 2005

Address for correspondence:

Professor Chris JamesHead of the Educational Leadership and Management Research UnitSchool of Humanities, Law and Social Science Forest HallUniversity of GlamorganPontypridd, Wales, UK CF37 1DL

Phone: +44(0) 1443-482352Fax: +44(0) 1443-482380E-mail: cjames1@glam.ac.uk

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The collaborative practitioner

Chris James and Allyson Jule

University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK

Abstract

Research in Wales UK into the nature of primary schools where pupil attainment in national test scores is high despite the pupils experiencing high levels of socio-economic disadvantage has indicated the importance of:

collaboration - joint working by all the teaching staff reflective practice amongst all the teaching staff to ensure that practice is

optimally appropriate and continually improving a focus by all the teaching staff on the primary task of ensuring effective and

enriched teaching for learning for all pupils and improving and enriching teaching for learning for all pupils.

This way of working has been termed ‘collaborative practice’ and collaboration, reflective practice and a focus on the primary task, all of which overlap in the work of the teachers in the schools studied, must all be present if collaborative practice is to be successful. Collaboration should dominate in the descriptive title of this way of working because collaborative practice is in essence joint working in a reflective way on a primary task

In this paper, we review and explain the key components of the collaborative practice model, develop the model further, explore how the model may be applied to other settings and examine some of the important characteristics of collaborative practitioners. We argue for the development of the model and for its application to other educational and non-educational contexts in order to analyse practice in those settings. We call for a further exploration of the characteristics of collaborative practitioners in order that they may be the focus for development.

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The collaborative practitioner

Chris James and Allyson Jule

Introduction

A study in Wales, UK into the nature of primary schools where the level of student attainment in national test scores is high despite the students experiencing considerable socio-economic disadvantage has revealed a range of important characteristics (James, Connolly, Dunning, and Elliot 2004a, 2004b, submitted for publication, in preparation). One of the important features of these schools was the importance they gave to highly inclusive and intensive team working. All the teaching staff were highly collaborative in the ways they worked. The staff of the schools were also highly reflective in their overall approach. They were keen to ensure that their practice was optimally appropriate and continually improving. The staff in the schools also had a clear focus on the task of ensuring effective and enriched teaching for learning for all pupils and improving and enriching teaching for learning for all pupils. This task is the primary task of the teaching team (Turquet, 1974; James and Connolly 2000). We call this way of working collaboratively, in a reflective way on a primary task, ‘collaborative practice’.

Our intention in this paper is to explain the key components of the collaborative practice model, to develop the model further, to explore how the model may be applied to other settings and to examine some of the important characteristics of collaborative practitioners. We call for a further exploration of the characteristics of collaborative practitioners in order that they may be the focus for development.

The elements of collaborative practice

Collaboration

The idea of schools, groups of teachers or individual teachers working together collaboratively has come to the fore explicitly as mode of working relatively recently. This joint working takes a number of forms, for example in the UK, as partnership (Bennett, Harvey and Anderson 2004), federation (DfES 2003) and collaboration itself (Glatter 2003). Our interest is in collaboration because of its original etymological link with ‘joint working’ (Harper 2001) and principally in collaboration at the level of educational practice - between individuals and small groups in the same school – intra-organisational collaboration. The model we develop in this paper however could be applied to inter-organisational collaboration between institutions.

Inter-institutional collaboration is seen variously as bringing: mutual benefit, (Huxham 1996); synergy (Roberts et al 1995); a net gain of resources (Weiss 1987); and the possibility of exchange and thereby gain (Peters 1996). In education, such collaboration can: counter competitive pressures (Wallace 1998); planning joint activities between schools (Sullivan 1995); ensure the survival of small rural schools (Bridges and Husbands 1996); and share the costs of professional development

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activities (Lomax and Darley 1995). In all parts of the UK, but particularly in England, UK, joint working is central to government policy (Glatter 2003).

Collaboration is an important aspect of professional practice in schools and colleges (Nias, Southworth and Yeomans 1989, Lieberman 1990, Smyth 1991, Wallace and Hall 1994, Lomax and Darley 1995, Bridges and Husbands 1996). It has been used to explain the nature of professional practice in education (Quicke 2000) and in other professional settings, for example, nursing (Clarke, James and Kelly 1996). The idea of schools as ‘professional communities’ (Louis, Kruse and Bryk 1995, Halverson 2003) or ‘professional learning communities’ (Dufour and Baker 1998, Roberts and Pruitt 2003) is grounded in the notion of collaboration.

Practice as a collective activity has been brought to the fore as ‘communities of practice’ by Lave and Wenger (Lave 1991, Lave and Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998,). A community of practice is “a set of relations among persons, activity and world over time and in relation with each other” (Lave and Wenger 1991: 98). It can be described along three dimensions (1) what it is about, (2) how it functions, and (3) what capability is produced. The production of capability is significant and Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that “learning is an integral part of generative social practice in the lived in world” and that “engagement in a social practice entails learning as an essential constituent” (p34). Reflection on action, an action in itself in a community of practice, plays a significant part in this learning. The analytical dimension of ‘What it is about’ (Wenger 1998) raises the status of the primary task in collaborative communities but perhaps insufficiently. We argue below that a focus on the primary task is crucial. The primary task has particular status in work groups and a group’s relationship with it will influence what is learned (Rice 196, Miller and Rice 1963). The value of collaborative or collective working has also recently been given impetus by Surowiecki (2004), who in arguing for the wisdom of crowds seeks to counter an opposite and possibly orthodox view of the ‘stupidity of crowds’. We would argue that crowds can act both wisely and stupidly, and that leadership and/or the lack of it may play a part in engendering both characteristics.

One aspect of collaboration in educational settings that is not given prominence, which we discuss further below, is reflection. If individual professional practice can be conceptualised as reflective practice, then joint professional working – collaboration – must also be a reflective practice. If collaboration in education is to be successful the collaborating partners need to be reflective practitioners who capable of adjusting their collaborative actions to ensure their actions are optimally appropriate and to be able to learn from their experience of collaboration and improve it.

Reflective practice

The origins of reflective practice. The notion of reflection in professional practice came to the fore in the 1980s when Donald Schon used it to explain how professional practitioners think and act (Schon 1983, 1987). Schon’s concept of reflective practice, together with David Kolb’s explanation of experiential learning (Kolb, 1984), has profoundly affected understandings of professional practice especially in education (see for example, Handal and Lauvas (1987), Calderhead (1989), Sparks-Langer and Colton (1991), Irwin (1996), Zeichner and Liston (1996), and Reagan, Case and Brubacher (2000)).

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Schon explained that professional practitioners contend with the difficulties of working in varied contexts by reflecting in action during which they interact with the context and simultaneously act, ideally with optimal appropriateness. Schon also argued that professional practitioners reflect on their actions and their reflections in action in order to learn from them, thereby improving their practice. Reflective practice thus both optimises and improves professional actions. There are thus two interlinked dimensions to professional work.

Over the last 20 years, the reflective practitioner concept has been extended, embellished and critiqued (see for example Killion and Todnem (1991), Van Manen (1991), Moon (1999), Eraut (1995), Clarke, James and Kelly (1996), Sparks-Langer and Colton (1991). The work of Habermas (1971), and in particular his concept of technical, practical and emancipatory knowledge interests, has been used to understand different levels of reflective practice (Van Manen 1977), each of which has a different purpose (Zeichner and Gore 1995, Clarke, James and Kelly 1996, Leitch and Day 2000). At the technical level, the purpose of reflection is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of practical skill. At the practical level, its function is to improve practice in relation to the immediate context. Outcomes of reflection at this level may enhance the practitioners’ capacity to exercise practical and moral judgments, to identify problems and to enhance their capacity to self-evaluate (Leitch and Day 2000). Reflection at the emancipatory level has the purpose of enhancing understandings of the social, economic and political influences on practice and may result in enhanced practitioner empowerment and authority.

Since the mid-eighties, the notion of what is meant by the terms ‘profession’ and ‘professional’ have become increasingly blurred and the occupational groups to which reflective practice may apply has broadened (Freidson 2004). Deciding unequivocally on profession status is difficult and increasingly so. The conception of professional work has changed and its meaning widened. The boundaries between some professional/occupational groupings have shifted, in education for example through workforce re-modelling (DfES 2003). The term ‘profession’ can now be applied to a wide range of occupations and may be a ‘spent concept’ with some authors arguing the end the term ‘profession’ as an occupational definition. (Dietrich and Roberts 1997). Nonetheless, Freidson’s (1991) argument is still valid: “It is not just any kind of work that professionals do. The kind of work they do is esoteric, complex, and discretionary in character: it requires theoretical knowledge, skill and judgement” (p194). Professionals undertake “Good Work” (his use of upper case) . . . . the work they do is believed to be especially important for the well being of individuals and society at large” (p194). Such a description broadens the range of ‘professional’ occupations and arguably all those who engage in professional should ideally practice reflectively in order to optimise and improve their work.

Reflective practice is open to critique on a number of grounds. Firstly, it is generally viewed as operating at the level of the individual practitioner. This emphasis is understandable given that autonomy is considered essential in professional practice so that the practitioners can exercise individual discretion and judgement in complex and uncertain settings (Hoyle 1980, Freidson 1984, 1991, Hoyle and John 1995). Indeed, reflective practice has been justified as a way of enhancing the autonomy of individual practitioners in teaching (Calderhead 1989) although it is accepted that this

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professional autonomy is constrained (Hoyle and John 1995). Nonetheless, the role of others is insufficiently stressed in reflective practice and clearly, other individuals can have a key role in individual reflective practice. They can assist in realising the full potential of reflection on action; it is difficult for teachers to reflect on their practice in isolation (Day 1999). In a variety of designated roles, others can enable reflection on action. Moreover, if the others themselves work reflectively in the process of enabling reflection on action, they too can learn and develop. The content and process of the prevailing organisational discourse may facilitate an individual’s refection on action and has the potential for creativity and generation. Dialogue with others in a spirit of reflection and inquiry (Bohm 1965) can develop original ideas that are within or in some way extend the bounds of what is acceptable within communal and shared norms. This co-reflection can be particularly creative because of the different perspectives that are available from others (Bohm 1965). Individual teachers’ experience of the practice of others is also likely to shape their reflections. Joint working with teaching colleagues within and outwith the classroom and observing them formally and informally at work can give opportunities for refection and learning. The practice of those who do not have formal teaching roles, such as administrative staff and teaching assistants, will inform and be informed by colleagues – those with similar roles and those with designated teaching roles. The actions of colleagues, shaped by their own reflective practice, also affect the context for an individual’s practice and therefore influence an individual’s reflections in and on action. Thus, the influence of others significantly affects an individual’s reflection in and on action and vice versa. The others and the individual through their inter-relations jointly develop a process of ‘reflective structuration’ that contributes to constraining and limiting her/his professional autonomy and also gives opportunities for development, creativity and improved practice. Whilst the individual concentration on reflection in and on practice has continued in teaching, see for example, Loughran (1996) and Farrell (2003) and in educational leadership (Sergiovanni 2000), the notion of reflection has recently started to broaden into more collective forms, for example, Yorke-Barr, Sommers, Ghere and Montie (2001).

A further criticism of reflective practice is that there is insufficient attention paid to the purpose of reflective practice. A key question is ‘What are reflective practitioners in education trying to optimise and improve?’ It is here that the notion of the primary task is of particular value.

The primary task

The primary task is a concept which is especially significant in the workings of individuals and groups. The notion of the primary task was first developed by Rice (1963) who described it as the task an organisation must perform to survive. Although that definition may seem overly simple, especially given the complexities faced by many institutions, including schools, the primary task is a valuable heuristic device “which allows us to explore the ordering of multiple activities . . . . and to construct and compare different organisational models of an enterprise based on different definitions of its primary task” (Miller and Rice 1967:62).

There are three kinds of primary task: the normative primary task, (the defined, formal or official task); the existential primary task (the task the work group members believe they are undertaking) and the phenomenal primary task, (the task that can be

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inferred from work group members’ behaviour) (Lawrence 1977). Although these may be different, arguably a group should actively consider how it optimises the appropriateness its work on the normative primary task, so that there is no dissonance between the normative and existential primary tasks and that the normative primary task and the phenomenal primary task are the same.

Work groups have a tendency to avoid work on the primary task (Obholzer and Roberts 1994) and may adopt basic assumption mentalities (Bion 1961) where instead they work on meeting the unconscious needs of group members. This may be particularly significant if the primary task carries a high level of anxiety and emotion. Understanding a group’s relationship with the primary task is therefore important in sustaining purpose and application by the group, enabling it to avoid basic assumption working and even anti-task activities (Turquet 1974) and in shaping what is learned. James and Connolly (2000) point to the crucial significance of working on the primary task in the transformation of ineffective schools.

Collaborative practice

The different elements and their contribution are as follows.

Collaboration

Collaboration is joint working with others. From a systemic standpoint all professional work is collaborative and there is no such thing as individual practice. All practice is learned in some way, it has a history and a grounding. It shapes and is therefore shaped by others. In that sense, professional practice is continual, and not a series of individual episodes.

Collaboration can:

establish shared norms, rules and values optimise the use expertise and other resources with in the collaborating group

in its work enhance legitimacy act as a containing device where emotions can be surfaced, reflected upon and

worked with. If it is inclusive can help to avoid splitting and projection within the

collaborating group and the potentially dangerous consequences.

Places of collaboration - collaborative locales – require:

physical and temporal space are required a managed boundary.

Individuals in collaborating groups require:

the capacity to sacrifice some individual autonomy in the interests of collaboration

appropriate interpersonal collaboration skills and qualities

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the collective capability to bestow equal valuing and parity of esteem according to roles and responsibilities in relation to the collaborative focus. Inclusive collaborative working can demonstrate this equal valuing.

the capacity to hold in view the focus of the joint working (the primary task) in order to sustain a work group mentality and avoid tendencies towards basic assumption mentalities

individual and collective reflective capacity in order to ensure optimal practice and improvement capacity on the work task and to ensure optimal practice in the practice of joint working and its improvement.

Reflective practice

Reflective practice is a way of practicing that enables optimal practice in a range of varied contexts through reflection in action, and continually improving practice through reflection on action. It develops a dynamic epistemology of practice. Reflective practice is a way of working where contexts for practice are uncertain and complex and where there is an imperative to continually improve and to adapt to changing micro and macro contexts.

Reflective practice can:

ensure optimal and improving practice in a particular activity develop practical knowledge of joint working that bears directly on the

primary task.

The reflective practitioner requires:

the desires to enhance effectiveness and efficiency in a particular practice, enhance the nature and quality of work, understand the full nature and significance of work – its social economic and political significance and those influences upon it

physical and temporal space ways of working should allow both creativity and changes in practice to bring

about improvement.

A reflective orientation requires:

the ability to actively consider an aspect of professional knowledge the capability to support and enhance the reflections of others the capacity to adapt practice in relation to knowledge.

A focus on the primary task

A focus on the primary task is the members of the group, individually and collectively, undertaking work on the task the group needs to carry out if it is to survive. The focus has to be on the normative primary task, which is the defined, formal or official task; the existential primary task which is the task the work group members believe they are undertaking and the phenomenal primary task, which is the task that can be inferred from work group members’ behaviour in order to ensure they are the same. Work on the primary task is always accompanied by anxiety (Obholzer

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and Roberts 1994) because working on the primary task carries a risk of failure, which can feel threatening, the task may have been assigned in some way and those working on it may be called to account for their work on it and working on the primary task requires a commitment to agency which can be a source of anxiety. A focus on the primary task is needed where the primary task may not be self-evident or where the task may be multi-faceted or where the task carries especially high levels of emotion and anxiety and where withdrawal from the primary task may be used as a social defence.

Defining the primary task of the system is important but also difficult (Roberts 1994). If the definition is too narrow, or is only in terms of the members’ needs, the system’s survival may be threatened. If it is too broad the group members will not know what to do for the best. The work group might seek to avoid conflict inherent in defining the primary task concentrating on methods rather than task definition and by defining it in such a way that fails to give priority to one set of activities over another. Inadequate definition of the primary task can give rise to a number of problems Roberts (1994): the primary task may not relate to the (perhaps changing) needs of the environment, organisational boundaries come to serve defensive functions instead of facilitating work on the primary task, and task avoidance strategies may develop.

Concentrating on the primary task can:

be used to focus the activity of a work group provide a purpose for reflective practice.

Clarifying the primary task and then focussing on it requires:

the desires to enhance effectiveness and efficiency of work on it, to enhance the nature and quality of work, and to understand the full nature and significance of a work task and the influences upon it

requires physical and temporal space to undertake work clarifying the primary task.

On the part of group members, primary task-related work requires:

a willingness to commit to clarifying the primary task a readiness to face up to the conflicts that may arise in that work an ability to forego some aspects of the present focus of work and perhaps to

give up basic assumption mentalities a readiness to take risks.

How are the three components enhanced in collaborative practice?

Collaboration is enhanced in collaborative practice by:

those collaborating engaging in the work reflectively having a task which is a focus for joint work. synergies in the collaborating group, there may be ‘added value’ which

enhances the contributions of individual collaborators.

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The scope and capacity for reflection may be enhanced in collaborative practice there being:

set norms to shape reflection reference points for reflection a contained environment which enables more potential for creativity through

reflection a concentration on the primary task – especially a reflective primary task,

provides a focal point for reflective practice.

The focus on the primary task enhanced in collaborative practice by

the engagement with others on the task and the difficult work that may be associated with it

the primary task becoming an explicit reflective primary task with two dimensions – ensuring optimal practice and improving optimal practice

refection enables the coherence between the normative primary task, the existential primary task and the phenomenal primary task.

What are the consequences of different components being omitted?

No collaboration. With reflective practice and a focus on the primary task without collaboration, the scope and capacity for reflection will be limited. There will be no institutionally set norms to shape reflection, no reference points for reflection, the controls and limits will be restricted and there will be less potential for creativity.

No reflective practice. If there is collaboration and a focus on the primary task with no reflection, practice both in relation to the primary task and to the practice of collaboration may not be appropriate and will not improve.

No focus on the primary task. Reflective practice and collaboration without a focus on the primary task may result in anti-task behaviour (Turquet 1977), through which work on the primary task is avoided or even actively undermined, and the collaborators adopt basic assumption tendencies (Bion 1961).

It is clearly important that all three elements are present in collaborative practice and one important outcome then is the potentially highly motivating nature of collaborative practice. It can become ‘undertaking Good Work, collectively, to the best of one’s abilities and then seeking to do even better’, which represents a compelling shared vision (Senge 1990) that becomes “a force in people’s hearts, a force of impressive power” (p206) in practice.

We have portrayed the necessity to have all three elements present and the synergy between them in Figure 1 as a Borromean knot (Lacan 1975:112). In a Borromean knot, interlocking rings are arranged in such a way that when any one of the rings is cut or not present, the rest fall away. The three circles signify reflective practice, collaboration and a focus on the primary task. The central section where they all overlap represents collaborative practice. The way the circles are arranged in the knot conveys both the sense of overlapping ‘sets’ and the importance of all three elements being present.

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Figure 1 A Borromean knot diagram showing the three elements of collaborative practice, Collaboration, Reflective practice and a focus on the primary task.

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Collaboration Reflective Practice

Issues for further consideration

The development of the model

Clearly the model could be developed in a range of different ways. For example:

What are the systemic influences on collaborative practice? What unconscious forces come into play in collaborative practice? How do ‘collaboratives’ - instances of intense collaboration - change over

time?

The application of the model to other educational and non-educational contexts

Although the idea for the model developed during the study of high attainment schools in disadvantaged settings, arguably the model could be applied to other settings – especially complex professional settings such as social work, medicine or nursing – and inter-professional contexts such as palliative care, and used to analyse and understand practice.

The characteristics of collaborative practitioners

We have outlined a model of practice. Interesting questions arise from a consideration of those who participate in this way of working, for example:

What are the qualities of successful collaborative practitioners? Mow might the characteristics of collaborative practitioners best be

developed? What do collaborative practitioners do that ensure successful collaborative

practice?

Given that collaborative practice appears to bring about substantial benefits in terms of student attainment in schools, arguably, it is important that the characteristics of collaborative practitioners be explored further so that they can be specifically developed.

Other issues

We are aware that the idea of collaborative practice gives rise to a number of issues and questions for further consideration. For example:

Does collaborative practice require particular forms of leadership and if so what are they?

Is there a ‘hierarchy’ to collaborative practice as there is to the different forms of reflective practice and if so how might such a hierarchy be characterised?

Does collaborative practice take on different forms in different settings and if so what are they and how might they be characterised?

We are also conscious that we have not explored the politics of collaborative practice. Clearly, the development of collaborative practice, the way it is sustained and the barriers to it are also significant organisational, and therefore political, issues.

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