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versión impresa ISSN 0102-4698versión On-line ISSN 1982-6621

Educ. rev. vol.37  Belo Horizonte  2021  Epub 23-Nov-2021

https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-469832536 

Dossier: TEACHER EDUCATION AND PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE - TIMES, TENSIONS AND INVENTIONS

SUPERVISION AND COLLABORATION MODALITIES IN PORTUGUESE SCHOOLS: THE DISCOURSES AND PRACTICES OF TEACHERS IN EDUCATION CONTEXTS

ANA DE LURDES VIDEIRA SÉRGIO1 
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1496-2935

MARIA JOÃO MOGARRO2 
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5841-9280

1 Institute of Education, University of Lisbon, Portugal. <sergioana64@gmail.com>

2 Institute of Education, University of Lisbon, Portugal. <mjmogarro@ie.ulisboa.pt>


ABSTRACT:

As part of the National Program for Promoting School Success, school clusters in Portugal have developed plans with local strategic actions to promote student learning success. To this end, continuous on-the-job training was provided, adjusted to the needs identified by teachers in each organic unit and in line with the previously established priorities. The study aimed to understand this process, especially the pedagogical organization of teachers. The article presents the conclusions resulting from the qualitative content analysis carried out to sixty reports produced by teachers, in training context, in 2017/2018, regarding the following dimensions of analysis: representations of supervision and collaboration; supervision and collaboration practices in use in intermediate school structures - groups, departments and class councils; potentialities and constraints to supervision and collaboration in educational organizations and representations of on-the-job training. The results show the growing disconnection of the concept of supervision from inspection and control actions and its gradual approach to modalities of peer and collaborative work. The teachers' speeches also express the weak presence of modalities of supervision of teaching practice in intermediate structures and the little robustness of teamwork. They consider that both processes - supervision and collaboration - can be used as strategies to enhance professional development. Teachers see the need for change in the way school work is organized and value the spaces for in-context training.

Keywords: Supervision; collaboration; professional development; on-the-job training

RESUMO:

No âmbito do Programa Nacional de Promoção do Sucesso Escolar, os agrupamentos de escolas, em Portugal, elaboraram planos contemplando ações estratégicas locais conducentes à promoção do sucesso das aprendizagens dos alunos. Com este objetivo, foi disponibilizada formação contínua, em contexto de trabalho, ajustada às necessidades sinalizadas pelos professores em cada unidade orgânica e em convergência com o desenho de prioridades previamente estabelecido. O estudo pretendeu compreender este processo, em especial as modalidades de organização pedagógica dos professores. O artigo apresenta as conclusões resultantes da análise qualitativa de conteúdo realizada a sessenta relatórios produzidos pelos professores, em contexto de formação, em 2017/2018, no que se refere às seguintes dimensões de análise: representações da supervisão e da colaboração; práticas de supervisão e de colaboração em uso nas estruturas intermédias das escolas - grupos, departamentos e conselhos de turma; potencialidades e constrangimentos à supervisão e à colaboração nas organizações educativas e representações da formação em contexto de trabalho. Os resultados evidenciam a crescente desvinculação do conceito de supervisão das ações de inspeção e controlo e a sua gradual aproximação a modalidades de trabalho entre pares e em colaboração. Os discursos dos professores expressam, também, a débil presença de modalidades de supervisão da prática letiva nas estruturas intermédias e a pouca robustez do trabalho em equipa. Consideram que ambos os processos, de supervisão e colaboração, podem apresentar-se como estratégias potenciadoras do desenvolvimento profissional. Os professores perspetivam a necessidade de mudança na forma de organização do trabalho escolar e valorizam os espaços de formação em contexto.

Palavras-chave: Supervisão; colaboração; desenvolvimento profissional; formação em contexto de trabalho

RESÚMEN:

En el marco del Programa Nacional de Promoción del Éxito Escolar, los clústeres escolares de Portugal han elaborado planes que contemplan acciones estratégicas locales conducentes a promover el éxito del aprendizaje de los estudiantes. Con este objetivo, se brindó formación continua, a desarrollar en el contexto laboral, ajustada a las necesidades indicadas por los docentes en cada unidad orgánica y en convergencia con el diseño de prioridades previamente establecido. El estudio tuvo como objetivo comprender este proceso, especialmente las modalidades de organización pedagógica de los docentes. El artículo presenta las conclusiones resultantes del análisis de contenido cualitativo realizado sobre sesenta informes elaborados por el profesorado, en el contexto de la formación, en el curso académico 2017/2018, respecto a las siguientes dimensiones de análisis: representaciones de supervisión y colaboración; prácticas de supervisión y colaboración en uso en estructuras de escuelas intermedias: grupos, departamentos y consejos de clase; potencialidades y limitaciones para la supervisión y colaboración en organizaciones educativas y representaciones de formación en el lugar de trabajo. Los resultados muestran la creciente desconexión del concepto de supervisión de las acciones de inspección y control y su enfoque gradual de los métodos de trabajo entre pares y en colaboración. Los discursos de los profesores también expresan la escasa presencia de modalidades supervisoras de la práctica docente en estructuras intermedias y la escasa solidez del trabajo en equipo. Eles consideran que tanto los procesos de supervisión como de colaboración pueden presentarse como estrategias que potencian el desarrollo profesional. Los docentes perciben la necesidad de cambiar la forma en que se organiza el trabajo escolar y valoran los espacios de formación en contexto.

Palabras clave: Supervisión; colaboración; desarrollo profesional; formación en contexto de trabajo

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the emphasis and visibility given to supervision and collaboration by public educational policies are undeniable, assuming themselves as strategic actions supporting the reorganization of teachers' working methods and the improvement of their professional practices. In this first quarter of the 21st century, the Ministry of Education invested in the creation of a National Program for Promoting School Success (2016/2018), delegating to school clusters the election of priorities for continuous training, in order to improve and strengthen the quality of teaching and learning processes and, consequently, to consolidate school success rates. As a result of this signaling, through the preparation of plans to promote school success, a set of training actions were developed, in a work context, which aimed to empower teachers and increase the sharing, discussion and analysis of teaching methodologies and strategies in response to the need to prepare teachers and organizations to better address local problems. This measure contributed to the accountability of the educational territories for public education policies, leading teachers to reflect together on ways of organizing school work in intermediate structures - departments, groups, and class councils - as places for strategic planning of educational action. The programming and orientation of four training courses, in four school clusters located in the Greater Lisbon region, gave us the opportunity to make contact, over the course of a school year, with different groups of teachers in office and in a variety of positions - departmental and group coordinators, coordinators of class directors, class directors of primary, secondary and vocational education. It should be noted that this entire training period was planned and developed in close articulation with the doctoral project then underway, which focused on the modalities of supervision and collaboration in use in an educational territory and their contributions to the development of teachers' professional practice. Thus, the contacts established over a year with teachers from different school clusters in the Lisbon region have greatly contributed to strengthen the interest and curiosity in deepening the representations (Moscovici, 2000; Sarmento, 2000) of teachers in several areas, particularly with regard to the binomial supervision and collaboration, the modalities of supervision and collaboration in use in intermediate structures, the identification of potentials and constraints to supervisory and collaborative action, as a strategy to promote professional development. Finally, it is important to highlight the contributions of on-the-job training to the implementation of structured processes of supervision and collaboration, in response to the needs identified by the educational territories. We should also highlight the contribution of these courses in improving our sensitivity and understanding of the themes under analysis, as well as the gain in maturity and reflexivity gained in the way teachers and organizations take ownership of these processes and integrate them into their ways of life.

In summary, with the set of training actions that were developed we intended to understand a set of aspects related to the organization and preparation of pedagogical practices, aspects that are embodied in the following question - how do schools and teachers appropriate the directives issued by the Ministry, particularly with regard to the organization and preparation of pedagogical processes, according to supervisory and collaborative logics, what do they do and how? It is more important to understand how and why institutions and the teachers who work in them appropriated it, and what leads them, or not, to the recognition and inscription of that need. It is about understanding, therefore, if this need is real or fictional, that is, if it corresponds to a feeling and a real desire expressed by teachers, or if it is a rhetorical artifice, incompatible with the organization of work in educational structures, and, therefore, of weak educational and social relevance and usefulness.

SUPERVISION AND COLLABORATION: WHAT PROCESSES ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

The modalities of supervision, in use in educational territories, show the fields and horizons of meaning intended for the organization, planning and social and political regulation of teachers' pedagogical practices, thus translating the movement of assimilation and accommodation that subjects daily perform in the search for processes of balance and adaptation to the social environment and local culture. Thus, the modalities (of being, knowing how to do, knowing how to be) provide the meanings and limits to the actions of the subjects: they legitimize and strengthen or weaken and make unfeasible the concretization of the forms of action and association of the teachers in the light of a local pedagogical and curricular matrix.

Throughout the article, the concept of supervision will be understood as an action of regulation, support and guidance of pedagogical practice at the service of transformation and professional development of teachers in the contexts where they work, according to a formative and humanistic matrix in line with the development given to the concept by different authors. Thus, we invoked the views of Alarcão and Roldão (2010), Vieira and Moreira (2011), Alarcão and Canha (2013) and Roldão (2014) to capture the axis on which supervision focuses. We also understand it as a regulatory strategy and a driver of critical thinking and the emergence of educational environments conducive to the joint planning, implementation and evaluation of teaching practices, in a sustained manner in space and time, helping teachers to question the how and why of their actions, referring them to a greater care with the preparation of teaching processes in conjunction with the purposes present in the pedagogical performance. Thus, supervision may be used as a formative device that contributes to the guidance and improvement of teaching action, as well as to the development of professional knowledge embedded in the action of teaching. At the same time, supervision emerges as a supporting action in decision-making in complex scenarios, promoting adaptation, a problematizing and research attitude, dialogue among peers, and the preparation of teaching professionals to take on new roles, in a continuous search for personal and professional development in conceptual convergence with Vieira (2006, p.16) "which gives supervision a potentially critical direction", valuing the need to resist and act strategically in highly uncertain contexts typical of educational actions.

Another key concept is collaboration, understood by us as collaborative interaction (Alarcão, 2014, p.23), refocusing it within the framework of the actions developed either within structured supervision processes, underway in intermediate structures - groups, departments and class councils - or occurring outside them, that is, spontaneously, in contexts and environments in which teachers interact with their partners and together build horizons of commitment, projecting purposes for common benefit. In this regard, we highlight the notion of collaboration presented by Boavida and Ponte (2002), which presupposes the same intentionality and balance expected in the logic of collaborative interaction, which aims to align the starting objectives, the processes to be developed and the goals to be achieved:

Underlying the idea of collaboration is also the idea of a certain mutuality in the relationship: everyone has something to give and something to receive from working together. If the relationship is very unbalanced, with some giving a lot and receiving little and vice versa, it is problematic to attribute to this activity a collaborative character. (p.6)

Thus, collaboration dialogues democratically with supervision, converging both in the intersubjective game present in the work of teachers, allowing us to understand the potentialities and constraints associated with both processes, namely the greater or lesser presence of these devices in schools, also in relation to the representations that the actors have about these concepts, their working conditions within the structures and organizations, the school culture and the leaderships present. Our view thus goes beyond the exclusively political discourse that decrees as advantages of supervisory and collaborative work the promotion of students' academic success and teachers' professional development. Therefore, we consider it essential to understand the ideology of supervision and collaboration in educational organizations, the potentialities and challenges associated with the implementation of these processes based on the experiences of teachers, emerging in the places where they practice their profession. The exploration of this path will also allow us to understand the closeness or divergence between teachers' perceptions and the theoretical propositions/learning produced by research, particularly about the faces of supervision and forms of manifestation of collaboration in educational organizations: artificial, authentic, forced collaboration, as Hargreaves (1998) states:

However, in practice, what is called collaboration or collegiality can take very different forms: team teaching, collaborative planning, peer coaching, mentoring relationships, professional dialogue, and collaborative action research, to name but a few. More informally, they can take the form of conversations in the teacher's lounge or outside the classroom, help and advice regarding resources, and countless other small but meaningful actions. (p. 22)

In the micropolitical analysis of the functioning of educational organizations (Costa, 2000), supervision and collaboration appear associated with bureaucratic organizational power and control, as well as with administrative constraints and determinations to which teachers are alien and often mobilized and instrumentalized in order to achieve institutional goals, usually defined externally by third parties. Thus, the implementation of structured processes of supervision and collaboration often have the face of co-optation because it has not been experienced as necessary by teachers and there is no committed vision of the educational actors to a local educational project, as well as the objectives and goals to be achieved through it.

METHODOLOGICAL OPTIONS

Our research methodology is based on the interpretative and phenomenological paradigm and on content analysis with a view to interpreting and understanding the representations of the subjects, as social actors, concerning the binomial supervision and collaboration and their contributions to the organization of teachers' work. Thus, the subjects assumed a strategic relevance and interest in the research, since they were the ones who allowed us to understand the multidimensionality of their thinking and acting. Thus, the actions developed during the training and the reports that accompanied them expressed consensuses and dissensus, contradictions and dilemmas, regarding supervision and collaboration, as categories more or less present in the ways teachers organize their daily work.

The reports produced at the end of the training, by sixty teachers from the four school clusters, allowed us to analyze their representations of the nature of supervision and collaboration, the potentials and constraints attached to their use, and the difficulties in their implementation. Thus, this analysis also made it possible to deepen the meanings attributed by the subjects to the context where they are, taking them into account in the understanding and analysis of the ways in which they exercise their profession. Thus, we understood the subjects, participants in the study, as identitary and plural rationalities (Sarmento, 2000) capable of defining, individually and in groups, meanings for their actions, outlining strategic behaviors by reference to the context where they are. We were interested, therefore, in the meanings that the actions have for each of the subjects - by reference to themselves and others - and for the organizations as a whole, putting into dialogue commitments and conflicts, tensions and desires, embodied in the universe of human actions as social facts, naturally culturalized and politicized. Aided by the categories of hermeneutic analysis (Gadamer, 1999; 2001; Ricoeur, 2018a; 2018b), with the focus on the understanding and interpretation of speech and texts, we intend to access the plurality of presentations and manifestations of language, as constitutive forms of the modes of existence of subjects in the world, articulating them with their worldviews, perceptions and representations, expressed in multiple codes that link actors to the house where they live. We resize the space "home" by allocating it to institutional contexts and to the structures where teachers work - schools, those vital spaces where they communicate and offer themselves to understanding, that is, to the awareness and knowledge of each other - in the defining aggregation of the common identity and in the constitutive alterity of difference, in an effort of approach and conversation that is nothing more than an exercise of language and interpretation.

As we mentioned, our action was developed in four school clusters; in these four scenarios of continuous training, different educational actors gave voice to multiple ways of exercising the profession, framed by the curricular and pedagogical guidelines present in the structuring documents of the school clusters' collective action - Educational Project(s) of the cluster(s), Multi-Year Improvement Plan(s) and Plans for promoting school success. These documents announce different curricular, evaluative and pedagogical options that legitimize forms of school work organization and collegial leadership (Sanches, 2002, 2006) in intermediate structures - groups, departments and class councils - favoring or conditioning different ways of teachers' work and forms of interaction with their peers.

Boxes 1 and 2 below clarify the aspects related to the construction of the universe of participants that served as the basis for the study. The four school clusters are represented by the acronyms Alpha, Beta, Gama and Delta, with one class per cluster. From among the teachers in each class (about 25 per class), the 15 reports considered most significant for the richness of the reflections made by their authors were selected, for a total of 60 participants.

The selected teachers per class were assigned codes, which translate into the acronyms shown in Box 1.

Box 1 Coding of participants 

These acronyms are in accordance with the functions that the teachers exercise, generally adding them to the exercise of the teaching activity. Thus, to identify the authors of the speeches, the class attended (Alfa, Beta, Gama and Delta) is followed by the acronym assigned to each of the participants and the order number given to them in the group to which they belong (considering the pair grouping acronym / function acronym).

Box 2 Schools, participants per school, assigned positions and training hours 

In order to triangulate the data collected through the analysis of the discourses of the sixty participants and, thus, enable the presentation of the results obtained, we defined the categories and subcategories of discourse analysis (Amado, 2014; Bardin, 2014; Esteves, 2006) and then cut out and selected the units of record, identifying them according to the codes previously mentioned. The nomenclature found by the authors safeguards the participants' anonymity, and the data processing contained in the teachers' reports results from the express permission of the authors to use the information contained therein, assuming full respect for each of the voices expressed in their discourses, as well as for the multiplicity of experiences, convictions and values presented.

Box 3 Content analysis categorization system by thematic dimensions 

Box 3 continuation 

In the present paper the results achieved are presented by dimensions of analysis, each one enunciating a possible way of navigation in the broader and more complex frame framing teachers' work.

REPRESENTATIONS OF SUPERVISION AND COLLABORATION PRESENTED BY TEACHERS FROM THE PLACES WHERE THEY CARRY OUT THEIR PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY (DEPARTMENTS, GROUPS AND CLASS COUNCILS)

In this first dimension of analysis of the teachers' speeches, the concept of supervision is also associated with a process of performance evaluation and an evaluative heritage that stems from a culture of inspection and control.

For some time now, the term Supervision has been associated with an evaluation process that brings nothing good to our memory, as those who have been involved in this process, which has been so little fair and honest, in recent years, can testify. (BetaCD1)

Currently, supervision is still connoted with performance evaluation (in its summative aspect), so it will hardly be assumed as an opportunity for contextualized training that improves practice, that contributes to curriculum renewal, and that promotes professional development. (GamaTeac1)

The concept of "supervision" generates questions, perplexities and controversies appears still very much associated with inspection, control and certification and not with training, development and improvement of teachers' pedagogical practices. (GamaCD1)

This vivid image in the teachers' memories announces, in turn, the need for reconfiguration of the concept in the educational space, registering its growing link to the concept of collaboration, namely to the collaborative interaction among peers, in the different school contexts and structures. The teachers' speeches also express the necessary reconfiguration of supervisory action, adding it to teamwork, as a reflective and formative strategy that promotes the improvement of teaching practices and their professional development.

Thus, they believe that it is positive to analyze and discuss the concepts [supervision and collaboration] nesting them to the contexts, spaces and times of work with peers, in order to territorialize and substantiate them in the curricular and pedagogical options of schools in response to local and institutional problems. Thus, the concepts seem to acquire a "life of their own" legitimized by analysis and participatory reflection, providing meaning regarding the principles, means and ends of the application of formal and informal modalities of collaborative supervision.

If the processes of supervision, analysis, reflection, and monitoring of the way teachers organize their work were an effective practice and were internalized, I stress, as a good practice, integrated into teachers' daily actions, they would undoubtedly contribute to the improvement of educational action and the whole school would win. I believe that teachers are often unaware of the benefits of these actions and how they could help improve our performance. (GamaCD3)

With regard to structured observation of teaching practice and all the work to be developed throughout the supervisory cycle, they emphasize, on the one hand, the absence of this process in favor of the presence of more informal modalities of supervised teaching practice, more spontaneous, but equally carrying intentionality and focus. On the other hand, they are less pleased with the fact that the implementation of formal supervision processes may contribute to the standardization of teaching methods to the detriment of the multiplicity and variety present in the different dimensions of teachers' work. In parallel, they emphasize as an axiological matrix present in this process, humility and trust among peers, rejecting easy and destructive criticism. Thus, they emphasize in their speeches the values of both supervisory registers [formal and informal] and the associated axiological and ethical load.

(...) supervised pedagogical practice in the classroom should not be understood as an imposition, but rather as an interaction in which the educator, his/her peers and the student have something to teach and learn. Collaborative work and supervision of teaching practice in the classroom are fundamental for the improvement of teachers and enrichment of the quality of learning and improvement of student achievement. (BetaCD4)

Teachers converge in considering supervision and collaboration as supporting actions to combat isolation, loneliness, individualism, the management of uncertainty, imponderability, and overcoming feelings of failure and frustration.

Supervision is a collaborative and formative action, a dialogical action between what the educational reality is and what we want it to be. It can be an effective antidote to the syndrome of loneliness that teachers often suffer from. We yearn, paradoxically, for the freedom that "our" classroom space provides, but then we suffer from the discouragement of facing alone the management of uncertainty, the daily unpredictability, the axiological and ethical issues, and, why not, the failures, the frustrations. (BetaCD2)

It should also be highlighted the necessary reconfiguration of the supervisory action in its formative and reforming aspect of professional practices, which enhances the meeting and crossing of views, in which both teachers offer themselves as a mirror and transform themselves in the course of this action / reflection (Fialho, 2016), finding ways of acting and solving problems. Thus, vertical and hierarchical supervision, with an evaluative and certifying nature, assumes its own status and a distinct function in cohabitation with collaborative supervision, which is seen as a strategy that promotes professional development with values in teachers' actions and in the daily lives of schools.

(...) although teachers' work is mostly individual, more and more importance is given to sharing and collaboration. [...] The idea of formal and supervisory supervision is being diluted in an informal and collaborative pedagogical supervision among people who like to work together (BetaCD6)

As far as the notion of collaboration is concerned, teachers present it as a stronger or weaker strategic action, more present or more absent, depending on the contexts and structures where they are. Teachers' discourses also denote the weak consistency of more robust collaborative practices (joint work, according to Little, 1993 and Fullan & Hargreaves, 2001) and with greater regularity. They draw an axiological matrix for collaboration based on trust and sharing. They also consider collaboration as a methodology and strategy for personal and institutional development, since they integrate the definition of objectives and goals to be achieved collectively and in the name of improving the quality of the teaching action.

It was found that different structures develop different collaborative work practices, stronger or weaker, and that in disciplinary groups there is greater collaboration that involves the joint preparation of activities, planning, sharing, support, and exchange of ideas. In fact, the most effective modes of collaboration are based primarily on trust and sharing. (AlphaTeac1)

I believe that collaboration should be seen by all teachers as a methodology and strategy for personal and professional development, to strengthen ties between colleagues in order to unite in pursuit of a greater goal: a better education system. (AlphaDepCoord2)

Teachers also distinguish collaboration from sharing, giving the former a substantially different intentionality and purpose than the latter, which is more routine, more present in teachers' work, and more spontaneous. They also emphasize the need to make some changes in the school culture (Lima, 2002) and in the ways of organizing their work (task division, time management, definition of common goals, anticipation of gains).

(...) more than collaborating, there is mainly sharing or exchange of materials among the elements of the educational community. For collaboration to happen, it is necessary to change some cultural habits and be receptive to change, highlighting the advantages of working collaboratively, defining objectives and dividing tasks to make the most of each one's time, forming small working groups, observing and understanding the way each one works, accepting their differences and respecting their opinions. (AlphaTeac1)

According to the teachers, the matrix of collaborative work is fulfilled whenever there is joint planning, reflection among peers, incorporation of suggestions (constructive and instructive feedback), which is clearly different from the spontaneous sharing of texts, tests, worksheets, films or other materials to support the preparation of the teaching activity. Thus, teachers aggregate collaborative work to the joint definition of objectives and concerted efforts to achieve goals defined in group (Alarcão & Canha, 2013; Boavida & Ponte, 2002). According to them, this happens whenever they get involved in disciplinary or interdisciplinary projects, in advisory services, partnerships and pedagogical co-adjuvation.

In the Education and Training Courses there is collaborative work. The Class Council is weekly and so the students, who really want to finish the course, manage to achieve their goal, with the contribution of teachers from different areas and subjects. (GamaTeac3)

In the former Project Area, two teachers in partnership and, with ideas coming from the Class Council, got the students to produce works with more meaning for them. They learned during the process of making the project. But that was very expensive for the Ministry of Education and the Project Area was abolished. (DeltaCD1)

Collaborative work is a reality when there are common projects that imply a coordinated implementation between several teachers and their classes of the activities to be developed and in the planning of subject modules shared by different subject teams, as is the case of the Integration Area, a subject of Vocational Courses shared between Philosophy and Economics. (AlphaTeac3)

From the analysis conducted in this section, we found that teachers predominantly see supervision and collaboration as concerted actions that are seen as necessary and vital for the revitalization of their ways of working and as opportunities to create spaces and times for meeting and reflection, understood as spaces of quality, i.e., as emancipating, training and qualifying contexts. Thus, they understand supervision and collaboration as jointly empowering and transforming actions, of people and contexts, necessary to overcome some personal and organizational barriers, on the assumption that teacher learning takes place not only in the initial induction phase to the profession, but throughout the career, and that for such, pedagogical supervision of teaching practices is required, along with evaluative supervision, as an essential strategy for the professional development of teachers and the improvement of their practices. In this sense, teachers gradually distinguished formal supervision associated with initial training and with the evaluative and certifying processes associated with the evaluation of teaching performance from the horizontal and democratic implementation of collaborative supervision processes, as a strategy for the regulation, support, improvement, and reorientation of their teaching practices (Fialho, 2016; Vieira & Moreira, 2011). Based on the testimonies analyzed, we can say that the ways of looking at supervision and collaboration are changing, and teachers pointed out the advantages of working in close proximity, emphasizing the importance of the reflective and collaborative aspect of supervision in the creation of contexts and environments conducive to the empowerment and growth of the actors and institutions.

SUPERVISION AND COLLABORATION MODALITIES IN USE IN THE INTERMEDIARY STRUCTURES

Within the second dimension of analysis, we highlight the fact that teachers emphasize the importance of collegial/pedagogical leadership processes in the implementation of supervision and collaboration modalities in the different structures and, therefore, consider that [top and middle] leadership can make a difference. However, the leader needs the support of the group of teachers to build an educational team and, thus, enable the achievement of the objectives and goals present in the educational project of the School Grouping.

It is here, in the intermediate structures, that the leaders should stimulate and value the participation and intervention of all, in order to awaken the confidence of each teacher and provide foundations to fulfill the School's Educational Project. (AlphaGroupCoord1)

It is therefore necessary to have an intelligent leadership and pedagogical approach to the difficult issues that arise in the management of the school, and that it is done from the perspective of the challenge and not the obstacle, adjusting strategies as problems arise, with realistic feedback, but always with a sense of hope and resilience. (GamaCD4)

With regard to the work in disciplinary teams, this is directly and unequivocally related to the dynamics, the posture and the degree of confidence that the respective team leader manages to inspire in his/her peers. (AlphaTeac4)

With regard to examples of supervisory and collaborative practices in use in the educational territories, teachers indicated that classroom coadjuvance, partnerships and pedagogical consultancies within the same subject group and in class councils were the most fruitful. It should be noted that teachers assume the intersection between the processes of coadjuvance and peer supervision without immediately establishing a clear distinction between the two and not associating them with different purposes. Throughout the training period the distinction was made and the scope and reach of both processes [supervision and peer supervision] were clarified. With regard to effective forms of collaboration, teachers highlight the ways of working in educational teams, particularly in Alternative Curriculum Pathways classes, within classes with special education students, and participation in international projects (Comenius). At the same time, teachers emphasize the scarcity of supervision and collaboration modalities in use in most school clusters, although they see their interest and usefulness in improving teaching strategies.

Coadjuvances are also one of the solutions for the exercise of supervision and collaboration among teachers (but schedules do not make this practice feasible) to overcome very individualized teaching practices, conflicts and difficulties experienced, complemented by due reflection by those involved regarding the teaching practices adopted. This practice is vital to thus foster articulated and teamwork. (AlfaGroupCoord1)

There are occasional and happy practices of authentic collaboration where things seem to work: in the alternative curriculum classes, the cooperation with teachers who teach Shift 2 (special education), the participation in international programs (such as Comenius), just to name a few examples. (AlfaCD1)

Supervisory and collaborative processes within curriculum departments

Teachers emphasize the absence of structured processes of supervision of teaching practice in curriculum departments, assuming the moments of assistance, support and sharing of materials as supervisory and collaborative records incorporated into their way of working.

The contexts of teachers' work take place in different collegial structures: departments, groups and class councils. Departments bring together teachers from several subject groups (for example, the Social Sciences and Humanities department or the Mathematics and Experimental Sciences department), have a coordinator and are legally established. The subject groups bring together teachers with the same academic affiliation (subject or similar subjects) and, although they are not legally provided for (but may be enshrined in institutional documents), they are strongly aggregative structures in schools. Class councils bring together the collective of teachers from different subject areas who teach the class unit and deal with issues related to that universe.

As reasons for the weak presence of structured arrangements for supervision and collaborative work, participants emphasize the large size of the school departments, as well as the consultative nature of this body. They also emphasized the difficulties in this pedagogical structure in creating working groups and encouraging teamwork, with teachers choosing to work in smaller groups (e.g., teachers teaching the same grade level or school cycle).

At the department level, teamwork is very difficult due to the size of the curriculum departments, there are difficulties in encouraging and facilitating the sharing of situations, pedagogical practices and materials, work is done in small groups and it is not always easy to make the most of the time. (AlfaGroupCoord1)

The meetings of the curricular department have an informative character in relation to what was decided in the Pedagogical Council. (GamaTeac5)

I believe that in the departments a pre-collaborative work is developed because it is based essentially on sharing materials, occasional exchange of experiences, sometimes of problems and joint organization of teaching or non-teaching activities. (AlphaTeac6)

The organization and functioning of the departmental meetings leave much to be desired, there is much talk and little decision. It is in the disciplinary group that materials, strategies and activities are shared, among other things, and we work in small groups. (DeltaTeac4)

Thus, they consider departments as curricular structures with weak potential for the implementation of structured supervision processes and recognize in the subject groups the dimension, the context and the anthropological and axiological matrix more favorable to the presence of close working dynamics.

But true collaboration begins or should begin, in my view, not in the department, but in the group. It is there that working sessions can be established, in which strategies, documents, forms of action are shared, lessons are planned in the short term, and materials of general interest are prepared. (AlphaTeac7)

The action of the Department in the implementation of supervision processes is very limited. It is in the disciplinary group that a collaborative supervision between colleagues can be more easily implemented, where they can observe their colleagues, in a relaxed way, without making judgments, but with the intention of reflecting on the observation made. After this observation, the humility of the failures of what was observed will serve to reflect and improve the strategies to be used. (BetaTeac5)

Supervision and collaboration processes in disciplinary groups, curriculum councils and year councils

With regard to this dimension of analysis, we consider the disciplinary groups also as curriculum councils (year council in the 1st cycle of basic education) by virtue of both designations being adopted by teachers in the schools participating in the study. The teachers' speeches point out the importance of disciplinary affiliation (home group) versus departmental affiliation and the supremacy of the disciplinary group as a natural place for teamwork, namely processes related to planning and pedagogical and curricular management, as well as the discussion of teaching strategies and student assessment. Thus, they see the group as a privileged place for the implementation of peer supervision processes.

I recognize this collaborative practice only in the disciplinary teams of my secondary school group, but not in all the other disciplinary groups. (AlphaGroupCoord1)

Teachers meet formally in Department meetings and in Class Councils (examples of a weaker collaboration) but also in moments of behavioral or curricular coadjuvance and in meetings of their subject group (examples of a stronger collaboration). (DeltaTeac4)

They reinforce the cruciality of the disciplinary link as being at the basis of availability, trust, commitment and convergence of interests, ways of working and results to be achieved. From the analysis carried out, we highlight the visibility given by teachers in their speeches to multiple modalities of supervision and collaboration present in the disciplinary groups / curriculum council, materialized in the sharing of teaching materials, joint preparation of activities, preparation of plans, definition of assessment criteria and implementation of support processes, exchange of ideas and pedagogical experiences. Supervision is also present in the joint preparation of field trips, competitions and other curricular complementary activities. These supervisory registers take place in meetings, formal and informal moments, where collaboration emerges, in a more spontaneous and authentic way, among all teachers, based on dialogue, openness and respect for difference. However, there is an absence of supervision modalities that integrate the observation of teaching practice and the presence of structured observation processes. It should be noted that supervision, outside the disciplinary group and outside the modality we mentioned, is spontaneous and informal, manifesting itself through the exchange of experiences and suggestions to support the work of teachers.

Supervision and collaboration processes in the classroom councils

The modalities of supervision and collaboration present in the classroom councils are predominantly associated with processes of monitoring results, planning and evaluation of activities contained in the AAP (Annual Plan of Activities), exchange of experiences, help and support in solving learning, attendance and disciplinary problems of students. Thus, in their speeches, teachers register the absence of structured forms of collaborative supervision of teaching practice in the class council, a place where there is little space for joint planning and management of pedagogical and curricular processes. The teachers mentioned that the class councils are places for the management of administrative processes more than for the management of pedagogical processes, pointed out that the spaces for joint planning and articulation in the class council refer to activities to be performed with the class (study visits/sports tournaments/school week) and stressed the scarcity of spaces and times for reflection in view of the heavy agenda. They also consider that the project of autonomy and curricular flexibility can be seen, occasionally, as an opportunity for teachers to rethink their practices on a basis of consultation, integration and commitment to what they consider essential for students to learn, in the general framework of the competencies included in the profile of the student at the end of compulsory education (Decree-Law No. 55/2018).

The biggest "Achilles' heel" is undoubtedly the class council, where the crux of the matter lies: the educational "team" that works with those specific students, whose mission is to help them learn, only occasionally works as a team. The constraints resulting from the lack of regular time to work together, the fear or resistance of many teachers, the overload of tasks associated with the "grading" of students, the issues related to inappropriate behavior, "swallow" the time set for joint work. (AlphaTeac4)

In the class council, one of the structures where coordination and articulation is imposed, it is, after all, where we work in a more selfish way, pushing all the bureaucratic, disciplinary and pedagogical work to the class director. (AlphaCoordingroup1)

If we want to improve the functioning of the class councils, we need more time to talk, discuss, dialogue, exchange ideas, and this time does not exist, or is not enough to reach consensus to define strategies for action, experiment and evaluate, in order to adjust the processes to the desired solutions. (DeltaTeac3)

It should be noted the lack of supervision and collaboration mechanisms in this intermediate structure where teachers' work is, in their view, highly bureaucratized, leaving them no space and time for reflection on cases, analysis of teaching strategies, curriculum management, and reflection on teaching and learning processes. To this extent, teachers recognize the need to change this "state of affairs" and express, in their speeches, present and future intentions towards the promotion and integration of more robust forms of supervision and collaboration in these structures.

It is also recognized as urgent (especially in class councils) to improve peer collaboration, to plan activities and strategies together - sharing what works, changing what is not feasible - and to plan similar themes in the various subjects (so that they are addressed at the same time, thus optimizing learning and creating synergies). (AlphaTeac1)

As class director, I believe that in the class council we should, in fact, manage and articulate the curriculum, for that it would be necessary, for example, to plan activities together, to build instruments that would allow the development of soft skills, to organize activities involving students and parents, which does not happen, or only happens sporadically. (Alpha-CD1)

As coordinator of about thirty class directors, I want to believe that it is worth our personal and professional investment, to help create a climate of trust and sharing in which each one feels comfortable to expose him/herself, to try, by example, that each one questions his/her own practices and is able to look at them with detachment and critical spirit. (AlphaCoordinCD1)

The teachers' speeches present some paradoxical aspects since it seems to coexist, on the one hand, the recognition of the added value of this structure - the class council - by the curricular diversity, variety of ways of teaching - programming, implementing strategies, evaluating students - by the difference of sensibilities, stages of teachers' professional development, capacity for self-analysis and reflection, maintaining the common denominator - the unity of the class group - to which everyone teaches and within which everyone faces obstacles and constraints, but also successes and victories. On the other hand, there seems to be a certain inability to change the state of affairs, namely the bureaucratic burden associated with this structure, which translates into a lack of opportunity and time to think and decide together, to propose other strategies and teaching methodologies. Thus, the teachers propose some changes in the functioning of the class councils that include the need to think and plan in an articulated and multidisciplinary way, the processes of curriculum management and pedagogical processes, so that everyone participates and is involved in the preparation, implementation and evaluation of what is taught and what is learned.

Here in my school, in relation to the class councils everything remains to be done. If you want to do serious work, you have to start well before the beginning of the school year, that is, we should prepare for the next year at the end of the previous school year. (AlphaTeac1)

In class councils, some general activities are planned (...) but much more can be done, such as planning similar themes that can be addressed at the same time and thus optimize learning, but time is scarce and it is not always possible to conveniently comply with the agenda previously established. (AlphaTeac7)

However, whenever the issue of the implementation of structured processes of supervision of teaching practice at the level of the class council was addressed, teachers pointed out that this action could prove to be of little use, recognizing greater usefulness in the follow-up and monitoring of the processes developed by the class director, an action that could induce reflection, according to teachers, and the sharing of experiences, methodologies and teaching strategies based on dialogue and interaction between peers.

At the Class Council level, supervision is a difficult task to implement, however, there are other modalities of supervision of the work performed, such as the monitoring of activities by the class director, which may lead to the sharing of experiences, strategies, and tasks in context that are beneficial to student success. (BetaCD8)

In summary, supervision gains greater amplitude when associated with the processes of monitoring and peer collaboration, essential to the proper functioning of pedagogical structures, but it does not seem to reach the heart of the school - the classroom. However, the order of discourse and reality, theory and practice, action desired and experienced in context, are still poorly articulated, although teachers corroborate the need for their approach.

I believe that supervision is functional at the Class Council level, but also at the level of all other educational structures because we have in our practice the need to monitor, develop, update, decide, build, and all this always with the purpose of improving our activity, our performance. (BetaCD8)

(...) more and more teachers should leave their comfort zone, individual work, and work together for the benefit of a community that is increasingly demanding new strategies and methods. Collaborative work is an important means of promoting attitudes of change, leading to constant improvement and enhancement of teaching practices. (AlphaCoordingroup1)

There is also, in the teachers' speeches, this tension between the evaluative supervisory heritage and the almost imperative need to adopt a collegial, democratic and horizontal paradigm, whose matrix is present in collaborative supervision - as a strategy promoting reflected and concerted action - where peers teach and learn in community and with a common purpose: to develop professionally and improve the students' learning processes. All this seems evident to our understanding, as these ideas are expressed in the teachers' speeches, however, their implementation seems much more difficult because it interferes with long-established, rooted and cultured ways of organizing school work (Lima, 2002; Alves & Cabral, 2017).

Can we improve our students' results? We can always try! How? By preparing school teaching teams by involving them in the construction of (new) practices, particularly regarding formative assessment and conceptualizing summative assessment. (BetaCoordCD1)

POTENTIALITIES AND CONSTRAINTS, AS POINTED OUT BY TEACHERS, TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PEER SUPERVISION AND COLLABORATION PROCESSES AS A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

The third dimension of analysis refers to the potentialities of both actions [supervision and collaboration]. Teachers highlighted the fact that collaborative work and observation of teaching practice facilitate the formation of educational teams and contribute to the change of working methods, creation of a climate of openness, availability, responsibility, trust, and acceptance, which are fundamental to teamwork. They also emphasize the fact that sharing and recognition strengthen the levels of confidence, self-esteem and self-awareness of teachers, creating conditions for the implementation of reflective and critical work cultures on teaching and learning processes.

It is extremely important to create moments of teamwork, to get teachers talking so that they can better understand the curricula and thus develop more confidence and security, to work together and articulate with each other; To provide common teaching times for teachers, in order to improve and boost collaborative work; To promote transformational leadership based on instruction, motivation, trust and respect for all stakeholders; To provide interaction between the various teachers of the same subject, regardless of the year of schooling (horizontal and vertical articulation). (DeltaTeac8)

Teachers point out the role of supervision and collaboration in encouraging close work, in the programming and implementation of projects and interdisciplinary actions, based on integrative themes / problems, as well as in the promotion of collegial and transformational pedagogical leadership (Costa, 2000; Sanches, 2000; 2006), capable of providing the necessary incentive to find solutions to the tensions / problems inherent in the function of teaching.

The willingness to work collaboratively is fundamental, since we are all responsible for the successes and failures of our students and, therefore, if we work together, the difficulties and anxieties will be less. Accepting the differences, the quarrels and the constraints that arise in order to want to do better and better is essential. (DeltaTeac12)

They also emphasize the need to reorganize the work in the school in rupture with the traditional paradigm that governs its operation, more specifically with the official school grammar, and the acceptance of a new paradigm - where everyone teaches and learns.

It is now very clear to almost everyone that the groups in which teachers are embedded in the school have to be able to change their traditional pattern of functioning and organize themselves as an educational team. Working in collaboration is fundamental to help plan a learning process appropriate to our group of students, in their diversity, defining priorities, seeking to agree on content and strategies, investing in articulation, discussing what and how to assess, exploring together the potential of formative assessment. (AlphaTeac6)

Along with these challenges, there remains the major challenge of returning to the belief in the school as a place of learning and tasks based on a pedagogical component and not merely bureaucratic and statistical. (GammaTeacher6)

From the analysis performed, constraints that are witnessed by teachers as obstacles to the implementation of supervision and collaboration processes arise external and internal variables, namely: the grammar of the school, i.e., the way the school is organized - the number of classes and levels of education in their charge, the curriculum prescription and national exams - to which must be added the lack of organizational support for change, the scarcity of time for the development of multiple activities and teachers' beliefs and prejudices regarding supervision. Let's start with school grammar, that is, the way the school is still organized: subjects, schedules and classes, the partition of space and time, and the tyranny of national exams.

The school, as we have it and with the traditional organization of its functioning - time and space - has to change. We need to develop processes that allow us to overcome prejudices, fears and pedagogical models out of context; we need to put an end to toxic leaderships; we need to coordinate schedules that allow open classes; we need to equip schools with the material resources that allow them to update and achieve their educational goals; we need to communicate! (AlfaCD2)

Another constraint that seems important to me and that, in my opinion, makes the majority of collaborative actions and curricular articulation and flexibility unfeasible is precisely the dictatorship of the curricular contents, particularly those of secondary education that are strongly oriented towards exams. (...) (DeltaCD2)

The school has to organize itself for diversity, for a world in constant renewal. I believe that this is only possible through intra and interdisciplinary collaboration, through the definition of common goals, exchange of experiences, collaboration within and outside the subject groups, joint planning of programs and articulation of content, coordination and organization of teaching practice, being imperative to adapt the schedules and the teaching load of teachers to this reality. Only in this way, it will be possible to articulate the knowledge to be transmitted to students, so that they feel it as a whole. (Alpha-TD1)

Teachers recognize the need for support in changing ways of working by top leadership and the need for appreciation and recognition for the work they do: "It doesn't depend on us and it depends on us: the motivation of leadership, organizational support to carry out the process, working conditions (schedules, spaces) for collaborative supervision work, the openness of peers to change. (Gamma CD7).

The issue of time, the management of it or the lack of it, emerges for teachers as a significant obstacle: "A common constraint for all of us, which is the time we have for the performance of this function of ours, and that is sometimes difficult to overcome, even preventing us from putting into practice some of the ideas we would like to implement." (BetaCD5).

In addition to the factors highlighted, teachers also highlight personal constraints that have to do with their beliefs and habits and include resistance to sharing the classroom space and the amount of time needed to prepare the stages of the supervisory cycle, the lack of material and technological resources to support the preparation and implementation of educational action, the discredit in successive educational policies that fade and fail successively, causing enormous frustration and increased resistance to change, complacency, conformism, fear of taking risks and doing things differently.

Given these constraints, we need to think differently about our attitudes towards the curriculum, changing habits and routines, considering teamwork, motivating the teacher for collaborative work, reflecting on our practices and taking different options for strategies to be followed in collaborative work. (AlphaDepCoord1)

Regarding the constraints to teamwork, I find that there is not only a lot of resistance to change, but also centralization of leadership, individualism and lack of clarity of objectives and goals. (DeltaTeac4)

Collaborative learning and the improvement of teachers' professional practices also require an end to more individualistic and solitary ways of working. It is necessary that teachers see and learn from each other, but the association of the performance evaluation process with the observation of classes, absolutely normal in other professional contexts, has delayed, blocked for some time, the adherence of teachers to these practices. (DeltaTeac6)

SUPERVISION AND COLLABORATION IN TRAINING CONTEXTS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ALTERNATIVE LOGICS OF WORK ORGANIZATION IN SCHOOLS

In the last dimension of analysis, we intend to explore the potentialities and weaknesses felt by teachers in the training context regarding the interest, scientific and pedagogical usefulness of training spaces for the implementation and consolidation of other ways of organizing school work [logics of supervision and collaboration] and their contributions to the improvement of their professional practices. Thus, teachers highlight the reconfiguration of training spaces as collaborative learning spaces, enabling the analysis, construction and reconstruction of their educational action, helping to develop and enhance scientific, relational and pedagogical skills, as well as to create a climate of trust and hope for the resolution of local problems. Another interesting aspect refers to the contributions of training to demystify some representations and prejudices towards supervision and collaboration and to empower teachers to implement processes of this nature, based on the joint mobilization of professional knowledge and reflection on their practices.

I managed to demystify the idea of pedagogical supervision, because it became very clear that the quality that is desired to increase the quality of teaching-learning processes is rooted in the classroom, so that is where the change has to happen and, as there are no "rescue formulas", just as there are no model students or model teachers, teaching practices have to be shared, we have to reflect on concrete practices, we have to observe them, where they happen, within the laboratory that is the classroom, with a view to a constant improvement of processes. (BetaCD2)

Once again, regarding the assumptions that should guide the implementation of a collaborative supervision model, teachers emphasized the importance of adopting supervisory practices in teaching practice, simplifying processes, and having organizational support to develop this set of actions in close proximity and in collaboration with their peers.

(...) an aspect that should also be valued in training is related to the training of teachers in pedagogical and other tools that allow them to work differently in educational teams to implement more effective supervision and collaboration mechanisms that are a challenge for teachers. (BetaCoordCD1)

This training course allowed me to become aware and reflect on this new way of being in teaching [in supervision and collaboration] and that, if on the one hand, I can see it mirrored in the disciplinary group, on the other hand, it is far from being materialized at the level of the other structures. (AlphaCoordingroup1)

In this action, I realized that knowledge is built from experiences inside and outside school, from dialogue and cooperation, from shared experiences. (...). It is this proximity that leads him to seek information, to learn, to develop his abilities. Learning should be a constant discovery, and this long journey of discovery should include amazement, so that learning does not become routine and meaningless. (BetaCD4)

Teachers consider that on-the-job training contributes to their professional development, offering itself as a space for analysis and joint reflection on issues, problems and professional dilemmas, where texts, authors and actors who daily experience different ways of operating on reality dialogue. In this way, the exercise of anticipating problems and the search for response scenarios for their possible resolution, the confrontation of positions, visions, beliefs and values, present in the ways of being within the profession, are presented in the training space as an added value for the participants.

This training obviously had an impact and brought contributions to my personal and professional development. Questioning and reflecting together on aspects that I would not think of doing so regularly and consistently is an added value, a seed that will certainly bear fruit; the confrontation with different perspectives, of the colleagues present and of several authors, enriches, the sharing of experiences, constraints, apprehensions, comforts and may help motivate. (BetaCD6)

Trainees were challenged to anticipate perspectives and proposals, in the form of suggestions and measures to be implemented in various contexts (classroom, class council, disciplinary teamwork and department) as well as the appropriate profile of a leader and types of leadership, aiming at collaborative work and flexibility of curricula. (AlphaTeac5)

As an essential aspect to the development of work among peers, in the training space, we intend to encourage teachers to question, reflect and plan present and future ways of acting, as their speeches attest to the valorization of the exercise of analysis and questioning about teaching practices.

We don't have much habit of asking and questioning things, we accept them, some of them, almost as inevitable, and that's very bad. The training period was very useful for us to question what we do, why we do it, and to what end. The reflection and debate promoted allowed all the knowledge acquired throughout the sessions to result in a diverse and participative formative process. So that in the future it would constitute a process of learning and change. (AlfaCD1)

This training action contributed significantly to the implementation of structured supervision processes, the sharing of knowledge in this area is crucial to the construction of such structuring, as well as reflection based on individual experiences. (GamaCD7)

CONCLUDING REMARKS: JOINING THE DOTS - SUPERVISION AND COLLABORATION? YES, BUT HOW?

The concepts of peer supervision and collaboration are present in the discourses of the guardianship and schools; however, they inhabit much more in the discourses and much less in the practices of teachers (Nóvoa, 1999; Roldão, 2014). Paradoxically, teachers see in these actions countless values and significant potentialities, but are unable to implement them in the structures where they work. According to our participants, the exception is in the recruitment / subject groups where collaborative work modalities are developed, namely joint planning, definition of teaching strategies and assessment criteria, preparation of tests and internal exams, as well as the discussion of cases. In the remaining structures, departments and class councils/year councils, the forms of collaboration are weaker, less robust, and limited to the exchange of ideas and sharing of experiences, support or occasional help. Teachers represent the departmental structures as spaces for the transmission of information, mostly coming from the pedagogical council, and the class councils as structures where administrative and bureaucratic work is performed, certification and classification of learning, without space for analysis, in-depth discussion of cases and definition of teaching strategies.

With regard to the implementation of structured processes of collaborative supervision, as an action and formative strategy, democratic and horizontal peer observation, we did not find its implementation in any of the four school clusters where we developed our action. That said, although the discourse on peer supervision as a strategy to improve teaching practices and teachers' professional development now passes with less resistance, teachers point to different reasons why its implementation is difficult in intermediate structures (departments, groups and class councils). The reasons that hinder the implementation of this supervisory process and the implementation of collaborative working methods are, on the one hand, external and objective: the way the continuous school is organized, subject to the canons of the school grammar - the teacher, the curriculum and the class; the internal assessment of learning regulated by an external dimension. On the other hand, teachers point out internal reasons: the lack of organizational support, by top and middle management, in the much-desired change (requiring compatible schedules to promote the articulation of work among peers); fewer students per class and fewer classes to teach per teacher.

The dominant beliefs, prejudices, fears, and ideologies in the teachers' class regarding the issue of supervision are associated in their discourse with the idea of inspection and certification of professional performance. It should be noted that teachers highlighted as one of the greatest obstacles to change their resistance to the implementation of peer observation of teaching practice, along with excessive bureaucracy, lack of time to reflect on practices and the set of habits rooted in ways of thinking and doing that daily give security to actions. However, they recognize countless values in the records of advising, partnering, and pedagogical assistance in the classroom, favoring the records of active collaboration. However, they remain very distant from a true clinical supervision of a scientific nature. This finding may indicate, on the one hand, the relevance and usefulness that teachers recognize collaboration and close work predominantly within the disciplinary group, and, on the other hand, the undervaluation or even ignorance of classroom observation practices by their peers? We consider this aspect as quite relevant, because if they do not see usefulness, intentionality, and meaning to the articulation between these supervision and collaboration devices, they will certainly not find sufficient reasons to adopt them.

These different dimensions of analysis present some variables that are transversal to them and that we point out below. Teachers emphasize the progressive disinvestment in education by public policies, which, in their view, has repercussions on their demotivation, lack of availability, and lack of commitment to change. As we mentioned earlier, the most difficult obstacles to overcome are established routines and teachers' set of beliefs and convictions, along with the fear of making mistakes and being evaluated, even informally, by their peers.

Change is difficult, we are used to a routine and it is very difficult to break it, it is our place of comfort. (DeltaTeac4)

Our beliefs also influence, and a lot, our way of working and teaching. It is complicated to put all the subjects working at the same time in a transversal way. Sometimes, I think it is even impossible. (AlphaTeac7)

Although we know that collaborative practices favor teaching and learning, teachers are not always willing and receptive to collaborate with each other and thus many things are lost due to lack of interest. Incompatible work schedules among colleagues, lack of technical conditions and personal motivation, excessive work beyond that which is dedicated to classes and their preparation as well as the assessment of students and even the discredit for educational policies that keep appearing one after the other, are constraints and obstacles to change. (AlphaTeacher9)

The implementation of peer supervision processes may also uncover many weaknesses, fears and doubts that teachers have when preparing and developing their professional activity, namely in exposing themselves to the eyes of their peers and thus enabling the formulation of a set of evaluative judgments about what they do and how they do it.

Change implies leaving our space, and sometimes our comfort zone, assuming that we are not always working in the best way, that we need to learn from others, even if the experience we have seems sufficient. These biases of ours hinder this necessary change. (Alpha-TD2)

Changing teaching practices by implementing peer supervision and collaboration processes implies, in the eyes of teachers, accepting challenges and knowing how to take risks, expressed also in the way we look, individually and collectively, at the problems and face the obstacles around us. This way of thinking, acting, and deciding says a lot about the people and organizations where teachers work. Hence the difficulty, greater or lesser, in changing practices and, in a way, reforming mentalities, because for this to happen some variables must be present - the leaders, the teachers, and the contexts. In the absence of leaders who inspire, show the way, serve as examples, believe in the value of teachers, students, and school projects, creating conditions for their implementation and development, it is more difficult to proceed. However, it is equally necessary to find people who want to change (principals, teachers, students, teaching assistants), who are available and committed to a common educational project. Finally, the contexts must be permeable to change, that is, be facilitators and collaborators in the implementation of local projects. Perhaps it is not easy to find all these variables in presence and, even more difficult, to put them in dialogue. That is why we nurture in the present and in the future the desire for change and transformation, leaving open a whole horizon of professional development yet to be fulfilled.

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* The translation of this article into English was funded by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais - FAPEMIG - through the program of supporting the publication of institutional scientific journals.

Received: March 16, 2021; Accepted: August 08, 2021

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