Grad Attribute 10-11 | geoffmartyngdte03

Graduate Attributes 10 and 11

Foster communities of practice, identifying and sharing good practices across the organisation and beyond.

Foster collaboration and collegiality in order to catalyse team solutions to enhance learning.

The three C's of collaboration, collegiality and communities of practice just make good sense to me - I belive they produce the best results in teaching and learning, in terms of student success, staff career/personal satisfaction and institutional success and financial viability.

I have found that an increased focus on learner-centred education tends to result in more collaborative, collegial teacher activity. I.e. once we focus on what's best for the learner we can leave behind personal, political and protective behaviours that may hinder or prohibit effective practice in educational insitutions.

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Situations in which I have fostered these three C's include:

Working with my BSS team in the Designing for Learning Success (D4LS) review in 2015-16
Team meetings, part of a self-managing team - active contributor, offer help where needed
Collaboraton with colleagues in the research, writing and publishing of Career Information Sheets while working at AUT (e.g. Future Career in Sustainable Enterprise sheet)
Collaboration with colleagues when creating and writing new programmes - e.g. KEYS to Leadership Success
Supporting and participating in team-building and social events with colleagues
Attending CDANZ professional meetings and events such as the Conference in Wellington 2015 (see Graduate Attribute 9 for more on my Professional Development attendance).

My personal approach to collaboration is in many ways a customer service approach, in that I tend to listen to the needs and views of other people before expressing my own. Other keys to making collaboration work, in my experience, are: endeavouring to carry out my tasks/work on time and to a high standard; keeping to agreed parameters and timeframes (while retaining som flexiliblity); keeping personalities out of things; and maintaining a sense of humour.