Factors in the High School Setting That Shape Teachers' Perspectives on Professional Collaboration

155 p.Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998.This study explores teachers' perspectives on collaborative teaching practice in a traditional high school. The school in this case study has many instances of voluntary and assigned teacher collaboration, and it houses a school-within-a-school, a career academy, wherein the instructional model requires extensive collaboration. This research study examines factors that support, hinder, or otherwise affect teachers' views about a collaborative approach to instruction. The work focuses on the attitudes and beliefs of teachers working independently and cooperatively within the career academy and its host school. This inquiry explores three primary issues: (a) the effect of the school's organizational structure on the ability and interest of teachers in working collaboratively, (b) factors within the school's work environment that affect teachers' attitudes about collaboration and their ability to work collaboratively with their professional colleagues, and (c) advantages and disadvantages that teachers see in a collaborative approach to instruction. A fourth issue that emerges in the study is a perspective the bases for forming collaborative partnerships. Using the twofold lens of interpersonal teacher relationships and learning community ideals, this study focuses specifically on teachers' views of the nature of collaborative work. It also identifies a variety of factors within the high school setting that may attract teachers to, deter teachers from, or otherwise shape teachers' attitudes about working cooperatively with their professional peers.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD