The study took place in New Zealand as a part of the Ministry of Education’s initiative to have all of their schools have inclusive practices by the year 2014. The authors outline the role of the RTLB as a “scientist-practitioner,” or rather, a specialist familiar with theory and research who can inform a teacher’s classroom practice. 

The authors emphasize the importance of interprofessional collaboration among stakeholders (teachers, principals, parents, students, and RTLB) to best facilitate the students’ transition into the classroom. They mention that communication and feedback must be mutual, continuous, and positive. All stakeholders play active roles in ensuring their student’s success.

I was surprised by how many Maori words were woven into the article. Too often, academia and research is seen through a Euro- or US-centric lens. If research includes indigenous communities, they are often the object of study. Here, Maori words shape the educational theory/ the lens of the study. It’s not just “culturally responsive.” It’s just multicultural. 

A phrase that resonated with me was: "teamwork generates commitment". Forward together. Stronger together. 

It shows how trust between administrators and teachers is an essential ingredient for the success of schools. 

Other factors that spring from that trust are also crucial, including close communication with parents, strong ties to community service providers, effective use of data to identify and respond to problems, and ongoing team-oriented support focused on continuous improvement of teaching practices. 

An effective system for improving professional capacity, providing ongoing support and guidance for teachers, including opening teachers' classroom work for examination by colleagues and external consultants. 

With this partnership, teachers are grateful that the services are performed in the building, as they know that the needs of the students will be met. 

Creating programs for greater communication and community improvement not just only addresses extreme needs, but also makes students feel more secure, which leads to better behavior.

After exercising collaboration, several districts achieved positive and significant results when they established good communication with each other, thus favoring the development of children.

One thing that resonates with me was the five basic characteristics to have success in a school:

According to Michael Fullan “the power of collective capacity is that it enables ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things—for two reasons. One is that knowledge about effective practice becomes more widely available and accessible on a daily basis. The second reason is more powerful still—working together generates commitment.”

One thing that resonated with me was the finding of The University of Chicago's Consortium research that demonstrated that the “high degree of “relational trust” among administrators, teachers, and parents, was crucial to the students’ success”. And that has highlighted that the features that I copy below contributed to this:

This resonated with me because it reinforces what we have discussed in the previous course about the importance of school community relations to improve students’ achievements. 

The authors are very careful in describing the differences between real collaborative practice and simply doing things together with others. Collaborative work requires, according to the authors, seven things to be effective: it is voluntary; it is based on parity; has a shared goal; shared responsibilities; shared accountability for outcomes; shared resources; and emergent properties. 

Some things resonated with me while I was reading:

- The special education part is very touching. It shows how much collaborative teaching is important to provide students with special education needs with the best service possible; and very needed for teachers to share experiences and learn from each other. Special Education practices are avant-garde and led to the best educational practices, and it all started with collaborative work. The authors describe some variations of co-teaching strategies, the importance of collaboration and to have programs to achieve a common goal. It also shows how it is important for special education, the participation of other members from the school community, as well as external professionals. The relevance of multidisciplinary collaborative team work for special education is unprecedented and the development of best educational practices came from this collaboration.

- "... it is teachers working together for the purpose of improving their teaching that distinguishes a truly collaborative school from a school that is simply managed in a democratic fashion". Collaboration goes beyond simply working together or being able to speak your mind. It is about trust and openness to others for the common purpose of improving educational practices.

- " Teachers collaborate only when they share a goal. If they are working on poorly defined goals, they may be unintentionally working on different goals." Having clear shared goals, and having everyone on the team on the same page, will prevent members from working in different goals, which could harm the main one.

 There are seven guiding principles of RTLB practice and this study focuses on one of these principles: ‘collaborative and seamless model of service’. In order to support this model, it is necessary to consider the four competency domains for interprofessional collaborative practice, which are: values and ethics, roles and responsibilities, communication, and teamwork. The study shows that parental involvement benefits the student achievement, attitudes, attendance and behaviour, as well as raising the confidence and satisfaction for parents, and improving parent-teacher relationships for school staff. One of the lessons learned from this study was the importance of flexibility and being open to the needs and concerns of all involved stakeholders (class teachers, students, parents, RTLB and other professionals).

The article concludes that in case of repeating this project, two aspects should be taken into consideration. First, the RTLB needs to have prior knowledge of the school where the project will take place in order to establish relationships with the school staff and community, and second, the team members should be provided with feedback on their performance. 

The part of the article that caught my attention was where it emphasizes the importance of student involvement and participation in their own individual Education Plans and goal setting. The students should be consulted about their strengths and weaknesses and the amount of support they need to succeed. I have personally seen how effective this approach is at our school. Individual plans and goals that were set with student involvement have shown to be more effective and successful. 

I find it important for my sense of direction to read articles that support theories and feelings that I have on education and the system. The five points that schools must include in order to obtain a high student success ranking are matters that I deem fundamental.

This article supports collaboration between government administration and teachers as a mean for success. “Research consistently finds that a high degree of trust between administrators and teachers is an essential ingredient in making successful schools tick.” 

The article starts by reporting a educational reform period in New York where public schools were shutting down and conflict reigned between state administration and teacher’s union. The new office approach brought schools closer together and offered a space of communication and partnership. 

Anrig claims that there is no definite guideline or one solution that fits all, but points out that schools with solid “relational trust” between administration, teachers, and parents. Five points were identified in schools that held strong rankings -

I don't need to go far. This assignment that Dr. Harris is proposing is not only collaborative but, also helps us saving time.

How much time do we as teachers-students would take to read all these four different articles, not mentioning the questions that needed to be answered?

The great success of some schools in enhancing student outcomes is usually related to a well established relationship of trust among administrators, teachers and parents. The author mentions the five organizational features that usually contribute to such success:

The part that captivated my interest the most was the power of collective capacity and how it enables ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things. That might happen due to the fact that effective practice becomes more widely available and accessible on a daily basis, and also because working collaboratively usually generates commitment.

 RTBL are specialised teachers that facilitate the presence, participation and learning of students with difficulties in learning and behaviour. These teachers have to work in collaboration with many stakeholders, such as teachers, students and their families, staff and so on.  

Although teachers believe they have strong collaboration, evidence has shown that training and improvement is needed. The four competencies for effective interprofessional collaboration (values and ethics, roles and responsibilities, communication, and teamwork) should be checked and applied, with focus on communication.

One thing that strongly resonated with me was the argument that teachers with very positive attitudes towards inclusive policies and practices communicate these to their students who, in turn, develop a positive perception of their learning environment.

As teachers, we see this happening everyday in our classes, in different situations.

It stresses the definition of collaboration as a professional relationship among teachers that are voluntarily engaged in shared decision-making toward a common goal. This practice is what differentiates mere democratic school from really effective and successful schools. 

The characteristics of collaborative work are as follows:

The part of the article that resonated with me the most was the part that explains that teacher collaboration must be fostered by the leadership personnel of schools. Since its practice shows to make a big difference in school success, school leaders should be tailoring and encouraging programs to make it possible.