Collaboration in Education: The Phenomenon and Process of Working Together

In this article we propose a model for collaboration in education. We begin by examining the roots of collaboration in consultation, collegiality, and cooperation. We then delineate the features of collaboration as phenomenon and process, offering the view that through talk, action, and reflection among individuals a community of learners emerges. Finally, we suggest that collaboration can create a space that enables us to challenge taken-for-granted ways of working together and to bring about transformation in educational practice.Cet article propose un modèle de collaboration en éducation. On se penche d'abord sur les racines de la collaboration dans la consultation, la collégialité et la coopération. Par la suite, on découpe les caractéristiques de la collaboration comme phénomène et processus pour présenter l'optique selon laquelle le dialogue, l'action et la réflexion par des individus mènent à l'émergence d'une communauté d'apprenants. En dernier lieu, on propose que la collaboration puisse donner Heu à une remise en question des façons de travailler ensemble qui sont tenues pour acquises d'une part, et à des transformations dans la pratique pédagogique d'autre part

Developing Sustainable Leadership Strategies to Increase Corporate Revenue

The business environment is in constant flux where stakeholders encourage organizational leaders to consider sustainable business tactics alongside corporate profits. While most business leaders recognize the importance of including sustainability into corporate goals, evidence suggested that only 10% have sustainable action plans in place. Using the honeybee leadership model as the conceptual framework, the purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the sustainable leadership strategies that business leaders from small- and medium- sized companies integrated to increase corporate revenue. These companies were B Corp certified which ensures a third party endorsement of sustainable practices. The data were collected through face-to-face, semistructured interviews from 4 B Corp business leaders of these sustainable businesses in West Michigan, B Corp sustainability ratings, and literature review documents. These four businesses represented 44% of the B Corp organizations in Michigan. Transcript evaluation, member checking, and methodological triangulation ensured reliability and strengthened the credibility of the data collected. From the data analysis, four themes emerged: (a) enabling culture, (b) stakeholder inclusion, (c) staff engagement, and (d) social responsibility. These study findings suggest that area small- and medium-sized companies seeking to implement sustainable business adopt these tactics to increase corporate revenue. Implications for social change include the advancement of community health through improved air and water quality, as leaders understand how their contributions fit within the greater community

Widening the Angle: Film as Alternative Pedagogy For Wellness In Indigenous Youth

Indigenous youth face numerous challenges in terms of their well-being. Colonization enforced land and cultural loss, fractured relationships, and restricted the use of the imagination and agentic capacity (Colonial policies, structures, and approaches in education have been detrimental to Indigenous youth (Nardozi, 2013). Many First Nations leaders, community members, and youth have expressed a need for a wider range of activities that move beyond Western models of knowledge and learning (Goulet & Goulet, 2015). School curricula in Indigenous communities are incorporating alternative pedagogical tools, such as the arts, that not only allow youth to explore and express their realities and interests but that also offer them holistic ways of learning and knowing (Yuen et al., 2013). This article describes a participatory arts research project which featured film production and was delivered in the context of a grade 10 Communications Media course. The research took place at a First Nations high school in a Neehithuw (Woodland Cree) community in northern Saskatchewan. This article highlights the content of the films produced, the benefits of the filmmaking experience, and the challenges faced by the teacher and students during the process

Click, Clack, Move: Facilitation of the Arts as Transformative Pedagogy

This article explores the arts’ potential to transform the relationships between students and teachers, so that education becomes an ‘‘as if ’’ world, where education is an act of social justice. Interweaving themes from the children’s book Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type with theories of transformative pedagogy and their own teaching practices in Canada and Scotland, the authors look at the metonymic way in which the children’s story, as a form of performative writing, explores democracy, leadership, and group dynamics. Drawing from a concept of social justice as being a multi- or interdisciplinary experience that enables individuals to make sense of the social system around them, we explore how we have embraced transformative pedagogy in working with groups. In the process of the workshop, a shared space is opened up, where the exploration of stories can lead all participants to engage in transformative dialogue through visual images, movement, sound and physicality

Dancing Together: A Conversation About Youth and Adult Relational Authority in the Context of Education

Some ideas about authority in educational settings assume that authority is something that teachers possess and students don’t. Like others, the authors of this article conceive authority as shared. Shared authority occurs when the teacher recognizes students’ history and uses her or his authority to bring students’ knowledge, and thus their authority of knowing, to the learning. In this way, authority emerges in dialogical relationships between teachers and students. As three university educators in different contexts, we teach adults who will work with youth. Through dialogue and reflection of our attempts to implement the philosophies and practices that promote more meaningful interactions between adults and youth, we have come to recognize that each of us use authority differently at different times depending on the context. So we now use the term situational authority to describe how we seek to share authority. We invite those who work with youth to join us in these conversations and reflections as we investigate the sharing of authority within youth-adult interactions. We believe situational authority can transform power relations between adults and youth, while encouraging the emergence of new emancipatory relationships within, and amongst, youth. Together we explore ways in which situational authority invites, and supports, emancipatory practice

Like Braiding Sweetgrass Nurturing Relationships and Alliances in Indigenous Community-based Research

The shifting environment of Indigenous community-based research demands reflexivity because the negotiation and maintenance of relationships are central (Findlay, Ray, & Basualdo, 2014). This paper expands on the importance of social relationships in the Nehinuw (Cree) worldview by reflecting on an ongoing research partnership among a team of Indigenous and Settler researchers from three universities and one Indigenous community agency. The Nehinuw relationships of weechihitowin (supporting and helping each other), weechiyauguneetowin (partnership, collaborative or shared action), otootemitowin (respectful openness and acceptance of others), and weechiseechigemitowin (alliances for common action) (L. Goulet & K. Goulet, 2014) form the theoretical framework for analyzing the challenges and successes that have sustained this collaboration for almost 10 years. This article will enhance understanding of Indigenous community-based research to promote an epistemological shift toward Indigenous modes of inquiry

Creating a Space for Decolonization: Health through Theatre with Indigenous Youth

This article reports on a research project that used theatre with Indigenous youth to address health issues. Youth participated in a three day workshop adapted from David Diamond (2007) and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed (1979) where theatre techniques were used to create a space for youth to examine the choicesthey made. Drawing on the youths’ dramatic images and responses shared in interviews, the authors theorize that the dramatic creative space sets up possibilities for decolonizing experiences where youth are asked to think for themselves, to use their bodies and to exercise their imaginations in making decisions for actions