Collaboration for primary teaching improvement: The relational aspects of close co-teaching

Collaboration for primary teaching improvement: The relational aspects of close co-teaching

Teaching improvement is a strategically planned process that orchestrates a set of internal and/or external capacities to effect a change in teaching knowledge, skills and/or behaviours for learning outcome effect, as outlined in Chap. 1 of this book. The dynamics of research investigating teaching improvement requires us to consider the wide range of collaborative teaching approaches key to enhanced teaching efficacy and, more broadly, school improvement. For example, collaboration is recognised as an essential element of effective teacher-professional learning (AITSIL, 2012; Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Opfer, 2016), and collaboration and collective inquiry are inherent in Professional Learning Communities (DET, 2021; DuFour & Mattos, 2013; Hallam et al., 2015). Further, collaboration is inherent in all the various co-teaching models (Friend & Cook, 2016) and it is even more essential in the close co-teaching that takes place in innovative learning environments (ILEs). Indeed, collaboration between teachers has been proposed as the vanguard of school improvement (Hargreaves & O’Connor, 2018), with higher levels of teacher collaboration supporting higher levels of student achievement and increased effectiveness of teaching practice (Ronfeldt et al, 2015).

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