Trust and Go: Enhancing Collaborative School Cultures Through Improv

Abstract

Contemporary educational leaders are tasked with supporting their teams, with limited time and resources, to unite and thrive through political, social, economic, and environmental instability. Educational scholars and leaders agree upon the need to foster collaboration within school communities; the practices for achieving this outcome are not always clear. The primary research question of my integrative literature review is: How can improvisational theory support educational leaders to enhance collaboration within school cultures? Secondary questions include:
 

• What are the guiding principles of improvisation?
• What does the research reveal about leading collaboration within schools?
• What practices surface because of this research?

I conducted an integrative literature review and used thematic analysis within a constructivist approach to examine whether the principles of improvisation can offer leaders insight into practices for establishing and sustaining collaborative school cultures. Improvisational theatre offers leaders a lens to examine the work of developing and sustaining collaborative cultures. After an extensive review of two bodies of literature, I identified four themes common to improvisation and leading collaborative school cultures: Connect, Define the Rules, Share the Lead, and Play the Game. Nested within each of these themes, I uncovered eight practices school-based leaders can apply to enhance their school’s collaborative cultures: Use Time and Space Creatively; Create Opportunities for Meaningful Dialogue; Co-create Norms; Articulate Vision, Values, and Goals; Integrate Evidence-Informed Pedagogical Practices; Provide Shared Leadership; Amplify Strengths; and Fail Forward. The model that emerged from this research will prove useful to school-based administrators and other leaders looking to empower their teams to solve problems and innovate in community.