Work Sessions & Focus Groups

October 2016, March 2017, April 2017, and October 2017

The Collaborative was born in early 2016 with the objective of fostering a culture of engagement among Social Science and Humanities (SSH) educators of all instructional sectors. The Collaborative aims to carry out this mission in a way that fits educators’ specific needs by offering them collaborative opportunities that are rooted in a thoroughly researched, tested and validated model.

In a series of initial work sessions and focus groups between October 2016 and October 2017, stakeholders emphasized that in order to create and curate mutually beneficial knowledge translation relationships between K-12 and SSH educators The Collaborative needs an environment that (i) enables participation at a very low personal costs for educators, (ii) supports collaborations and ensures that they are structured so as to be meaningful, and (iii) epitomizes best practices in community engagement. The Collaborative purposes to develop this environment, supported by adequate digital and human resources.

In initial consultations, stakeholders have also identified the role of facilitators to moderate and enable connections as central to ensuring the quality and success of cross-sector collaborations. The proposed environment is thus not an “education platform” or a “learning tool” for educators or students. The collaborative platform uses a digital interface to create a gateway to a real-life “commons” where educators can find support and meaningful collaborative opportunities with actual individual educators.