Traditional Classrooms Transformed into Modern School Environments through Collaborative Action Research

Abstract

Collaborative teaching approach has confused teachers in Greece, who although generally argue in favour of this, however, state that they are unable to incorporate it into their daily teaching practice. Thus, collaborative action research, as a form of training, has been implemented to a group of teachers in order improvement to be achieved. The opinions and feelings of the participants are presented in the following article. Analyzing the facilitator's observation notes and the participants' interviews seems that action research has triggered a change in pupils' learning process. Additionally, teachers exchanged ideas, expressed themselves without hesitation and adopted innovations. According to the researcher, teachers' hard and lonely work is supported through the collaborative action research. This kind of training focuses on their needs, takes place at their own school, while the member of the University and the researcher undertake the support work. With this effort, the classroom can be transformed into a modern school environment, more active, experiential and collaborative one.

An Empirical Study of Collaborative Culture as a Model of Organizational Behavior in Greek Primary Schools

“…Concerning Research Question (RQ), teachers' perceptions are characterized by a relatively satisfactory mean score (Μ=3.55) of collaborative culture. Therefore, it is found that teachers of primary schools lead and favor collaboration as their main philosophy, through which they reflect on their search for more effective ways to lead to school improvement, as previous research has shown (Lucas & Valentine, 2002;Ngnag, 2011;Kapachtsi, & Kakana, 2014).…”

“…In terms of computer literacy and ICT, the evidence demonstrates the potential of an educational tool, especially in small rural schools, to provide meaningful education based on modern digital educational methods (Fykaris, 2012;Giannakos & Vlamos, 2012). Finally, their degree of satisfaction with their collaboration with the support structures, the local government, the school committee, the parents' association and the students are considered positive, perceptions that aim at changing-creating a school culture for an effective school (Kapachtsi & Kakana, 2014;Fulidi et al, 2017) and characterize the collaborative culture (Waldron & Mcleskey, 2010).…”

“…Finally, for the Learning partnership factor, the distinction is limited between the views of teachers and sub-headmasters, which is probably related to the "subculture of teaching" they represent which enhances the learning process and identifies with the views of other researchers who support organizational change and learning are best achieved through the coherence of all subcultures of the school community (Athanasoula-Reppa, 2008;Bland, 2012;Kapachtsi & Kakana, 2014;Narayan, 2016). There was no significant difference in the perceptions of school unit employees regarding the dimension of Τeacher collaboration, indicating that everyone preferred collaboration as their primary philosophy of school improvement and effectiveness.…”

“…The research has revealed that such a collaborative culture leads to higher levels of trust and respect among colleagues, improved professional satisfaction, improved instructional practices, better outcomes for all students, and school change that is maintained over time (Friend & Cook, 2007). In addition, through collaborative teacher learning and professional development, school unit members are motivated to look for more effective ways for students' academic success brotherly relationships are strengthened and tensionsconflicts are avoided (Waldron & Mcleskey, 2010;Kapachtsi & Kakana, 2014).…”

“…Internationally, several studies have investigated the dominant collaborative culture of school community members (Gruenert & Valentine, 1998;Martin, 2009;Teasley, 2017;Veeriah et al, 2017), the impact of school culture on teacher leadership style (Sahin, 2004;Martin, 2009;Bush, 2011;Ngnag, 2011;Arokiasamy, 2017) and the relationship between organizational culture of school improvement and effectiveness (Kythreotis et al, 2010;Menon-Eliophotou & Athanasoula-Reppa, 2011;Bland, 2012;Narayan, 2016). There are fewer references to Greece and limited to the role of culture and leadership in education (Athanasoula-Reppa, 2008;Koula, 2011;Biniari, 2012;Tentzerakis, 2018;Giatra, 2019), to school improvement through collaborative action research (Kapachtsi, & Kakana, 2014) and to the teachers' perceptions of multi-grade or small rural school functioning (Ekonomopoulos & Brouzos, 2017).…”