Developing collaborative professionalism : an investigation of status differentiation in academic organizations in knowledge transfer partnerships

In recent years there has been a significant growth in knowledge transfer partnerships to improve the quality and timeliness of healthcare. These activities require an increasing level of interdependence between academic and healthcare professionals, with important implications for human resource management. To understand these knowledge transfer partnerships, we conducted an in-depth longitudinal study based on 99 interviews and 5 focus-group workshops across academic and healthcare professionals in nine university-based knowledge transfer partnerships in England. We explore how academic professionals of lower and higher status organizations develop a new form of professional work, based on the principles of collaborative professionalism, during their involvement in partnerships with healthcare professionals. We illuminate how the interdependent work between academic professionals and healthcare professionals in the development of a new academic specialization is shaped by the status of their organization

Introduction To Part 2 Of A Symposium On Teachers As Leaders: Teachers Write Now: Collaborating, Writing, And Acting On Teacher Leadership

This introduction to the second part of our Symposium on Teachers as Leaders examines the role of collaboration and writing as part of teacher leadership. The first part of the symposium described teacher leadership as a stance that values professionalism and the intellectual, political, and collaborative work of teaching. This introduction explores how a group of teacher leaders who have met regularly during the past several years have used writing to reflect on practice, to share ideas with one another, and to communicate their perspectives to others

Leadership: professional communities of leadership practice in post-compulsory education

Summary: This is a paper that reviews and outlines the academic basis behind leadership in the post-compulsory setting. Description: Leadership has been for some years a key area of strategic and operational importance in the UK post-compulsory sector - this publication aims to addresss some of the issues surrounding this topic. It discusses theories and definitions of leadership, leader professionalism and post-compulsory education. A collaborative model of professional leadership is recommended, informed by authentic, democratic dialogue with practitioners. Coalitions that foster professional networking and collaborative leadership can be creatively developed through the establishment of intentionally designed communities of leadership practice. The CAMEL (Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning) JISC infoNet HEFCE/LGM-funded model for communities of practice is discussed as one model which provides a useful template for the development of shared knowledge through professional communities of practice in collaborative leadership. It is argued that this provides a helpful way of enabling and supporting leaders to advance their understanding and ‘know how' in leadership practices in a sector currently facing significant challenges from demanding external targets and continuous monitoring in an ‘audit culture’. The publication also and gives examples of good practice and many references and links for information

Can They Work Well on a Team? Assessing Students\u27 Collaborative Skills

[Excerpt] Among the many critiques of legal education are criticisms that law students do not graduate with effective emotional intelligence skills-in particular, they have not learned to work well with others. Working with others is an important legal skill; and as law practice increasingly relies on collaboration among lawyers, legal staff, clients, and other individuals, so have legal employers raised the demand for effective collaborative skills among law students and recent graduates. This essay will focus on ways to engage students in collaborating and assessing that collaboration effectively. Students\u27 interpersonal collaborative skills can be effectively taught and assessed in large doctrinal classes by including effective collaboration as a course learning objective, enlisting students to establish assessment criteria, providing students with multiple opportunities to collaborate, enabling students to get feedback on their skills in working with others, and using students\u27 experiences to gather data about their classmates\u27 skills

Social trajectories or disrupted identities? : Changing and competing models of teacher professionalism under New Labour

Since the 1988 Education Reform Act, the teacher’s role in England has changed in many ways, a process which intensified under New Labour after 1997. Conceptions of teacher professionalism have become more structured and formalized, often heavily influenced by government policy objectives. Career paths have become more diverse and specialised. In this article, three post-1997 professional roles are given consideration as examples of these new specialised career paths: Higher Level Teaching Assistants, Teach First trainees and Advanced Skills Teachers. The article goes on to examine such developments within teaching, using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to inform the analysis, as well as Bernstein’s theories of knowledge and identity. The article concludes that there has been considerable specialization and subsequent fragmentation of roles within the teaching profession, as part of workforce remodelling initiatives. However, there is still further scope for developing a greater sense of professional cohesion through social activism initiatives, such as the children's agenda. This may produce more stable professional identities in the future as the role of teachers within the wider children’s workforce is clarified

Symposium Introduction: Stepping Into Their Power: The Development Of A Teacher Leadership Stance

This introduction to the symposium on Teacher Leadership describes how a group of teachers have developed a definition of teacher leadership as a stance. The article explores how prior definitions of teacher leadership tend to focus on individual skills or roles. Neoliberal educational policies that emphasize market-based policy, privatization, individual effort and benefit, and efficiency have contributed to these task-oriented definitions of teacher leadership. The teacher leaders who participate in this project resist this framing and explore teacher leadership as a stance that values professionalism and the intellectual, political, and collaborative work of teaching

Enhancing and sustaining teacher professionalism in Pakistan

This paper presents a conceptual framework for fostering teacher professionalism in Government primary schools in Karachi, Pakistan. The framework identifies various stages for enhancing and sustaining teacher professionalism. These stages have been derived from in-depth multiple case studies of four Government primary schools in Karachi where reforms have been occurring. In order to enhance and sustain professionalism among the teachers they need to be provided with opportunities to expand their capabilities and, consequently, the reform managers will need to encourage them through various stages of development. Amongst the various stages are those of involvement, initiation and engagement and developing collaborative school cultures. The theory building provided in the paper will be extremely important in the current context of Pakistan where several initiatives are being undertaken to reform and improve the Pakistani Government school system. The sustainability of such reforms requires the building of teachers’ professional capacity and enhancing their professionalism

Continuing professional development (CPD) policy and the discourse of teacher professionalism in Scotland

The dynamic nature and multiple interpretations of professionalism make any analysis of it as a static, homogenous concept somewhat difficult. Much of the existing body of literature, which explores professionalism from a traditional sociological perspective, is now being challenged by developing concepts of professionalism that support particular political agendas. Contemporary writers prominent in the field of teacher professionalism appear to be highlighting two contrasting models. While these are defined slightly differently and attributed different names according to particular writers, broadly speaking they equate to a managerial perspective and a democratic perspective. In this paper an analysis of contemporary conceptions of professionalism from literature is presented, and then used in interpreting the discourse evident through a range of public documents on CPD for teachers in Scotland. The paper suggests that the democratic, transformative view of professionalism promoted in much of the recent literature, while reflected in some of the rhetoric surrounding Scottish CPD policy, is not as apparent in real terms. In conclusion it is suggested that there is a need for all stakeholders to interrogate CPD policy more rigorously in order that the underlying conceptions of professionalism can be made explicit