Collaborative Culture in a School: Contributions from Counseling

Abstract

Change processes focused on improving
educational inclusion are a necessary ele-
ment for schools. In this sense, cooperati-
ve learning appears to be a true innovation
for educational institutions, giving a valid
response for this issue. In order to pursue
this goal, collaborative counseling strate-
gies can be used, considering that students’
cooperation must be aligned with teachers’
cooperation and with the other agents in-
volved in educational communities. One
of these strategies is defined according to
a number of adaptable phases: (a) creating
the conditions in order to face the imple-
mentation of the cooperative project and
initial assessment of the teaching network;
(b) planning and implementation; (c) de-
veloping and monitoring the plan; (d) as-
sessing and proposing improvements. The
main goal of this research was to identify
and understand the essential implications
of this training proposal. To this end, we
undertook a case study in a school of the Community of Madrid, collecting informa-
tion extracted in interviews, focus groups,
reviewing documents, observing and
using surveys. Results highlighted an im-
pact on three main areas: school organiza-
tion, teachers’ professional development
and students’ learning.