Collaboration: What it is, What it Takes, and Problems

Cooper, O.P. & Bray, M. (2011). School library media specialist – teacher collaboration: characteristics, challenges, opportunities. TechTrends, 55(4), 48-54.

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Cooper and Bray supply readers with a great amount of detail in the different roles that teacher-librarians can play in schools. They spend equal amounts of time covering the different subtopics they identify in the title. One of the greatest portions was the characteristics of collaboration. They draw readers attention to the fact that often times collaboration is used as a broad overreaching term to apply to many different scenarios. It is their belief that true collaboration is not often achieved in schools. They do make that point that if teacher-librarians want to be viewed as indispensible, they will have to make their skills/ abilities and contributions known to the administrative personal just as often as they do with teachers. They also caution that the end result of collaboration is not just collaboration, but collaboration has result in increased student achievement. I found a great amount of merit in the portion Cooper and Bray spend in helping readers understand what true collaboration is. I think too often the term is tossed around without really examining what it is or what it takes. They offer a quote from another author that fully explains “true” teacher and teacher-librarian collaboration, one that I think is the best I have encountered yet:

When teachers and library media specialists work together to identify what students need to know about accessing, evaluating, interpreting and applying information; when they plan how and where these skills will be taught and how they relate the content are learning; when they co-teach so students learn the skills at the time they need them; and when they assess the students’ process as they work with information as well as the end product, they have truly collaborated.

Posted by Jessica King