Identifying Core Elements of Meaningful Collaboration between Designated Early Childhood Educators and Ontario Certified Teachers in the Full-Day Kindergarten Program

This study investigated the core elements of the meaningful collaboration between Designated Early Childhood Educators (DECE) and Ontario Certified Teachers (OCT) and how the co- planning process enhances their collaborative relationship. Two teams, consisting of DECEs and OCTs, who have collaborated together for two years in the Full-Day Kindergarten program in Ontario, provided strategies and insights on how to co-plan and how to enhance their meaningful collaboration. Through semi-structured interviews with the teams, participants described equality in co-planning as a method of shared planning responsibilities that results in a strong learning environment. The primary theme that emerged was that co-planning has a positive impact on collaboration and understanding between teaching teams and finally, lack-of-time and conflicting approaches were seen as barriers to co-planning between teaching teams