Learning teams: Collaborative approaches for empowering collective action of the education workforce and communities

• In Event: Education Policy and Reform (II)

Proposal

This paper speaks to the area of sub-theme 4 on pedagogies and protests. We explore how collaborative approaches and pedagogies - what we call learning teams - can facilitate collective ownership and capacity to act for all stakeholders involved in education systems, but especially those at the school level. Learning team approaches challenge dominant methods of education delivery that silo teachers, learners and schools and rely on an outdated model of ‘one teacher/one classroom’. Instead, learning team models illustrate the potential of team-based approaches within and beyond education to empower students, communities and the education workforce to collectively define the locally relevant goals of education and take ownership of the process and outcomes. As set out in the conference theme, collective action can surface and challenge injustice: our work takes a global view, and is particularly interested in where learning teams support education for the most marginalised, where access to quality education is unjustly limited.

Learning team approaches involve groups of actors - including but not limited to education professionals - that collaborate to ensure a holistic set of outcomes for all children, such as learning but also well being, socio-emotional skills and cognitive development. There is no one model for these teams - they will be different in every context and level in the system. They are led by teachers and can include school leaders and education support personnel; parents, family members and caretakers; volunteers and professionals from other sectors such as health and social work. They intentionally engage the community to draw on local knowledge and networks. They leverage diverse expertise and experience to build collective knowledge and capacity to address specific challenges in education.

However, it can be difficult to establish the prevalence and extent of learning teams, as there is so much diversity in how teams are formed and how they function, and because there is often no recognized structures or consistent terminology to represent a formalized commitment to collaborative practice. Further to this, the complexity of developing self-sustaining collaborations and teams is often a barrier for school leaders and teachers who are overwhelmed by everyday deliverables and administrative duties, and not empowered to make shifts to their professional identity and practice. Finally, it is far from clear how collaborative teams become embedded, particularly in systems that do not recognize or support community level action.

This paper will provide evidence on learning teams globally and showcase a diverse set of examples where multi-sectoral and community-based teams are showing promise and impact. Drawing on these examples, we will share an emerging typology and conceptual framework that will illustrate the redistribution of responsibilities and resources, tools which facilitate collaboration, and emerging new practice as professionals negotiate and cross boundaries. The framework draws from third generation activity theory (Engeström et al. 1999) - as an alternative to organisational theory approaches - where collaborations are positioned as emergent, and their associated tensions and contradictions, e.g. professional disagreement and mutual critique, can be articulated as a driving force for change. The unit of analysis is at the level of the collective and the community, attempting to understand multiple perspectives and dialogues within their historical context and embedded ways of working.

This paper was developed from a scoping study undertaken to develop the foundations for a more extensive empirical study. This larger study will be globally focused and will deepen our understanding of different types of learning teams, their histories, and the tools and conditions which enable and complicate purposeful, effective and efficient team-working across a variety of education ecosystems and for different purposes. The scoping study explored these issues through four key activities:
● analysis of 15 national Education Sector Plans (ESPs) in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia;
● academic literature review on successful educational teams worldwide;
● generation of a database of learning teams and key informant interviews;
● case study of the Communities of Excellence Programme (CEP) in Akuapem South District, Ghana.

Thus far we have found that learning team design is highly context specific and success needs to be contextualised within broader understandings of local needs and priorities. This means members of the community serve as core members of the learning team, not just supporting roles. Those who work as mediators across community and school spaces are key to navigating boundaries. Learning teams recognise that first, the activity of learning is not solely located in the classroom, but distributed across the community and school, and second, that children bring multiple forms of knowledge, experiences and skills to their learning both within and beyond school. This requires that professional identities be flexible and expansive, embracing participation in horizontal and vertical collaborations with a range of actors.

Learning teams, and the collective action they demand, have the potential to improve education for the most marginalised - but material, financial, political and social factors challenge their formation and sustainability. At CIES we are aiming to catalyze a dialogue around what factors enable and restrain collective and collaborative approaches in education to feed into the next phase of this research. We also hope to surface different ways of framing collaboration and alliances in education and new examples we have yet to encounter.

Authors

• Alison Sarah Buckler, The Open University

• Freda Wolfenden, The Open University, UK

• Kwame Akyeampong, The Open University

• Katie Godwin, Education Development Center

• Memory Malibha-Pinchbeck, The Open University, UK