Week 31 - Interdisciplinary Collaboration

CISC 8100 APPLIED PRACTICE IN CONTEXT

Assessment 2

DUE ON THE 21 NOVEMBER 2017 – Extension Approved

Identify and critically evaluate the context of your practice.

Week 31 - Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Interdisciplinary connections can occur in an educational setting between school teachers, and external agencies such as speech and language therapists, social workers, specialist counsellors and the like in order to assist developing and supporting the well-being of a student.  This allows the range of expertise amongst this interdisciplinary team to professionally enable a student to gain independence and confidence that learn how to learn to inevitably develop skills for lifelong learning as the ultimate result.

This alone shows the power of the collaboration if a diverse group of experts connect and collaborate focused on the seeking a lifelong learning outcome for a student via the interdisciplinary nature of their collaboration.  To plan for effective and beneficial interdisciplinary collaboration it is stated that three aspects are important to enable decision making, goal setting and joint planning to eventuate:

1.     Qualities / Attitudes

2.     Common Goals

3.     Workplace Conditions

If these aspects are in place and adhered to the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration as occurring "when different professionals, possessing unique knowledge, skills, organizational perspectives, and personal attributes, engage in co-ordinated problem solving for a common purpose" (Berg-Weger &. Schneider, 1998).

I am the principal of a small primary school and I consider collaboration as a primary role of my position.  Mulligan & Kuban’s conceptual model for successful interdisciplinary collaboration (2015) allows me to critique how this fits in with my own professional connections and the way in which I collaborate.

Common Goals

At Whakawātea there is a rigorously strong and aspirational reason for everything we do - Ko te tamaiti te pūtake o ngā mea katoa! - The child is at the heart of everything!  Our belief is that children are born perfect and whole and highly capable of achieving success in every way possible.  It is equally communicated and planned that we as a team do everything we possibly can to ensure this is the reality for each and every student.  I strongly believe that not one cent or one second is wasted when it is being utilised working for our students. 

Equally I believe in our team and their capability to collaborate to deliver this learning environment for our students.  On reflection I see pockets of sound collaboration and a couple of areas where either clarification or attitude adjustment needs to be worked on.

Qualities and Attitudes

As a school principal driving an environment of collaboration I believe that our team need to be open to being flexible, giving up controlling all aspects of learning and the way our students learn.  They need to trust in themselves and in each other and be brutally honest about what they think is working and what isn’t.  I have stated from the get go that although I am not sure what will work and that we need to engage in a process to discover that together.  I personally believe they are all highly capable and that as a team we can overcome any barriers or perceived problems.

When I reflect about all of these aspects my feeling is that some teachers are afraid that they are not good enough or are scared that people may think they aren’t.  Also, that they might be afraid of not being able to control every aspect of their classroom and potentially not be able to fulfil the requirements of paperwork.  However, regardless of all of this I sincerely believe that as a team we have high levels of trust and capability to be all that we desire.

Workplace Conditions

As the principal I believe I have a very good professional relationship with my team and that there is reciprocal respect.  We meet each morning before school and have longer after school meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays.  As a principal I also meet with other principals, participate in principal meetings and within our community of learning and meetings from a national perspective.  In general we are an extremely close and hard working group of professionals who I feel privileged to work alongside.

Our physical environment supports our collaboration and ensures our learning spaces are beautiful and well designed to provide open collaborative spaces.  The learning spaces all open where each area seamlessly connects with the next and within that there are some large shared open spaces.

References

Berg-Weger, M., &. Schneider, F. D. (1998). Interdisciplinary collaboration in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 34, 97-107.

Mulligan, L. M., & Kuban, A. J. (2015). A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration. Retrieved from http://acrlog.org/2015/05/14/a-conceptual-model-for-interdisciplinary-collaboration