Better collaborations to support children’s learning and development: how do we recognise learning teams?

By Dr Alison Buckler and Freda Wolfenden

How can the expertise of diverse actors be harnessed to ensure all children can access productive learning opportunities that support their aspirations? Over the past seven years we have been exploring this question with our partners at the Learning Generation Initiative (LGI). We have researched over one hundred projects and interventions that emphasise collaboration in their aim to better support children’s learning. Our shorthand for these projects is ‘learning teams’, but is this always accurate?

We discussed in a previous blog that because there is so much diversity in how these teams are formed, and how they function, and because there is no consistent conceptual framing or terminology to represent a central commitment to collaborative practice, the label ‘learning team’ can be hard to get a handle on. Clarifying forms of collaboration is important because there is increasing evidence to suggest that team working can have significant benefits for pupil learning. We need better tools for identifying learning teams so we can better understand how their potential can be realised to support different learning needs, in different contexts around the world.

Key Criteria for Identifying Learning Teams

Our most recent phase of work, developing in-depth case studies of four learning teams with colleagues from Nepal and Kenya, has adopted an activity theory lens. Activity theory aims to understand how human actions and interactions are socially situated, taking histories, culture, tools and language into account. Activity theory supports deeper understanding of learning teams because of its emphasis on exploring how people work together, the intended purpose of and motives behind the collaboration, and how these change over time.

This framing, in combination with what we have learned about collaborations through our longer-term work, has enabled the development of seven criteria for recognising learning teams. This blog introduces these criteria, illustrated by the four case studies from this phase of work.

1.     Learning teams recognise that achieving goals within SDG 4, involves consideration of other goals within the SDG framework.

Learning teams take a holistic view of what children need in order to learn. The Tayari project in Kenya, for example, brought together education and health professionals to support children’s readiness for school. Community health assistants operated out of early childcare centres, providing health advice and basic medications to parents of young children.

Consideration of other SDG goals can be incorporated as a longer-term focus too. Another of our case studies, the Textbook free Friday (TFF) initiative in Kathmandu, Nepal, aims to support the meaningful pursuit of decent work through bringing vocational, skills-based courses into the weekly curriculum. Led by local, skilled trainers, TFF also aims to connect young people to local professional opportunities and increase engagement and attendance to support school-completion.

2.     Learning teams value and leverage the skills, knowledge and expertise of different team members in pursuit of these goals.

Learning teams recognise that no one person can provide everything a young person needs to learn and thrive. For example, the Rupantaran project in Kathmandu, Nepal converted a field into a school-community farm to create a local, sustainable, profit-making and educative agricultural initiative. The learning team included teachers, students, parents and farmers each contributing specific skills and expertise to establish, expand and manage the farm and its produce, and deepen collective learning within the community.

3.     Learning teams are embedded within the histories and values of their context.

There is no single model of a learning team, nor can successful learning teams necessarily be replicated in a new context. Our research shows that learning teams develop around the specific needs and norms of their context. For example, the ALOT-Change project in Nairobi, Kenya, which aimed to support young people’s learning and school experience in informal settlements, emphasised an approach to dealing with the intersectional challenges of poverty that required a complex combination of formal education and specific local knowledge. Involving Community Advisory Committees was essential to ensure that the appropriate people from the community were included in the learning team.

4.     The shared focus of learning teams, and roles within them, may shift as the team and context evolve.

Evolution of learning teams can be a positive and generative feature, in response to changes in the context and needs of the learners, as well as in response to tensions within the team. For example, the leadership of Rupantaran in Nepal was handed over to a local women’s collective, leading to the incorporation of a community revenue-sharing stream in addition to the original learning objectives. The ALOT-Change project in Kenya initially expanded to include boys as well as girls, and later moved to support the mental health of parents, who had realised through their engagement with the project that they were also experiencing challenges.

5.     Learning teams do not need to be co-located in time, place or space.

In activity theory, the emphasis is not on the group of people, but the activity they are engaged in, in pursuit of a mutually valued purpose. Members of the Textbook free Friday learning team, for example, include teachers and trainers working on the school site, but also trainers working off-site, members of the PTA, academics at Kathmandu University, and professionals at Kathmandu Metropolitan City offices. Tayari had members working at different levels (national, sub-national and local) who had different contributions to the effectiveness of the learning team, but did not directly collaborate with each other: in many learning teams, some members may never meet, but the activity is collectively upheld in service of the shared purpose of more engaging and meaningful learning for children.

6.     Teams might have cycles of activity and dormancy.

Learning teams are not necessarily bounded by the timelines of funded projects. While projects are helpful in identifying where learning teams might be operating, these teams often build on existing collaborations, or new collaborations continue beyond funded periods. The ALOT-Change learning team in Kenya capitalised on existing networks within the communities, and new interactions between different groups have continued beyond the formal end of the programme. Counsellors, for example, have continued to provide counselling services to parents.

7.     Learning refers to both the overarching goal (children’s learning) and the expansive learning within a team, in support of this goal.

In learning teams, members are open to reflecting on and developing their individual and collective knowledge. In the ALOT-Change project in Kenya, for example, mentors and the counsellors realised that there was a gap between what learners were telling them, and what their parents understood about the learners’ lives. They initiated monthly community meetings to support more collaborative approaches to problem solving and collective pursuit of the project’s aims. In both Tayari in Kenya, and TFF in Nepal, formal terms of reference were developed as a deeper understanding and valuing of the skills and expertise of different team members was identified.

Looking Ahead: Expanding Learning Team Research

Plans for our next phase of work involve working closely with learning teams in a way that combines local activity systems, nested in a broader systems level approach. This will enable us to dig deeper into how and why team-based approaches are introduced and sustained within education systems, and the different national and local governance structures, policies, resources, costs and cultures that impact on teams’ goals and functioning in service of better foundational learning experiences and outcomes.

This next phase will also continue to test and refine the criteria for identifying learning teams and perhaps, more importantly, explore which of these criteria are most critical for success in relation to supporting children’s learning and outcomes.

This research has been generously supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and the What Works Hub for Global Education.

Further reading

For more information about Textbook Free Friday in Nepal, see here.

For more information about Rupantaran in Nepal, see here.

For more information about the ALOT-Change project in Kenya, see here.

For more information about the Tayari project in Kenya, see here.