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.

From Ecophany to Burnout? An Anthropologist’s Reflections on Two Years of Participating in Council-Citizen Climate Governance in Eastbourne

In July 2019, Eastbourne Borough Council declared a climate emergency and committed to making Eastbourne carbon neutral by 2030. In order to achieve this, citizens together with Council created a unique model of council-citizen collaborative climate governance, the Eastbourne Eco Action Network (EAN). EAN’s main strategy has been the setting up of targeted working groups, each bringing together Councillors, engaged citizens and providers, and each tackling a specific area of climate action through a combination of infrastructure, institutional and behavioural changes. As an environmental anthropologist living in Eastbourne, I was involved in this process right from the beginning, having had my own ‘ecophany’—the realisation that the climate emergency required urgent action—in February 2019. Two years and one pandemic later, in this paper I reflect on the overall experiences and challenges of EAN’s and Eastbourne Borough Council’s work towards town-wide carbon neutrality to date, discussing possible factors (structural and other) determining varying successes and failures. At the same time, this paper provides an auto-ethnographic account of what ‘engaged anthropology’ means in practice, mapping out the real contributions anthropologists can and should make in local climate action, but also reflecting on challenges encountered along the way.

Collegial Organizational Climate Alleviates Japanese Schoolteachers’ Risk for Burnout

The purpose of the current study was to examine the influence of individuals’ help-seeking preference (HSP) and their collective perception of the organizational climate in school on teachers’ mental health. Previous studies demonstrated that HSP was negatively associated with risk of burnout, suggesting that teachers who hesitate to seek help from their colleagues are more likely to have mental health problems. Thus, the current study hypothesized that a collegial organizational climate would be negatively associated with burnout. To test this hypothesis, we developed a scale to measure schoolteachers’ collective perception of their organizational climate (Study 1), and the newly developed scale was used to assess its relationship with HSP and teachers’ burnout risk (Study 2). The results demonstrated that younger teachers, a low level of help-seeking, and a less collaborative climate increased the risk of burnout. The results also showed a significant interaction effect, indicating that HSP was less closely associated with teachers’ burnout risk if their organization was perceived as having a collegial climate. These findings clearly show how the social environment of a school’s organizational climate can affect schoolteachers’ mental health in Japan.

Collaborative Climate and Knowledge Sharing among ESP Teachers: A Mixed Method Study

Research on teacher collaboration emphasizes the key role of collaborative culture for teachers’ functioning; however, there is little empirical evidence to investigate its relationship with knowledge sharing among university ESP teachers. In the present study, the relationship between EFL teachers’ collaborative climate and knowledge sharing was sought. The data were collected through two surveys of 328 Iranian ESP teachers. A Pearson correlation was carried out to investigate the relationship between the two variables of the study. A multiple regression analysis was also run to examine if ESP teachers’ collaborative climate predicts their knowledge sharing. A follow-up interview with 13 ESP teachers was conducted to consolidate the findings and explore the contribution of teachers’ collaborative climate to their knowledge sharing. The Pearson correlation coefficient test demonstrated a significant positive correlation for four measures (organizational culture, the head of department, teachers’ attitude, workgroup support), and the collaborative climate. The results of the multiple regression also indicated that four subscales of collaborative climate were the predictors of ESP teachers’ attitude towards knowledge sharing. Analysis of the interview data, on the other hand, indicated how teachers’ collaborative climate contributes to their knowledge sharing through one of the four main sources, namely helpful atmosphere, encouragement received from the heads of departments, the expectation of reward, and work group support. In line with these findings, several practical recommendations were offered.

Empathetic and Collaborative Climate in the Classroom

Educational institutions are complex and uncertain organizations, living situations and relationships of interaction based on reflection, collaboration and achieve valuable educational goals, but sometimes such relationships become distressed, generating aggression, tension and mistrust that prevent the consolidation of a climate of emotional harmony, empathy and understanding between people of school. This chapter aims to answer the following questions: What kind of relationships should be built in order to build a climate of harmony, empathy and full coexistence among all members of the classroom? Theoretical basis for identifying protective factors, to work the most appropriate climate of empathy in the classroom that stresses the importance of clear rules, enthusiasm and emotional balance, as well as a real involvement of the entire educational community against processes and factors such as harassment, exhibit aggressive behavior, lack of supervision, etc., all of them understood as risks.