Improving Hybrid Brainstorming Outcomes with Scripting and Group Awareness Support

Previous research has shown that hybrid brainstorming, which combines individual and group methods, generates more ideas than either approach alone. However, the quality of these ideas remains similar across different methods. This study, guided by the dual-pathway to creativity model, tested two computer-supported scaffolds – scripting and group awareness support – for enhancing idea quality in hybrid brainstorming. 94 higher education students,grouped into triads, were tasked with generating ideas in three conditions. The Control condition used standard hybrid brainstorming without extra support. In the Experimental 1 condition, students received scripting support during individual brainstorming, and students in the Experimental 2 condition were provided with group awareness support during the group phase in addition. While the quantity of ideas was similar across all conditions, the Experimental 2 condition produced ideas of higher quality, and the Experimental 1 condition also showed improved idea quality in the individual phase compared to the Control condition

Teacher Attitudes Toward Collaboration in an Independent Elementary School to Improve Instructional Practice

Research has confirmed that teachers who work collaboratively have the opportunity to exchange ideas and instructional methods to enhance their performance in the classroom. Using this as a guiding premise, the purpose of this study was to better understand teacher attitudes toward collaboration in an independent school setting. The study examined the complexities of collaboration in an effort to make a connection between collaboration among teachers and teacher learning. The study sought to identify the conditions that support opportunities for collaboration employing the definition and framework for a professional learning community. The setting for the study was a K-8 independent day school serving families in a suburban area located in New York. Through the use of semi-structured interviews, ten experienced teachers described their own lived experiences of collaboration in an independent school. Findings from this study revealed factors that are integral to establishing the conditions for collaboration in independent schools and provided data to support the implementation of certain structures and behaviors to improve organizational goals within independent schools. Recommendations resulting from this study included replicating the study in larger independent school organizations with a broader student population in order to further explore the impact of school size and composition. This type of study could also be conducted nationally in independent schools using quantitative methods to identify best practice for collaboration. Other recommendations include the development of formal and informal structures to support collaborative work among teachers; the implementation of teacher training in collaborative practice; attention to the communication of shared vision within the school community; reinforcement of attributes of school culture; and, leadership training and support of collaborative practice

Collaborative Learning and New Media

This book is an essential resource for researchers in the field of applied linguistics as well as practising teachers and teacher trainees in secondary and higher education. It explores collaboration in the foreign language classroom through the use of new media. Combining theoretical, empirical and practical insights into this intricate area of research, the contributions take different approaches across a wide range of international contexts

Towards Collaboration Between Lawyers and Social Workers: A Content Analysis of Joint Degree Programs

Collaboration is a central issue in the interdisciplinary education of social work and law students. Joint JD/MSW degrees have the potential to promote collaboration between practitioners of law and social work in areas where their practices converge. The 1969 recommendations by the National Conference of Lawyers and Social Workers (NCLSW) to establish these joint degree programs assumed that collaborative learning would occur within them. However, prior research has not investigated whether or not this occurs. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine whether evidence of the intent to promote collaboration was present in written materials associated with joint degree programs, specifically field work manuals. The methods used in this study involved adapting the RELATUS Natural Language Environment program to conduct a semantic content analysis (SCA) of the clinic/field education manuals. In employing these methods, pertinent words and phrases in the manuals were disambiguated to determine their lexical and/or relational configurations. The objective was to ascertain the semantic equivalence of collaboration in the text, as opposed to merely counting the occurrence of the term “collaboration” in the texts. Although none of the contents of the programs specifically stated “collaboration between lawyers and social workers” in their field education manuals, collaborative environments existed because students from the two disciplines had opportunities to interact with each other. Consequently, because “collaboration” was seldom mentioned in the field manuals, a linguistic approach was used to determine the semantics of “collaboration” in the clinic/field education manuals explored for this study. In effect, if “collaboration” does occur in these programs, it would reside in the implicit curriculum