Activity 7

Andrews (1990) defines interdisciplinary collaboration as occurring "when different professionals, possessing unique knowledge, skills, organizational perspectives, and personal attributes, engage in coordinated problem solving for a common purpose" (cited in Berg-Weger &. Schneider, 1998).

When I completed my interdisciplinary connection map I see we actually have a large group to pull from:

This coggle diagram shows both the external and internal connections I feel that I have within my current role. In terms of the external connections,  I work with a few outside agencies mainly for the purpose of one student I have in my class high on the Autisim spectrum, but other than that my connections with outside agencies is scarce.


As the Literacy leader in my school I label myself as being somewhat expert when it comes to Literacy. Listening to the ThomasMcDonaghGroup. ( 2011) I understand that not being experts in all these fields is an advantage. We need to work with others to inform our practice. I would like to build  pathways toward interdisciplinary practice, pathways that lead me toward future focused principals such as the ones outlined by The New Zealand Curriculum . Treaty of Waitangi, inclusion, diversity, community engagement  (Ministry of Education, 2007) will give my students a holistic approach toward learning.  I believe I should expand the interdisciplinary connection with Tikanga Reo.

Currently, my school has one teacher who is of  Maori background. In our junior team, as default she plans most of our Te Reo sessions, planned a trip to the marare and facilitated Maori language week.  I would like to connect with this particular colleague and other great resources around my community in regards to bringing tikanga reo into my school and integrating it into every part of our programme. Finding people and getting them to come in and share their knowledge or expert skills. For instance I would love to have a practising and performing Kapa Haka group at the school. I am sure there are connections I could seek out to support me in starting this, with experts around protocals, waiata, history  etc. Alongside this it would be great to have a concrete and real connection to a working Marae. Our trip last year to a Marae was a non working marae but one that is used just for school trips and groups. Connection with all the resources, knowledge and mana in a working whanau/Marae would be such a great connection to have. 

I am in agreement with the clear conceptual model for effective collaboration that could apply to any interdisciplinary partnership outlined by Mulligan and Kuban (2015). They discuss the three elements that come together to make such a partnership successful. They state that workplace conditions are the hardest variable to control and is partly due to the deep set schemas of the adults who work within it.


A big barrier to reaching such integration is time. I feel in my own school, clear communication could be our downfall. We try our best but when time is of the essence we revert to long thread emails and multiple google docs instead of regular face to face communication or meetings. Mulligan and Kuban (2015) indicate that regular meetings and communication need to take place to enable a project to work or change to happen. Time is valuable and hard to come by source at the moment as term 4 holds Production as well as normal end of year madness, new students and end of year pressure form National Standards.  If a connection with a local marae was to be facilitated we would need to be stronger in this area to ensure success. I will need to make sure there is plenty of available time to meet, plan, communicate, and also reflect, in order to establish strong tikanga reo connections. 




REFERENCES:

Berg-Weger, M., &. Schneider, F. D. (1998). Interdisciplinary collaboration in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 34, 97-107.

Mulligan, L. M., & Kuban, A. J. . (2015). A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration. Retrieved from http://acrlog.org/2015/05/14/a-conceptual-model-for-interdisciplinary-collaboration

ThomasMcDonaghGroup. ( 2011, May 13). Interdisciplinarity and Innovation Education.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDdNzftkIpA