Professional Collaboration in Teacher Support Teams—A Study of Teacher and Nurse Educators’ Creative Problem-Solving in a Shared Space for Professional Development

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of Teacher Support Teams (TSTs) established to generate peer support and collaboration among teacher and nurse educators at a Norwegian university. In TST groups, educators share experiences from their own teaching practices and support one another in solving work-related problems. By the use of interaction analysis, three types of support were identified: (1) sharing solutions to teaching-related problems, (2) providing personal and emotional support and (3) creative problem-solving. The findings show that the participants’ dissimilar professional backgrounds and their positioning as “peers” rather than “experts” functioned as important drivers for creative problem-solving processes.