Academic Senate for California Community Colleges on Collegial Relationships

Julie Bruno, et al. open their article by stating the importance of educators working together in order to bring together change initiatives, creating a unified vision of how change initiatives fit together, and to ensuring their collective success. Working together, in turn, requires trust and goodwill.

This article is helpful in claiming that collegiality—esp. a culture of trust and mutual respect—are necessary for the success of what is a transformative moment for California Community Colleges. The authors suggest a number of individual actions meant to improve collegial relationships. I believe our next steps should be to take these ideas and extend them from individual action to institutionalized policy.

citation: Julie Bruno, Sylvia Dorsey-Robinson, Irene Malmgren, Julius Sokenu, and John Stanskas. “Transforming the Culture: Working Together to Benefit Students.” Senate Rostrum (Acad. Senate for California Community Colleges quarterly newsletter). March 2016. 17-18. http://www.asccc.org/content/transforming-culture-working-together-benefit-students

Thoughts about the Definition of “Community”

In The Academic Community: A Manual for Change, Donald Hall uses the word “community” to mean a collection of people working together in a defined and formalized way. Examples include departments, committees, cabinets, etc. This is a structural definition in that community is defined by the composition of its group. The quality of the relationships within that composition may influence the success or failure of the community, but that quality is of secondary importance.

I’m not uncomfortable with this use of the word community, though I prefer an alternative, qualitative definition: community is defined by the quality or state of interactions between people who are working together. There may a composition to the community (i.e., structural boundaries that define the community) but those boundaries are of secondary importance.

This distinction between structural and qualitative definitions is analogous to John Stewart’s distinction in his interpersonal communication textbook Bridges Not Walls. Conventionally, “interpersonal communication” is sometimes defined as communication that occurs in settings with two or three individuals. This is a quantitative description that defines the communication by the structure of the interaction (two or more individuals). In that sense, it’s analogous to the conventional structural definition of community.

Stewart contrasts the conventional view with a definition of interpersonal communication as the type of communication interactions that foster a sense of personal connection with others. In that sense, it’s analogous to the alternative, qualitative definition of community.

So, in sum, conventional definitions describe interpersonal communication by the number of people involved; Stewart’s definition (on the other hand) describes interpersonal communication by the type of interaction. Similarly, conventional definitions define community by the structural characteristics of a group of people; my suggested definition (borrowing from Stewart) defines community by the type of interaction of the group.

citations:

• Donald E. Hall. The Academic Community: A Manual for Change. Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 2007.
• John Stewart. Bridges Not Walls: A Book about Interpersonal Communication. 11th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2012.

Carolina Riveros-Ruenes on the Power of Vulnerability

In these blog entries I have described trust, for the most part, as a characteristic of interpersonal relationships that develops when individuals exhibit vulnerabilities to their colleagues, and their colleagues reciprocate by exhibiting their own vulnerabilities. I have argued (implicitly, at least) that expressing vulnerabilities is a cause that leads to trust as an effect. Not only that, but in this description, the cause is of secondary importance to the effect, which is of primary importance. In short, cause-vulnerability (secondary importance) leads to effect-trust (primary importance).

Carolina Riveros-Ruenes approaches this formulation a little differently by emphasizing the primary importance of vulnerability. Her blog entry focuses on the difficulty of trusting one’s colleagues—especially when engaging in any form of sharing of teaching or pedagogy (e.g., observations of others’ classes, sharing student work, etc.).

She claims that working through the vulnerabilities created by sharing with your colleagues is important for your students’ sake, and that the act of doing so makes you a stronger teacher.

She offers advice for working through those vulnerabilities and argues that doing so develops trust between colleagues that can extend to other work throughout your educational institution.

citation: Carolina Riveros-Ruenes. “The Power of Vulnerability in Professional Development.” Edutopia. 1 November 2016. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/power-vulnerability-professional-development?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Building a Professional Community of Teachers to Improve Learning

This report focuses on improving mathematics learning, but (like many of the articles I’ve read) I believe their claims and conclusions have wider applicability in the community college setting.

The authors begin with the idea that educators (I think we’re focused here on the community college level of education) need to master not only the subject matter they teach but also master teaching and learning. Their recommendation is for expanded networks of professional relationships which would likewise expand educators’ pedagogical repertoires (as well as expand their professional identities).

Individual and isolated teaching, they argue, is artisanal and improvements occur only via individual teacher improvements. Collaborative and collective teaching, on the other hand, is professional and improvements occur via collective-institutional actions.

Furthermore, individual and isolated teaching focuses too much on transferring and assessing static knowledge. Collaborative and collective teaching, on the other hand, focuses more on creating rich learning environments where student engage in conceptual learning.

Early in the report, the authors note that most teaching is conducted in isolation. Many educators like the autonomy that comes with isolation, and many express concern that teaching within strong professional networks may undermine their autonomy. In response, the authors note that teachers who work within strong collaborations actually hold high expectations for themselves, their students, and their colleagues. The isolation that some teachers may prefer may actually be correlated to a sense of demoralization by educators.

citation: Rose Asera, Thomas Carey, Michael Davis, William Moore, Carren Walker, and Suzanne Williams. “Improving Mathematics Learning in Community Colleges: Building a Professional Community of Teachers.” August 2014. http://3csn.org/files/2015/03/professional-community-paper-with-afterword-Feb-5-2015.pdf

Jerome Cranston on Relational Trust

This article reports the results of a survey of school principals about trust between professionals in educational institutions. Although my sabbatical project is less concerned about the opinions of grade school principals, there is some food for thought in here that can be translated to community college institutions.

Early in the article Cranston describes three types of trust. The first is organic trust: trust based upon a belief in the moral authority of an institution. The second is contractual trust: trust based upon mandatory obligations. The third, and most pertinent to me (and also the main subject of this article), is relational trust: trust based upon social exchanges and social relations between institutional members.

While structural elements (e.g., implementing student success programs) are necessary to create institutional and student success, relational trust is the “glue required to cohere teaching staff to a common purpose”. In short, relational trust is a necessary precondition for the success of implemented programs.

Relational trust is not created by a program, however. It forms when individuals within the institution create norms of safety, risk-taking, and change orientation. Relational trust is not mandated; it is fostered, built, and sustained.

citation: Jerome Cranston. “Relational Trust: The Glue that Binds a Professional Learning Community.” Alberta Journal of Educational Research 57.1 (Spring 2011): 59-72.