Teachers' Collegial Interaction: An Exploratory Study

This study sought to describe collegiality among teachers in relation to classroom teaching. 52 teachers in 6 schools were interviewed to obtain their perceptions of the amount and type of information they exchanged and with whom and where the exchange occurs. In addition, the relation of the type of help to school SES, organization, and teacher experience was investigated. The results were that the teachers spent a total of about 40 min per day at various places in the school conversing with colleagues at their grade level about classroom teaching. Topics that they discuss frequently are materials, discipline, activities, and individualization. Evaluation, methods, objectives, reinforcing, lecturing, questioning, and room organization are discussed much less frequently. Differences in collegiality were found between schools that have team arrangements and schools that have traditional arrangements and between schools that have higher SES and schools that have lower SES. A major implication of the findings is the need to help teachers become less private about their classroom behaviors as a way to increase collegiality, improve instruction, and make teaching more rewarding.