Tisha Grote

A Systems Thinking Approach Analysis: Narratives Educators Use to Describe Their Experiences Working with Other Educators Tisha Grote

The relationships that educators have with one another need attention in educational research. Not many individuals can say they have been a member of a successful team. Team learning is not well understood and it is poorly executed. This project seeks to examine why teams of educators do not work well in school building organizations. The purpose of this study is to explore educator relationships in the school building organization through the use of narratives with a systems thinking perspective (Senge, 1990, 2006). Several questions are set forth in this dissertation. The overarching research question that guides this study was: What are the types of narratives educators use to talk about their experiences working with other educators on teams in their school building organizations? Ancillary questions that shaped and guided this study include: 1. How do educators narrate their experiences to reveal, clarify, or explain working in teams? 2. Do educators? experiences on teams, whether educative or non-educative, lead to opportunities for growth? and 3. What meaning-making is occurring among the educators of a school building when they are on teams?