COLLEGIALITY

RESEARCH FINDING:

Students  benefit  academically when their teachers share  ideas, 
cooperate  in activities,  and assist one another's  intellectual 
growth.

COMMENT:

Although high student achievement is most likely in a school with 
high  faculty morale and a sense of shared  responsibility,  most 
teachers  are independent and believe that the responsibility  of 
running their classrooms is theirs alone.   In some  studies,  as 
many  as  45 percent of the teachers report no contact with  each 
other during the workday; another 32 percent say they have infre-
quent contact.

As a result, these teachers fail to share experience and ideas or 
to  get support from their colleagues.   Isolation may  undermine 
effective instruction.

Good  instruction flourishes when teachers collaborate in  devel-
oping  goals  that  emphasize  student  achievement.    Effective 
schools  have  a  climate of staff collegiality  and  use  mutual 
support as a means of improving pupil achievement.   School lead-
ers  in such schools set aside time for faculty  interaction  and 
provide specific opportunities for teachers and administrators to 
work together on such tasks as setting school policies, improving 
instructional practice,  selecting textbooks,  and  strengthening 
discipline. 


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