This document discusses effective collaborative skills and defines different types of collaborative relationships including coaching, consultation, supervision/mentorship, and teaming. It provides details on the key components, processes, and outcomes of each type of relationship. Effective collaboration requires specific knowledge, interpersonal skills, and attitudes/values. Developing these collaborative abilities involves a progression from lower to higher complexity learning experiences such as readings, lectures, simulations, and ultimately engaging in supervised collaborative relationships with reflection.

1. Effective Collaborative skills

2. What is the difference between
a group and a team?

4. Teaching Effective
Collaboration Skills
Adapted from
Laurie Dinnebeil
Institute, Chapel Hill, NC

5. Collaboration Defined
● Each person both teaches and learns.
● Mutual respect for the role of each individual
is implied and demonstrated.
● A strong degree of reciprocity underlies each
of these relationships.
● A joint goal helps to serve as a roadmap to
collaborative work.

6. Major Types of Collaborative
Relationships
● Coaching
● Consultation
● Supervision/Mentorship
● Teaming

7. Coaching
Key Components of a Coaching Model
● Iterative and Interactive
● Reflection and Feedback
● Refine existing practices
● Develop new skills
● Promote continuous self-assessment and
learning

8. Process of Coaching
1. Agree to participate in coaching relationship
2. Identify goals, expected outcomes and
criteria for measuring learner’s mastery
3. Observe one another, reflect on current
and/or new skills,
4. Learn and practice new skills, provide
feedback
5. Evaluate success of coaching plan

9. Consultation
● An indirect, triadic service delivery model in which a
consultant and a consultee work together to address
an area of concern or common goal for change.

10. Process of Consultation
1. Gaining entry—clarify need for consultation and
process, identify expected outcomes, delineate
roles
2. Gather additional information
3. Use results of assessment to formulate observable
and measurable outcomes
4. Identify possible strategies; select one or more
5. Consultee implements selected strategies
6. Evaluate success of plan

11. Supervision/Mentorship
● Professional relationships designed to
support knowledge and skill development,
often in younger or less seasoned
practitioner.
● Effective supervision or mentoring
relationships are characterized by reflection,
collaboration, and regularity.

12. Process of
Supervision/Mentorship
1. Preparing for discussion
2. Greeting and reconnecting
3. Opening the dialogue and finding the agenda
4. Information gathering and focusing on details
5. Formulating hypotheses about the meaning of the
issue being discussed
6. Considering next steps—discuss options and
make decision about issue.
7. Closing— acknowledge end of session, briefly
recap, consider what lies ahead

13. Descriptors of an Effective Team
(Friend & Cook, 2000)
● articulated goal understood by all team members,
● a climate in which all team members feel respected
and valued,
● recognition that individual team members are
accountable to the group,
● effective group process and “ground rules” that lay
the foundation for the team’s work,
● appropriate leadership skills of all team members.

14. Process of Teaming
1. Coming together—acknowledge role of
team, clarify goals and objectives
2. Identify problem and gather information
about it
3. Generate possible solutions; plan for
solution
4. Plan for and implement solution
5. Evaluate success of solution

15. Outcomes of Collaborative
Models
Coaching
●Skill-based
●Focus on acquisition,
fluency, maintenance
generalization
Consultation
●Supporting changes in
learning environments
●Supporting systems level
change
Supervision/Mentorship
●Support a practitioner’s
ability to self-reflect on
the work and her reaction
to it.
Teaming
●Can focus on all of the
above—teaming is a
broader construct

16. Requisite Knowledge, Skills
and Dispositions
Knowledge of
● One’s discipline
● Typical/atypical person
development
● Setting and child’s
environment
● The collaborative
process

17. Interpersonal Style
Successful collaborators are…
● Flexible, adaptable approach to interaction
● Able to consider others’ perspectives and are able
to set aside their own beliefs or expectations if
they interfere with a productive working
relationship
● Are objective and make sound decisions based
on the reality of a situation.

18. Interpersonal Skills
● Successful collaborators…
● put others at ease and are viewed as genuine and
respectful
● are reflective and can engage in active listening
● ask good questions and provide/accept appropriate
feedback from others.
● are aware of the nonverbal behaviors that support or
undermine interpersonal relationships.
● understand and can apply principles of group processing
and problem-solving to their work with others.
● Successful collaborators know how to “win friends
and influence others.”

19. Attitudes, Values, and
Dispositions
Successful collaborators…
● Are ethical practitioners
● Are highly cognizant of their own values and biases
● Possess equal amounts of self-confidence and humility
● Appreciate that both partners possess unique knowledge and
skills
● Are curious and eager learners
● Appreciate that they are guiding another person; they are not in
control
● Understand that being a knowledgeable resource is not the same
as being a “know it all”.

20. Preparing Individuals for
Collaborative Work
● Preparing individuals for work with other
adults is complex and requires experiences
along many different levels
● The kinds of learning experiences needed to
support knowledge, skill, or attitude/value
acquisition differs in complexity.

21. Low High
Attitudes,
Values
Skill
Knowledge
Awareness
• Reading
• Lectures
• Guided notes
• Completing case studies
• In-class/In-session simulations
Engaging in a collaborative relationship
under the supervision of a professional;
reflecting on the experience
Observing other professionals engaged
in collaborative relationships and
analyzing their behavior
Complexity of synthesis and application required
Desired
Impact
(Learning
outcomes
from
low
to
high)
Examples of Training Approaches and Learning Activities for Building Knowledge
and Skill Related to the Collaborative Process (Adapted from Harris, 1980
and McCollum & Catlett, 1997)