Diana Nicholson

Working Relationships and Outcomes in Multidisciplinary Collaborative Practice Settings

A multidisciplinary research team of academics and community practitioner partners worked together to design and conduct an investigation into the purposes, processes, and outcomes of multidisciplinary collaborative practice. A review of the literature revealed a confusing array of terminology while also pointing to potential benefits and challenges, models for practice, and suggestions for research. The pilot research study consisted of six case studies set in three different programs. The principal finding was that no single model can be applied to all multidisciplinary collaborative endeavors. The appropriate approach depends on the context and goals of the work and on the organizational structure. This study highlights the process for collaboration and its prerequisites: Shared physical space, opportunities for formal and informal communication, consensual decision-making, team/group coordination, and organizational support. Additionally, the role of specific disciplines appears to be less predominant in the process of multidisciplinary collaboration than the commitment of individuals to collaborating. The benefits reported by practitioners were suggested to far outweigh the challenges associated with the approach to practice. Future research should incorporate a stronger client voice, include investigation of inter-group and interagency collaboration, and extend to a wider variety of practice settings.

Committed to Transformative Inquiry Three Teacher Educators’ Entry Points Into the Mentoring Role

Teacher educators often wonder about how best to prepare teachers for practice within a complex rather than a mechanistic system. As teacher educators, we facilitate a transformative inquiry (TI) course in which students investigate personally meaningful topics reflexively and relationally within larger educational and sociocultural contexts. This braided piece explores our own significant experiences with TI and how these experiences inform what we do as we mentor students through their own experience. By describing our personal entry points, we foreground some of the ways in which we work together to collaboratively and continuously revision the course. By making explicit our entry points into TI, we aim to reaffirm what matters to us as educators to improve our ability to deliberately engage in effective mentoring and to affirm our connections to the passions that sustain us amidst the many challenges and pressures that we face in our practice.

Transformative Inquiry While Learning∼Teaching Entry Points Through Mentor∼Mentee Vulnerability

In Transformative Inquiry (TI), pre-service teachers explore issues about which they are personally passionate in order to enter into the delicate work of transformation. We examine how shared vulnerability within three mentor~mentee pairs leads to new pedagogical possibilities. Michele and Vanessa discuss poetry as a way of entering into TI and how Michele became decentered as mentor as she was carried along in Vanessa’s knowing around poetry. Maureen and Jenn describe how, when faced with pervasive class dynamics of apathetic resistance, they opened themselves more fully to vulnerability. Diana describes the tension of showing interest in Liz’s inquiry without providing Liz with a “direction,” and Liz describes how she resisted traditional academic teachings about how to be a “good” student. Themes of safe enough space, emotion as catalyst, shifting power between learner and teacher, humble engagement, and holistic growth are overlaid with similar themes found by other transformative educators.

Taking a Second Look: Following Surveys with Student's Descriptions of the Culture

of Aggression in a Miqqle School Diana Nicholson, Doctoral Stuqent Centre for Cross Faculty Inquiry in Equcation University of British Columbia qjn@uvic.Q This article qesctibes a research stUqy on aggressive behaviour among stuqents in a miqqle school1. The stuqy was initiatec1 in response to concern about aggressive behaviour held by the school administration. A survey on aggressive behaviour was aqministereq anq followeq by interviews with a sample of stuqents. Stuqent interviews highlighteq <l number of very import<lnt issues to consiqer when <lssessing <lnq responding to <lggressive beh<lviour in <l school: school crowding, the pl<lying out of qomin<lnt m<lsculinity, involVing stuqents in hnqing solutions to iqentifieq problems, <lnq considering the role of the whole school culture in sust<lining <lggressive beh<lviour. Keyworc1s: aggressive beh<lviour, competition, soci<ll interqepenqence, school belonging 1 This study was conducted under a larger research project funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The author wishes to acknowledge the support of Dr. Sibylle Artz, Principal Investigator on the larger project.