Principal’s Role in Supporting Teacher Collaborative Learning

Teacher collaborative learning remains one of the fundamental professional development methods that help teachers improve their professional skills and competencies. Consequently, responsible institutions as well as scholars and experts encourage and instruct teachers to partake in collaborative learning activities as much as possible. Nevertheless, teacher collaborative learning does not happen per se. Due to various factors and circumstances, teachers have to be counselled, encouraged, and supported for taking part in such activities. This responsibility and competence is usually entrusted to school principals. This research shows that principals play a major role in this process by fostering organizational learning, collaborative culture, creating a trustworthy environment, making structural arrangements, and securing infrastructural facilities. It also shows that collaborative learning in the research context takes place in a limited number of formats, mainly in the activities of professional communities and mentoring pairs, and principals have to apply various leadership approaches for protecting and advancing the collaborative climate in the schools they run. This article, which presents only one portion of a doctoral research, is based on the data collected from 518 teachers and eight principals of 24 schools in Kosovo. The sequential-explanatory mixed-method approach was utilized to collect the data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the quantitative data and the qualitative ones were explored through the thematic analysis.

COLLABORATIVE LEARNING AND INDIVIDUAL WORK PERFORMANCE IN COWORKING SPACES

Coworking spaces are becoming increasingly popular. Throughout literature, coworking spaces are commonly known as collaborative environments. Yet, there is a lack of research on the mechanisms of the collaborative practices within coworking spaces. This research identifies collaborative learning as a major collaborative practice within coworking spaces, and develops a conceptual framework including two other variables: individual motivation to learn and individual work performance. Exploratory factor analysis to establish the reliability and validity of this framework. Next, a survey study was conducted of 169 coworking space members and PLS-SEM was used to do a factor analysis and evaluate the structural model created. It is found that individual motivation to learn positively impacts collaborative learning, collaborative learning positively impacts individual work performance, and that collaborative learning acts as a full mediator between individual motivation to learn and individual work performance. These findings demonstrate how collaborative learning can be key in improving individual work performance in coworking spaces. Furthermore, these findings position collaborative learning as a theory that deserves further attention in coworking space research. These findings also suggest that coworking space operators may want to further encourage collaboration and incentivize learning in their space.

COLLABORATIVE ENGINEERING AND ITS IMPLICATION IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL ENGAGEMENT IN THE INDUSTRIAL SECTOR

As suggested by several previous studies, employee and managerial engagement is a key factor in an organization's productivity and performance. Positive leadership styles, social support and autonomy, among others, have been proposed as predictors of engagement. Collaborative learning has multiple advantages over learning in competitive and individual situations, including the development of high-skill social competencies, and collaboration and teamwork per se. This paper analyses the correlation between the level of engagement, employees' perception of collaboration and other common predictors of organizational commitment over a seven-year period of field analysis (2014-2020) in multinational companies in the industrial sector. The study shows that the perception of collaboration is significantly positively correlated with engagement and can be a good predictor of engagement. This suggests the suitability of both the adoption of collaborative learning methodologies to middle and higher degrees linked to industry, as well as the promotion by industrial organizations of the application of collaborative engineering and other methods and means for collaborative work. KEY WORDS: Work engagement; employee engagement; industrial organization; leadership; collaborative learning; cooperative learning; distance learning; collaborative engineering.

Whole Team, Whole Person High-Involvement Quality Improvement Training for VA Community Living Center Leaders

Long-term care is a challenging environment for quality improvement due to the high resident acuity, wide variation in resident needs, and wide variation in types and backgrounds of the large staff across three daily shifts. We report results from a learning collaborative undertaken to improve care quality and staff quality improvement skills in the VA CLCs through development of high functioning relationally coordinated teams operating in accord with person-centered care principles. The collaborative included 27 CLCs. Over 9 months leadership teams completed action assignments supported by 5 workshops and regular group coaching calls. Evaluation included fidelity monitoring (attendance, mid- and final progress reports), satisfaction questionnaires, and review of the VA quality measures (CLC Compare). Pre-post participant evaluations revealed a significant increase in positive responses to the question “to what extent do you think applying these new skills/knowledge will improve quality in your CLC?” and positive responses trending toward significance in ratings of abilities to apply new skills. Open-ended survey comments were positive and indicated change in understanding and practice: “utilizing the daily huddle to facilitate real time communication afforded the team a proactive approach to providing care and reducing acute exacerbations. We are able to avert, evaluate as a real time team and make it happen in the now not as a look back.”; “definitely unified front-line staff and CLC leadership.” Some changes were achieved in CLC Compare quality scores (e.g., falls with major injury rate had a 9.6 reduction (average rate = 3.39 pre, 3.07 post)).

A PROTEÇÃO DE DADOS PESSOAIS NO CONTEXTO DA ECONOMIA INFORMACIONAL: DESAFIOS REGULATÓRIOS DO MARKETING COMPORTAMENTAL

A corrida pela monetização de dados pessoais foi iniciada por importantes players da economia informacional. Amazon, Google e Facebook são alguns exemplos de como os algoritmos de personalização podem ser utilizados de maneira extremamente lucrativa. Estas técnicas são constantemente aprimoradas, utilizando machine learning, collaborative filtering e Inteligência Artificial. Neste contexto de intenso e constante desenvolvimento, cabe à Autoridade Nacional de Proteção de Dados regular e complementar a Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados, além de fiscalizar o seu correto cumprimento. Neste artigo, objetiva-se evidenciar algumas ferramentas para o enforcement da LGPD no cenário do capitalismo de vigilância, tais como os “Códigos de Boas Práticas” e a regulação e fiscalização por parte da ANPD. Empregou-se nessa pesquisa, o método dedutivo, partindo-se da constatação da hipervulnerabilidade dos titulares de dados pessoais e o legítimo desenvolvimento econômico, conclui-se que deve se chegar a um consenso harmonizando os interesses em jogo, tendo em vista a recente aprovação do Regulamento do Processo de Fiscalização e do Processo Administrativo Sancionador pela ANPD, que enfatiza a regulação responsiva.

Applicability of Collaborative Work in the COVID-19 Era: Use of Breakout Groups in Teaching L2 Translation

Social distancing became a must during the pandemic, which not only had implications for people’s social lives, but also for their learning. Collaborative work was almost impossible, especially in the classroom, despite a great need for this approach. For example, in their translation classes, the learners needed to collaborate with their peers, assisting each other in translating texts. Thus, the use of breakout groups is proposed in this study, although there is no guarantee that learners will accept this online approach. Consequently, the current research looks at learners’ acceptance of breakout groups on Blackboard in a translation class. To examine their acceptance, an existing scale was used, developed by Davis (1989) to measure two factors of technology acceptance: perceived usefulness and ease of use. A sample of 54 students on a Translation course at Al-Imam Mohammed Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, participated in this study. The results show that the learners found breakout groups on Blackboard to be useful and easy to use.