collaboration and communication. It created some new opportunities too. The
Deputy Principal and I worked on a student survey he wanted to administer to the
Year Nine and Ten cohorts on behalf of the school. We processed several iterations,
the teacher participants had an opportunity to reflect on the items, and they provided
useful feedback in regard to the length and complexity of the items. In this way, we
were building the shared expertise referred to by Tsui and Law ( 2007 ). Sensing too
that verbal feedback given to an outsider (rather than a staff member) would pos-
sibly be more forthright, the Deputy Principal and I discussed the possibility of
focus groups of Year Nines, Tens and parents. These groups and the survey yielded
valuable qualitative feedback that informs the programme evaluation dimension of
the partnership. I will now briefly consider some of thefindings relevant to the
concept of an educative school-university partnership.
20.9 Key Findings that Bear on the School-University
Partnership
The research literature on partnerships highlights the importance of reciprocity, and
in this regard, the scope to share information and offer respectful critique (Moss
2008 ) is important. Ideally, teachers engaged in a school-university partnership
should benefitby“learning [which is] a core component of partnerships”(Callahan
and Martin 2007 , p. 136). This learning may be derived from being directly part of
the research (as the deputy Principal was), or by participating in focus group
discussions (as the staff participants were). Another source of learning is to view
some relevantfindings, and for this purpose, just a small sample has been chosen.
These are presented in three parts, thefirst being to share some critique, the second
to consider what participants can learn by their response to change, and the third, to
reflect on what motivates them to change. All of these may be considered as
feedback, with some thoughts about next steps.
20.9.1 Some Critical Points
- Teachers overestimate the digital capability of their students, and assume that
young people necessarily know their way around computing and digital devices.
This plays out in the classroom when teachers tell students to seek the help of
their peers. The staff focus group verified that certainly at the outset, teachers
assumed more on behalf of students than was warranted. It was also confirmed
that teachers call on students to help each other to master the required technical
or computing skills. While these participants seem to believe they now no longer
make these assumptions, the student focus groups indicated this continues to be
308 L. Benade et al.