Date of Completion

4-16-2020

Embargo Period

4-24-2020

Keywords

Data Teams, Micropolitics, Collaboration, Teachers, Coaches, Teacher Leaders

Major Advisor

Dr. Sarah Woulfin

Associate Advisor

Dr. Rachael Gabriel

Associate Advisor

Dr. Eric Bernstein

Associate Advisor

Dr. Casey Cobb

Associate Advisor

Dr. Richard Schwab

Field of Study

Educational Leadership (Ed.D.)

Degree

Doctor of Education

Open Access

Open Access

Abstract

This qualitative case study sought to explore how teachers, teacher leaders, and coaches interact with each other in collaborative, data team meetings, as well as how the essential features of micropolitics instantiated during the collaborative meeting times between these three types of roles. The ethnographic data collection technique offered an insider view into the nuances of the group dynamics and interactions with one another and as a whole. Results indicate that teachers, teacher leaders, and coaches engaged with each other in collaborative meetings through the use of structures and protocols, airtime, relational discourse, non-verbal communication, and agency or ownership. Additionally, results demonstrated how the essential features of micropolitics instantiated themselves in collaborative meetings between teachers, teacher leaders, and coaches. Findings showed that individuals were able to influence the attention of the group to topics that they wanted to discuss, that the team members in various roles engaged in exploring their boundaries of influence, and that the school-based collaborative teams were inextricably linked with and influenced by the system of the school district at large as pieces of its ecosystem.

The findings offer insight into the ways that school and district leaders, as well as educational peers, can work to improve the collaborative sessions that educators engage in, working to make the collaborations more effective and efficient in the interest of better supporting students.

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