Teachers and Teaching

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Patchworks of professional practices: Teacher

collaboration in innovative learning environments

Jennifer Charteris, Noeline Wright, Suzanne Trask, Elaine Khoo, Angela Page,
Joanna Anderson & Bronwen Cowie

To cite this article: Jennifer Charteris, Noeline Wright, Suzanne Trask, Elaine Khoo, Angela
Page, Joanna Anderson & Bronwen Cowie (2021) Patchworks of professional practices: Teacher
collaboration in innovative learning environments, Teachers and Teaching, 27:7, 625-641, DOI:
10.1080/13540602.2021.1983536

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2021.1983536

Published online: 29 Sep 2021.

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TEACHERS AND TEACHING
2021, VOL. 27, NO. 7, 625–641
https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2021.1983536

Patchworks of professional practices: Teacher collaboration in

innovative learning environments
Jennifer Charteris a, Noeline Wright b, Suzanne Traskb, Elaine Khoo b
,
Angela Page c, Joanna Anderson a and Bronwen Cowie b
a
University of New England, Armidale, Australia; bUniversity of Waikato, Hamilton. New Zealand; cUniversity
of Newcastle

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, the impetus to create open Received 12 April 2021
learning spaces that afford spatial and pedagogical flexibility have Accepted 16 September 2021
disrupted the nature of teachers’ work. In redesigned education KEYWORDS
facilities, teachers engage in sophisticated processes of collaboration Innovative learning
and ongoing teacher professional learning. Moving from traditional environments; teacher
classroom designs brings with it a shift in how knowledge is trans­ collaboration; new
mitted, co-produced and engaging with aspirational pedagogy and generation learning
attending to the power dynamics of students and teachers and environments
teachers as co-collaborators. Using a patchwork metaphor to frame
our methodological approach, examples from research projects into
teachers’ work from across Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia
addresses the question: What is involved in high-quality teacher colla­
boration in Innovative Learning Environments? This patchwork of
practice is intended to support the work of those charged with
researching, reviewing and enhancing collaboration in ILEs.
Specifically, dimensions of alignment, acculturation, adaptation,
aspiration and agency can inform teacher professional learning and
development. By examining the complex conditions of ILEs in a range
of projects, where teachers are no longer alone in teaching but
contribute to both short-lived and sustained collaborations, we iden­
tify examples from research that illustrate new teaching realities in
ILEs, and frame possibilities for action.

Introduction
Over the last two decades across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) reports in education, school-buildings and architecture are
deployed as policy instruments to serve as spatial technologies shaping both educational
work and the social relations of teachers (Wood, 2019). This shaping involves teachers
shifting from working as autonomous practitioners within single-cell classrooms, to
developing teaching and learning in teams and facilitating learning in open spaces and
breakout rooms. In these non-traditional schooling spaces, teachers engage in

CONTACT Jennifer Charteris jcharte5@une.edu.au University of New England

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
626 J. CHARTERIS ET AL.

continuous collaboration and negotiation (Cardno et al., 2017). Deprivatising teacher

practices create shifts in both power relations and concepts around what it means to be
an effective teacher in these open and shared spaces (Trask, 2017).
The OECD uses the term Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs) to describe new
buildings and refurbished spaces that encapsulate the imaginary of 21st centuries learning
(Benade, 2015, OECD 2013). Abbiss (2015, p. 3) suggests this move towards future-
oriented learning and open flexible learning environments is ‘changing the face of
education, teaching, and learning in schools.’ However, there are concerns there is
a dearth of professional learning and development to support pedagogical changes to
the knowledge and skills needed for successful collaborative teaching. There are also gaps
in processes that help teachers deal with and understand the systems, strategies and
structures that support optimal teaching in ILE (O’Reilly, 2016). ILEs are not only
defined by their open-plan architectural designs and moveable furniture, sliding walls
and fittings, but also through the way that pedagogy is necessarily reshaped and changed.
In this article, researchers from three universities across Aotearoa New Zealand and
Australia (The University of Waikato (NZ), The University of New England (AU), and
The University of Newcastle (AU)) collaborated to produce a stitched patchwork of
studies to address the question: What is high-quality teacher collaboration in innovative
learning environments? To begin this exploration, we outline the growth of ILE in
Aotearoa New Zealand and Australian schooling contexts. Next, we outline international
literature on collaboration and teachers’ work in ILE. The vignettes from the five studies
showcase a research patchwork, illustrating the unpicking of ‘collaboration’ according to
the vignette’s context and focus. The article concludes by providing a typology of
collaboration elements that can inform professional development in educational con­
texts. These key aspects of collaboration arise when teachers deprivatise their practices by
enacting collaborative dimensions within ILE school contexts.

Collaboration and teachers’ work in Innovative Learning Environments

In Australia, Canada, the United States, Scotland and Aotearoa New Zealand during the
1960s and 1970s, open-plan school designs were widespread, particularly in primary
school contexts. Deweyan's conception of progressive education is connected closely with
these developments (Campbell, 2020). Despite such designs and practices waning in
succeeding decades, there has been a recent renaissance of open-plan designs and an
alignment with a discourse of 21st century learning (Trask, 2019).
There have been reports of re-walling in some large open-space ILEs, with teachers
setting up makeshift arrangements to recreate single-cell spaces so that they can retain
sovereignty of their classroom areas (Deed & Lesko, 2015). In some cases the spaces are
so big and open that teachers and students struggle to use them well. However, although
open spaces are often seen as noisy and distracting, for many teachers they are spaces
where positive collegial practices can take place: peer feedback, support with individual
students, collaboration around curriculum delivery and planning. Campbell (2020) noted
that collaboration in ILE can support professional learning, enable teachers to share their
diverse knowledge and expertise, develop a sense of connection to a professional com­
munity, and diminish social isolation. However, she also observed that the associated
accountability can ‘chafe’ and result in resistance for teachers who are used to exclusive
 TEACHERS AND TEACHING 627

control of their lessons. If teachers are not ready for the pedagogical shifts associated with
the move to new spaces, there can be a discordance between the teaching philosophies of
practitioners and the pedagogical design. Daniels et al. (2019, p. 230) note that ‘if design
and practice are in alignment, then design offers a range of possibilities—it invites
transformation. If design and practice are in conflict, then practitioners experience
significant challenges resulting in dissatisfaction and discomfort.’

A research patchwork
The findings from five research projects are addressed here. They stem from diverse
educational contexts, yet create a cohesive patchwork of educational evidence. Our
patchwork as a metaphor, to stitch together the fabric of dimensions describing ILE
teacher collaboration. Koelsch (2012, p. 823) argues that patchwork is a metaphor for the
process of putting ideas together to create something new, suggesting that a ‘patchwork
quilt has multiple entryways for analysis, no necessary centre, and [has] the ability to
grow in multiple directions.’
Just as sewing threads connect patchwork pieces to create an entire quilt, so too do the
threads of our deliberations in stitching our diverse research projects together.
Underpinning the patches is a backing fabric holding five diverse vignettes together.
This research frame is mostly unseen, providing coherence and stability for the research
quilt pieces. While quilt pieces can have different patterns or fabrics, each piece is
important to the whole, contributing shape, colour, substance and tone. Each of us has
contributed our own piece of research fabric, with its own colour, context or substance,
tone and fabric to the patchwork quilt. We’ve woven the warp and weft of the research
fabric together, stitching the diverse parts into a collaboratively crafted patchwork of
evidence.
The value of the analogy does not stop there. Patchworking and stitchcraft have
history as metaphors for collaborations featuring a strong emphasis on social interaction,
teamwork, peer learning, sharing concepts, skills and knowledge (Maua–Hodges 2001).
Günel et al. (2020, p. 3), in using patchwork to conceptualise a methodological and
theoretical approach to ethnography, suggest, in response to current pandemic issues of
fieldwork that the ‘feminist and decolonial theorisations of the intertwining of the
personal and professional, the theoretical and the methodological responses are appro­
priate in research. They advocate using processes and protocols that include fragmentary
rigorous data that can make long-term commitments to research contexts, engage in slow
thinking, and attend to how changing conditions are profoundly changing knowledge
production. Our article development has taken place over Zoom calls, while we con­
tribute to a single Google Doc, crafting the document over time. It has been an example
of slow scholarship. Creating any kind of quilt takes time, diligence and combined effort
to produce.
While quilting and its variants are not the preserve of any one culture, they still tend to
be the labour of women, just as this article has been created by the intellectual and
research labour of women. Tivaevae quilting from the Cook Islands, for example, is
a cultural practice that has already been appropriated as a research framework. The
Tivaevae model of research is thus an indigenous methodology, interpreting a cultural
practice of creating canvases decorated with an array of different cloth designs and
628 J. CHARTERIS ET AL.

patterns that create pictures and tell stories. As a research metaphor, Tivaevae explores ,
the past, present and future integration of social, historical, spiritual, religious, economic
and political representations of Cook Island culture’ (Te Ava & Page, 2020, p. 70), while
the stitching aspect of the Tivaevae research process is seen as a physical, embodied
experience (Futter-Puati & Maua-Hodges, 2019). Since our project involves educational
researchers from the Pacific Ocean region, it is appropriate that we choose Pacific models
for our inspiration.
In a wider sense, patchworking has also been used in post-qualitative feminist research
to ‘pierce, (un)stitch, snag, embroider, patch, and mend the fabrics of distinct research
contexts, components, and commitments’ (Higgins et al. 2019, p. 16) in order to explain
inclusive and collaborative practices. Our collective project involves both process and
product, combining both into a research artefact. Ours has been a meta-process,
embodying collaboration about collaboration. Our crafting and writing process reflects
the slow research practice of collective patchworking, consisting of multiple meetings
mediated through Zoom meetings. As we pooled our collective knowledge our images
formed digital patchworks on Zoom calls, spaced over many months. It took time to
stitch together our individual research to theorise common ground and the visual
representation of our faces connected with the patchwork stories we were telling
together. Our writing process thus evoked tacit and spoken goals, dispositions, beliefs,
experiences, willingness, personal preferences, opinions, and views about our desire to
connect our research examples. Each stitch contributing to the process provided
a catalyst to consider alternative ways of applying knowledge and understanding (Futter-
Puati & Maua-Hodges, 2019).
The patchwork of practice therefore provides us with a means to present various
research stories with both disparate and overlapping elements. Through this stitching
process, we made connections, admired individual and collective skills, consulted each
other, argued ideas, crafted, stitched and shared our findings. The patchwork of vignettes,
like fabric squares, varies in length, fabric and texture, adding richness to the whole quilt.
The vignettes collectively illustrate teacher collaboration practices, using descriptors such
as alignment, acculturation, adaptation, aspiration and agency.

The vignettes
Patch 1: Aligning collaborators’ philosophies and practices

One of the teachers in there . . . she’s resigning at the end of the year. She’s very, very tight . . .
She can’t abide the noise. She spends a lot of time with the children in front of her on the
mat, you know, like a lot of explanation time, a lot of talking, a lot of teacher-led. And I often
watch her and I think oh, you know, I wouldn’t have done that. (Helena, teacher)

A research project on sustainability in professional learning spanned 2015 to 2018 years

in Aotearoa, NZ. During this period, school design policy was mandated. This mandate
required all schools to use specifications about refurbishments and new school buildings,
built on principles associated with ‘current and evolving pedagogies, particularly colla­
boration and to allow multiple use both concurrently and consecutively’ (Ministry of
Education, 2015, p. 34). To gather the data, an initial survey with 216 respondents
 TEACHERS AND TEACHING 629

included a question on ILE. Forty-three interviews followed, which sought perspectives

on ILEs from Aotearoa New Zealand principals and teachers. Data from some principal
participants data showed that many schools were making wide-scale alterations to
building designs. At the same time, they were leading pedagogical change to facilitate
what has been described as ‘modern learning pedagogy’ (Osborne, 2013). This pedagogy
‘combines elements of increased collaboration within and across schools, ubiquitous
technology integration, promotion of student voice, the deliberate targeting of student
agency, a deployment of Assessment for Learning practices, and curriculum integration’
(Charteris et al., , p. 810).
With the international education community’s focus on collaboration and flexible use
of space, there is an opportunity for teachers to rethink power relations in ILEs. The
sophisticated demands placed on relationships require a high degree of relational trust
between teachers who co-teach. For ILEs that function well there is a shared and
collaborative approach to professional learning. With my colleagues in close professional
contact throughout the day, there are ‘in the moment’ opportunities for feedback and
professional reflection. This has been described as professional learning on steroids
(Charteris & Smardon, 2018). So what are some of the particular practices teachers
collaborate over in order to foster high-quality learning in ILE? To create synergistic
teaching practices in ILE, there is value in teachers aligning their values about what they
believe is important for pedagogy, what learner characteristics they would like to foster,
and what they see as the purposes of schooling. For instance, teachers may differ on how
they engage in assessment practices and the characteristics of learners they shape through
this work. Some teachers may place a high value on fostering student assessment
capability, which involves the devolution of power and a sharing of information with
students in the classroom so that they can be agentic learners.
School leadership that fosters a well-articulated vision for collaborative pedagogical
work and coherence around the philosophy of teaching is important if there is to be
alignment in teacher practice in the classroom. Helena’s quotation above reflects how
the impetus to shift to intensified collaborative practices and open up classrooms
facilitate different power relations between teaching colleagues and between teachers
and students. This vignette highlights how collaboration in ILE requires alignment in
philosophical and pedagogical practices. When teachers work closely with peers who
have different philosophies and practices, it can challenge teachers to review what they
hold as core beliefs - leading to their revision or reinforcement. For teachers whose
experience reinforced that single-cell environments where they are the primary deci­
sion-maker are preferable, resignation may be the only option. Thus we see
a reculturing of the teaching workforce precipitated by the redesign of school buildings
which is an issue for school leadership.

Patch 2: Acculturation through collaboration? From ‘special’ to ‘inclusive’

education?

Students learning together and collaborating in an open environment to share ideas and
break[ing] down those barriers [that] might exist in the silo kind of classroom thing. I guess
that’s the ideal behind it that we’re told . . . I think it’s meant to encourage collaborative
630 J. CHARTERIS ET AL.

learning in students and teachers to work together and project based learning. Well – but
this space isn’t actually like one of those spaces, because we use it more like a discreet
classroom. (Bridgitte, special education teacher)

Innovative learning environments are expected to be flexible spaces that promote

inclusivity (Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD), 2017),
and with these new builds comes possibilities for different discussions about collabora­
tions that support inclusive practice. Spaces can be constructed that address the needs
of all students and remove barriers for those who have traditionally been educated in
separate, often stand-alone, buildings (Kirby, 2017). Through collaboration there can
be the acculturation of ‘special education’ into prevailing ways of ‘doing’ education.
However, the design and pedagogies that are required for young people with complex
educational needs to access ILEs in an inclusive way can sometimes be overlooked
(Page et al. 2019).
This case study investigated how inclusive education is addressed in the newly
built school environment of Soleil Secondary College (pseudonym), a government-
funded co-educational year 7–12 Australian high school, which opened at the begin­
ning of 2019. The new school includes a range of open, flexible learning spaces that
fishbone off a large central common area. Individually designated specialist subject
areas and a range of flexible furniture are intended to support student individual
preferences. A separate wing houses the Special Education classrooms. This open-
plan hub contains a large central space, multiple linked classrooms, and a range of
break-out spaces. Each space is separated by floor to ceiling walls of clear glass. The
Deputy Principal, and staff and students from the Special Education support unit (as
termed by the Head Teacher Special Education) participated in semi-structured
interviews.
Collaboration between school leaders, those with expertise in special and inclusive
education, and architects at the design phase is important (Wright et al., 2021). From the
outset this can assist in establishing what is necessary to facilitate inclusive practice for
new school communities. This level of consultation or collaboration did not occur at
Soleil Secondary College. Despite initial co-design discussions with school leaders and
architects, the Head Teacher Special Education said that her recommendations for the
building were not integrated into the final design. Therefore, collaboration appears to
have been positioned as tokenistic rather than authentic, and negatively influenced the
way special education staff considered themselves as active, collaborative participants
within the wider school.
Well-designed spaces facilitate collaboration (Blackmore et al., 2011), and it is impor­
tant that spaces exist across all areas of a school that afford students with complex
educational needs, and the staff who support them, opportunities to collaborate with
their peers. At Soleil Secondary College, however, a distinct separation exists between
special education and the rest of the school. For example, the Special Education support
unit houses classrooms, offices and a staff room, for the sole use of students with complex
educational needs and special education staff. This creates both a physical and emotional
barrier to collaboration between this group of students and educators, and their ‘main­
stream’ peers, and a resulting lack of synergy between stakeholder goals and inclusive
practices.
 TEACHERS AND TEACHING 631

A consequence of separation has been a resistance by Soleil Secondary College special

education staff and students to the process of acculturation. Rather than being ‘included’
into the rest of the school through a process of collaboration and negotiation, those
located within the Special Education support unit perceived that they were required to
adjust, adapt and acquire new ways of thinking and behaving (Kunst & Sam, 2013), with
very little support. As a result they chose to separate themselves, an acculturation strategy
described by Schmitz and Berry (2011) that impedes collaboration rather than facil­
itates it.
This vignette identifies the significant ramifications of separating special educa­
tion within ILEs, as it reproduces rather than challenges traditional exclusionary
ways of schooling. This can impact the social and psychological well-being of
students and staff (Rudmin, 2003), as well as influence the vision for how collabora­
tion is enacted (as Brigette’s quotation illustrates). It highlights the need for effective
consultation and collaboration from the beginning, to ensure the educational needs
of all students, no matter how complex, can be met. It challenges architects, school
leaders and teachers to re-imagine the ‘innovative’ through an inclusive lens.

Patch 3: Aspirational curriculum design in a new ILE school

[The school] is guided by principles of personalised learning through powerful partnership

and authentic learning opportunities that demand deep challenge and inquiry.

Beginning with a brand new school creates opportunities for its leaders to rethink
curriculum, school organisational structures and ways of using new spaces. One new
school’s leaders unpacked the New Zealand Curriculum’s (NZC) (Ministry of
Education, 2007) Essence Statements and Objectives, plus its Values and Key
Competencies to extract the key and enduring aspects across learning areas as
a list of essential, cross curricular verbs. This resulted in a Learning Design Model
(LDM) (Wright, 2017). The LDM became the cohesive mechanism for all learning
and assessment, underpinning all course information, learning outcome statements
and instructions for learning. It is the common language for learning across the
school. It illustrates how educational innovation also means being attentive to the
learning infrastructure of curriculum collaboration, team teaching and curriculum
connection.
To use the LDM tool well, teachers continually reinterpret the school’s practices
of a curriculum during professional development and learning design planning
sessions. The LDM’s role is as an ‘overarching organising principle through which
curriculum, modules, lesson objectives and lesson plans are linked to the design’
(Wright, 2018, p. 90). As an essential core, the LDM is thus expected to lead to
‘chain[s] of actions that produce and reproduce success every day’ (Tobin, 2015,
p. 644) in students’ learning.
The LDM is therefore a cornerstone to the structures underpinning the school’s
aspirations for student academic success and looks ahead to their capabilities
beyond school. Another key factor in the fabric of school life is citizen qualities,
or Habits, a set of dispositional traits the school deliberately nurtures through the
632 J. CHARTERIS ET AL.

Learning Coach role. Coaches link habits to ideas and key attributes about being
a successful learner. The Habits and LDM, over time, have become embedded in
everyday learning contexts through teachers’ and leaders’ practices, complement­
ing each other.
To create learning contexts, teachers negotiate and devise modules connecting
up to three subjects, depending on the level of learning expected. The modules’
themes are expressions of students’ ideas about what they would like to learn.
Through modules, subject teachers address specific curriculum and/or NCEA
achievement standard objectives, aiming for cohesive learning across the contri­
buting subjects.
In some cases, teachers compromise on the scale of subject content. Instead, they
focus more on how relevant concepts, knowledge and skills that draw on specific
domains might enhance students’ abilities to produce cohesive knowledge, or ‘joined
up thinking’. Negotiation becomes a creative process, because teachers design
learning from different pedagogical and subject knowledge places than they might
otherwise where traditionally, they may have designed learning with subject content
and assessment in mind, rather than the curriculum objectives. On the other hand,
when teachers collaborate and negotiate with other subject colleagues, they find it is
no longer possible to develop connected modules from entrenched subject positions.
Breadth may be compromised for depth, for modules can span 6 weeks to 6 months.
Teachers working in cross-curricular teams noted greater mindfulness in nego­
tiating curriculum territories. Finding balance is not straightforward for less asser­
tive team members can feel silenced by negotiation dynamics and personalities.
Teachers report that developing positive working relationships is both time-
consuming and sometimes emotionally and professionally fraught and intense.
And, because modules are not full year, team relationships may exist for short
periods, but still require emotional effort. The intensity of these relationships links
to both the groundwork through collaboration negotiation, and the ongoing checks
and balances during a module’s progress. Some teams end up working in parallel
when finding middle ground has been difficult to achieve. This lack of synergy is
noticeable to students, for they have trouble finding connections too, frustrating
their efforts in big picture thinking. This returns us to the unifying principles of the
LDM, the school’s Habits, and their importance to the learning infrastructure.
This vignette points to some of the difficulties that may ensue when a patchwork quilt
is made with many hands. The negotiation between contributors and their decisions
about what counts in order to create a beautiful quilt, is similar to the efforts teachers
must make to connect with each other to avoid sticking with their own patches and not
finding ways to knit with others’ patches. Sticking to one’s own patch results in
a disconnect with the overall intended goal of the learning quilt, and becomes obvious
to those needing to use it.
 TEACHERS AND TEACHING 633

Patch 4: Adapting to collaborative planning and teaching: Pre-service teacher

views

The learning [from practicum] for me was in the collaborative teaching. I felt it was harder
to teach because there were more disruptions. It was more challenging for me as an initial/
beginning teacher . . . I should not be so much a teacher, but I should be a leader of learning.
I’m as much a learner as the students are. There’s power sharing (Chloe, student teacher).

An exploratory case study was conducted to scope the perspectives of six volunteer staff
and primary student teachers from the University of Waikato, New Zealand, on their
professional understandings, benefits, issues and support needed for teaching in ILEs.
Framed from a qualitative interpretivist methodological perspective, thematically ana­
lysed in-depth interviews identified a number of emerging themes.
Participants commented on the value of being on practicum in ILE classrooms to develop
a sense of what collaborative planning, organisation and pedagogical could look like as they
develop their own professional knowledge, practice and dispositions. They particularly
touched on the need to see good role models of practice and experience in action the way
‘it’s all about the teachers working together’ to make connections with real-life practice and
to transfer these skills to other practicum experiences that may or may not include ILE.
Collaborative teaching practices included maintaining ongoing communication with
colleagues and developing collegiality in sharing knowledge about learner abilities and
learning progress to meet diverse learning needs. This included ascertaining diverse group­
ings of learners and ways of engaging them depending on their abilities and levels for
different learning areas and at different times. Learners were encouraged to pursue their
learning interests through passion projects and inquiry-driven learning which meant student
teachers were learning alongside their learners on topics they were not familiar with. This
was an opportunity for them to re-examine their own traditional beliefs about teaching and
teacher-directed learning. The quote from Chloe (pseudonym) above highlights the shift in
her thinking from expectations of working in teacher-directed contexts to that where the
teacher is the leader of learning in an ILE context which is characterised by power-sharing
when working not only with learners but also with her colleagues. Experiencing these aspects
helped student teachers develop a sense of the rhythm of the ILE class, where each teacher
‘had specific roles’ as part of managing the size and diversity of learner abilities.
Collaborative teaching practices included teachers being open about their planning,
teaching and assessment practices to avoid being ‘insular’. This implied a deprivatisation
of practice; ‘it’s an open-door policy, anybody can come and go.’ Student teachers further
benefited from being able to model after two to three experienced teachers’ practice and
their teaching of particular curriculum areas in their ILE classroom.
While key findings suggested agreement on how important it was to learn about and
practice collaborative teaching in open, flexible classroom spaces, participants cautioned
that teacher planning and pedagogy continues to be paramount. Participants wanted
teacher educators in Initial Teacher Education to delve into ways of underpinning
collaborative pedagogical practices with theoretical and practical methods for under­
taking such work to support curriculum and assessment.
634 J. CHARTERIS ET AL.

This vignette outlines the ways student teachers view and adapts to new colla­
borative practices during their practicum in ILE classrooms. Aspects of professional
collegiality, communication, openness of practice and fluidity in meeting diverse
learner needs were highlighted to be essential for student teachers to understand
and experience. Few teacher educators have experience in ILE contexts, and few
have experience in designing practices that model collaborative/team teaching/co-
teaching ways of working (Duran et al., 2020). In part, this current situation may
relate to not only to the professional backgrounds of teacher educators, but also the
structures of universities, which may militate against the kinds of practices initial
teacher education students may need to foster.
This vignette on student teacher adaptation to collaborative/team teaching emphasises
the importance of being able to experience and see the different ways teachers work
together across planning, curriculum, teaching and assessment practices in a way that is
underpinned by the theoretical ideals of establishing ILE to foster 21st century learning
outcomes.

Patch 5. Agency in teacher collaboration: Awareness, accommodation and

appreciation

Teacher 1 (talking about Teacher 2): She is so brilliant, and talented and extremely brainy.
She’s got quite a different way of explaining and teaching some concepts to me. A lot of the
students who are excelling really enjoy her kind of more complex . . . (explanations/
teaching).

Teacher 2 (talking about Teacher 1): The good thing is that she is really good at talking. Most
of the common briefing is done by her and it is good for me because I get to learn from her,
because of the different style in the teaching.

The quotes above were contributed during interviews with science teachers collaborating
in an ILE science space. Four interconnected, dedicated laboratory spaces were arranged
in an ‘L’ shape with floor-to-ceiling glass cavity sliders, so that the spaces could be
sectioned off or opened to form larger spaces. The interviews were conducted as part
of a wider multi-case study involving three ILE secondary schools in Aotearoa, New
Zealand.
This study foregrounded teacher experience in teaching and learning in ILE in high
stakes assessment contexts (Trask, 2019). Teachers were asked about the ways they
managed their planning and shared the ILE space to facilitate teaching and learning.
What is interesting about the teachers’ observations of each other in the above quotes, is
that they were made in two separate interviews on different days, and that both teachers,
unbidden, sought to comment on their colleagues’ strengths, with each deferring to the
other over aspects of the teaching and learning process.
The ‘patch’ of this research story is framed around Biesta et al.’s (2015) concept of
teacher agency. In this sense, agency refers to the way teachers might act differently, with
and in their physical and social environments, to shape their responses to problematic
situations (Biesta et al. 2015). The quotes preceding this vignette point to how the
interplay of individual teacher efforts and attitudes might support effective, agentic
collaboration when teachers value each other’s strengths, and, given the available
 TEACHERS AND TEACHING 635

structural context and resources, accommodate and appreciate each other. Agency, in
other words, is not something that people possess as a capacity or competence, but is
about actions (Biesta and Tedder 2007, p. 137).
Collaboration has long been at the heart of teacher practice in formal and informal
contexts and across all types of Aotearoa New Zealand schooling environments (Hāwera
& Taylor, 2014). As well as being challenging, collaborative practice in ILE schools can be
inspiring because of the potential to support strengths-based approaches and opportu­
nities for observing and reflecting on different pedagogical approaches (Osborne, 2013).
For the teachers quoted above, their collaborative efforts were enhanced because they
appreciated each other’s disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical strengths. They also
appreciated the other’s different approaches to student relationships, which enhanced
their own. Together they designed innovative learning programmes offering diverse
science learners a range of scaffolded learning choices (Trask, 2019).
However, not all teachers find such a happy equilibrium when teamed up and
confronted with expectations for collaboration in ILE spaces as Study 3 above indicated.
As this study uncovered, robust professional dialogue about the types of attitudes and
efforts that might be helpful in establishing a collaborative culture is necessary to better
understand teacher agency in ILE classroom practices. Resources, professional learning
programmes, and practicum experiences which support the development of different
kinds of pedagogical practice resonate throughout the profession, including initial
teacher education. For example, teachers need support to view themselves as collabora­
tive—and to know what good or effective collaboration looks like for teaching and
learning in ILE. Support is also needed for experienced teachers in making the transition
to teaching and learning in open, shared, flexible spaces, especially when their entire
teaching experience to that point has been in individual classrooms. This includes
planning to use space collaboratively to support students to learn.
The discussion that follows draws together the threads from the vignettes, so that the
patchwork of shapes, colours, textures and fabric forms a picture illustrating aspects of
collaborative practices in ILE contexts across Aotearoa, New Zealand and Australia.

Patchworks of professional practices

This paper illustrates our collaborative reflections around practices that can support
teacher professional development. The research patchwork acts as a metaphor for
practice and process, using imagery to explore nuances of teacher collaborations in
ILE. This discussion is structured around three aspects of patchwork. First, we address
our research questions by exploring our findings to inform professional practice. We
distil key findings from our research patchwork to map aspects of collaboration that can
inform the work of leaders and teachers. Secondly, we consider patchwork as an
embodied research process and thirdly our nod to this article as a patchwork artefact.
Our ‘patchwork of practices’ metaphor became a cohesive device across the three levels of
this collaboration.
636 J. CHARTERIS ET AL.

Patchworking in the classroom: What can we learn about teacher

collaboration in ILEs?
Patch 1. Alignment in practices and philosophies
Moves to knock down walls, collapse classrooms together or reimaging school build­
ings as large hubs has resulted in the re-territorialisation of relationships between
teachers (Charteris et al.,). Just as there are new relations where teachers cannot lay
claim to one group as ‘their class’, the deprivatisation has intensified the pace of
pedagogical change for teachers. When teacher relationships reflect ‘relational synergy’
(Bradbeer, 2016, p. 78) there can be alignment through substantive collaboration.
Collaboration and in particular co-teaching in ILE involves putting pedagogical sup­
port or scaffolds in place for students to achieve and recognising the value of bringing
together the multiple realities and knowledge of colleagues in shared teaching spaces
(Charteris, 2019, online). The research suggests that collaboration can be challenging
for teachers with different philosophies. A well-articulated vision for collaborative
pedagogical work and coherence around a philosophy of teaching is important if
there is to be alignment in professional practice. This vignette highlights how colla­
boration in ILE requires alignment in philosophical and pedagogical practices. When
teachers work closely with peers who have different philosophies and practices, it can
challenge teachers to review what they hold as core beliefs, leading to their revision or
reinforcement.

Patch 2. Acculturation in inclusivity

Collaboration between special educators, senior leaders and teachers around design and
pedagogy is aspirational. It may be assumed that special educators can just assimilate into
the ILE and take up collaborative practices in the open spaces. Yet, when undertaking
school design, there is an opportunity for an acculturation process where ‘special educa­
tion’ practices can inform mainstream education. Specifically, modifications to design
and pedagogies that support the inclusion of students with high and complex educational
needs can be beneficial to all students. High-quality professional development is para­
mount to the success of collaboration, for professional perspectives to be shared and
explored across mainstream and special education sectors. In the second vignette it was
evident that the special education teachers were not adequately prepared with the knowl­
edge and expertise about ‘modern learning pedagogy’ and collaboration. Nor were there
opportunities for these teachers to engage with spatial affordances of the ILE prior to
occupancy, so they could plan how they would collaborate ahead of their students’
arrival. The need to strategically plan for collaboration and be open to amending ILE
practices so that they are inclusive across all spaces in the school is therefore a key
recommendation generated through Patch 2.

Patch 3. Aspirational curriculum design

When structures in a school enable teachers to collaborate and negotiate learning
modules, they are more likely to develop skills in cross-disciplinary curriculum provi­
sions. In turn, time to plan together makes learning more satisfying and successful for
 TEACHERS AND TEACHING 637

all concerned. The LDM, as a unifying tool, simplifies the framework for learning to the
extent that all staff and students have the same language for learning. Understanding
how to mitigate the effects of both disciplinary and professional egos, offers intellectual
and professional spaces for less experienced or assertive teachers to voice their dis­
ciplinary desires as modules are developed. When these power relations are in equili­
brium, complementary and cohesive learning and teaching is more likely to replace
parallel and fractured practices. And even when collaborations resulting in co-teaching
modules may be fluid and short-lived, intense and condensed working relationships
may contribute to highly cohesive professional staff relationships rather than fractured
or dysfunctional collaborative practices. Either way, the LDM appears to be a key
ingredient to the glue that holds this school’s collaborative pedagogical practices
together.

Patch 4. Adaptation in learning to teach collaboratively

Preservice teachers entering ILE are challenged to quickly adapt to collaborative planning
and teaching. Scholars recognise the urgency for students and new teachers to be well-
prepared for teaching in diverse spaces which have an emphasis on collaborative plan­
ning and pedagogical approaches, team teaching, and interactive assessment to better
support personalised learner needs (Nelson & Johnson, 2017).
The study contributed to informing the primary teacher preparation programme and
to how teacher educators and student teachers might adopt and adapt to opportunities
that ILE spaces might present for innovative curriculum and pedagogical practices. Such
work is important, for increasing numbers of classrooms are becoming larger and more
open with teachers expected to teach in teams. Student teachers, for example, wanted to
see collaborative team teaching modelled in action during their studies. However, tradi­
tional university teaching spaces and organisations make this difficult. Given the con­
tinuing changes in the nature of classroom spaces, it is clear that Initial Teacher
Education has to respond to evolving student teacher professional learning needs.

Patch 5. Agency in professional collaborations

In ILEs, teachers work together to share knowledge and resources within departments,
and more widely at professional conferences and on social media. Teachers are agentic
when they work individually and with others to shape their responses to problematic
situations. Innovative learning environments support (and require) more and different
types of sustained moment-by-moment teacher collaboration which can be challenging.
Agency is a key feature of this collaboration as power is negotiated between teachers.
Multiple factors impact on teachers’ agency and desire to co-teach, including individual
student–teacher relationships, feelings of ownership and authority over classroom spaces
and pedagogical decision-making processes, the time required to meet, as well as
increased visibility and scrutiny (Duran et al., 2020). Moreover, teachers are often
pressured to adapt to collaborative practice, with little choice about doing so (Alterator
and Deed 2013, Trask, 2017, 2019). One agentic way that teachers can view themselves as
638 J. CHARTERIS ET AL.

collaborative is to shape their practices and responses to colleagues using an appreciative

framework, thus drawing on diverse strengths in the team as they negotiate who is
responsible for different aspects of learning and teaching.

Conclusion
Patchworking is an embodied research practice. As a collective of researchers, we
connected monthly via Zoom to stitch together ideas, theories, practices and data. This
was a rich process as each of us brought our histories, research stories, preferences for
practice and ontology, enabling us to theorise our understanding of collaboration
through the vignettes we shared. We stitched, unpicked, restitched, and found new pieces
of research fabric to add to the whole. We initially struggled to work out how to connect
disparate research contexts and emphases. Settling on a patchworking metaphor framed
our collective work. We then applied it as a conceptual framework to the five study
vignettes. The process of patchworking acknowledged our different approaches to our
own collaboration and provided the fabric over which we laboured. We debated a range
of theoretical lenses and perceptions about ways in which collaboration functions in ILE
contexts in which practitioners are required to collaborate closely. For us, the patchwork
metaphor encapsulated our different but collective expertise in creating artefacts telling
a collaborative story about teacher collaboration.
Secondly, the article itself, initially ‘patchy’ in its construction, serves as an artefact
that stitches together a range of projects from Australia and NZ. The article is
a patchwork of projects, with each vignette a patch illustrating an account of collabora­
tion in ILE. The article connects patchworking process, practice and artefact, high­
lighting different examples of teacher collaboration across two countries and diverse
projects.
Third the metaphor applies as a heuristic that can be used to examine teacher
collaborations as a feature of pedagogy in ILE. Teachers stitch practices together through
the affordances of ILE, where they are expected to work closely together.
In summary, this article has presented a research patchwork for teacher professional
learning. Although the research studies have been undertaken in a range of Australasian
contexts, our patchwork of practices illustrates the dimensions of teacher collaboration
and how they can function in ILEs. A drone’s eye view of the patchwork reveals a fabric of
practices with variety: bumps, thicknesses, thinesses, colours and shades of the collabora­
tion terrain. Combining research in this way offers an embodied approach that can
inform teachers’ professional development. It is our intent that this paper opens up
further avenues for scholarly debate around the dimensions of collaboration in a new
generation of learning spaces.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
 TEACHERS AND TEACHING 639

Notes on contributors
Associate Professor Jennifer Charteris is Head of the Learning, Teaching and Inclusive Education
Department in the School of Education at the University of New England,Armidale, Australia. She
conducts research associated with the politics of teacher and student learning and identity
formation. Critical and poststructural theories inform much of her work. She researches in
collaboration with educational leaders, teachers and students.
Dr Noeline Wright is Senior Research Officer and Senior Lecturer at the University of Waikato. Dr
Wright is a teacher educator whose work centres on the secondary school sector. Her research
interests span digital technologies in secondary school settings, secondary schools as modern
learning environments, and possibilities for integrated learning for students. She has published on
pedagogy and digital technologies, social media in initial teacher education, and on new schools as
modern learning environments.
Dr Suzanne Trask a science educator, teacher educator, and education researcher. She has
extensive experience working with teachers in professional learning roles as well as expertise in
collaborative classroom-based studies. She has led collaborative Liggins Institute/ University of
Auckland curriculum development and PLD for the secondary science education sector. Suzanne’s
doctoral thesis examined how affordances in the national curriculum and high stakes New Zealand
national qualification might support diverse and personalized pathways for senior high school
science inquiry learning in innovative learning environments.
Dr Elaine Khoo is a senior research fellow at the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research
(WMIER) at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Her research interests include teaching and
learning with information and communication technologies (ICTs), effective online pedagogies,
online learning communities, participatory learning cultures, collaborative research. One of her
key life aspirations is to encourage teachers and learners to see the potential of different ICTs for
enhancing teaching and learning and how they can realistically adopt ICTs to transform their
teaching and learning practices
Dr Angela Page is a registered educational psychologist and works as a lecturer in Inclusive and
Special Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She has worked as a secondary and
specialist education teacher and advisor in New Zealand and the Pacific. Angela’s research
interests are in the areas of health and wellbeing for young people including mental health, and
the development of positive relationships.
Dr Joanna Anderson is Lecturer in Learning, Teaching Inclusive Education in the School of
Education at the University of New England, Armidale, Australia. She has more than 20 years’
experience in schools, where she worked as both a classroom teacher and school leader across in
the primary, secondary and special education sectors. Joanna has a growing body of work in the
area of inclusive education, as a researcher, teacher and consultant.
Professor Bronwen Cowie’s research is focussed on classroom interactions and learning, with an
emphasis on Assessment for Learning in science and technology classrooms and culturally
responsive pedagogy in science education. This aspect of her research is underpinned by a
sociocultural view of learning. She has explored the affordances of information and communica­
tion technologies in and for primary science and in the provision of feedback in writing. Student
teacher learning about assessment is another of her interests. Her research is carried out in
collaboration with colleagues and teachers and she values the depth of understanding and insight
that collaboration brings.

ORCID
Jennifer Charteris http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1554-6730
Noeline Wright http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3393-7460
640 J. CHARTERIS ET AL.

Elaine Khoo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4260-4553

Angela Page http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9857-9054
Joanna Anderson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6171-0909
Bronwen Cowie http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3578-0791

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