SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND EXPERIENCES
WITH COLLABORATION

by
Brian Easton
Bachelor of Education, University of the Fraser Valley, 2018
Bachelor of Science, University of the Fraser Valley, 2017

MAJOR PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL
FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF EDUCATION
(EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND MENTORSHIP)

In the
Teacher Education Department
© Brian Easton 2023
UNIVERSITY OF THE FRASER VALLEY
2023
All rights reserved. This work may not be
reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy
or other means, without permission of the author.

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Approval
Name:
Degree: Master of Education (Educational Leadership and Mentorship)
Title:
Examining Committee
Name: Dr. Joanne Robertson
MEd Chair or Designate, Teacher Education Department
____________________________________________________________

Name: Dr. Jo Sheppard
Senior Supervisor
Associate Professor, Teacher Education Department
____________________________________________________________

Name: Dr. Anne Hales
Second Reader
Senior Researcher, British Columbia Teachers’ Federation
____________________________________________________________

Date Defended/Approved: June 8, 2023

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Abstract
The purpose of this research was to understand secondary school teachers’ perceptions and
experiences with collaboration in schools in order to make recommendations for future
collaboration initiatives. To gather data and capture the essence of teachers’
perspectives on their experiences with collaboration, phenomenological interviews (Creswell &
Poth, 2017) were conducted with three participants at the same secondary school in British
Columbia, Canada. The results indicate a strong desire for collaboration amongst the
participants, however this was hindered by organizational structures that worked to counter
effective collaboration. Some of the most important factors identified by the participants that are
needed for collaboration to be effective include: (1) the formation of trusting, supportive
relationships with other collaborators, (2) the allotment of paid time during the school day, (3)
teacher choice in what they are to collaborate on and who they are to collaborate with, and (4)
running collaboration from the bottom up and being facilitated by the teachers. All these factors
need to be considered when planning for collaboration in schools.
Keywords: teachers, secondary school, collaboration, professional learning community,
phenomenology, perceptions, experiences.

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Acknowledgements
I would like that thank my wife Emily for supporting both me and our daughter while I
balanced being a husband, father, teacher, and graduate student over the last two years. I could
not have done this without her. I would also like to thank my parents who have always
encouraged me to “just go for it” and pushed me to apply for my M.Ed.

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Dedication
I would like to dedicate this to my participants, as it is your voices that made this
possible.

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Table of Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iii
Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... iv
Dedication .......................................................................................................................... v
Acronyms ........................................................................................................................ viii
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1
Context........................................................................................................................................ 1
My Inquiry ................................................................................................................................. 1

Literature Review ............................................................................................................. 3
Defining the Structure of Teacher Collaboration ................................................................... 3
The Effect of Teacher Collaboration on Student Academic Achievement ........................... 4
Impacts of Collaboration at the Teacher Level ...................................................................... 6
Context Matters ......................................................................................................................... 7
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 9

Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 9
Method ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Managing Bias ......................................................................................................................... 12
Participants .............................................................................................................................. 13
Data Tools................................................................................................................................. 14
Data Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 15
Strength of Study ..................................................................................................................... 16

Results .............................................................................................................................. 17
Defining Collaboration ............................................................................................................ 18
The Transfer of Resources and Knowledge .......................................................................... 18

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Clear Direction/Common Goal ............................................................................................. 19
The Purpose of Collaboration ................................................................................................ 20
Student Impact ...................................................................................................................... 20
Teacher Impact ...................................................................................................................... 21
Structure................................................................................................................................... 22
Participation .......................................................................................................................... 22
Time ...................................................................................................................................... 22
Teacher Driven ...................................................................................................................... 23
Identifying Barriers to Collaboration .................................................................................... 24
Top-Down Collaboration ...................................................................................................... 24
Isolation ................................................................................................................................. 25
Importance of Relationships ................................................................................................... 26

Discussion......................................................................................................................... 27
Supportive Structures ............................................................................................................. 28
Relationships ......................................................................................................................... 28
Time ...................................................................................................................................... 28
Organizational Structure ....................................................................................................... 30
Limitations ............................................................................................................................... 30
Implications and Recommendations ...................................................................................... 31

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 32
References ........................................................................................................................ 34
Appendix A ...................................................................................................................... 36
Appendix B ...................................................................................................................... 37

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Acronyms
i. PLC: Professional Learning Community
ii. TEP: Teacher Education Program
iii. UFV: University of the Fraser Valley
iv. BC: British Columbia

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Introduction
Context
I am entering my fifth year as a secondary school science teacher. This means that I am
no longer in the “just trying to keep my head above water” phase of teaching and have now
developed a desire to collaborate with my colleagues in crafting better learning experiences for
students. During my long practicum in the Teacher Education Program (TEP) at the University
of the Fraser Valley (UFV) in British Columbia (BC), Canada, I had very positive experiences
collaborating with my colleagues in the design and implementation of new and engaging unit
plans. I believe that this collaborative process was integral to my development as a new teacher.
The school district I am currently working in is a large and growing district, with over
20,000 students and over 2,500 teachers. The school in which I have been teaching for the past
five years has over 1,200 students and approximately 80 teachers. I have noticed over the past
several years that it lacks the collaborative community that I had experienced in my TEP
practicum. A possible reason for this is that this school has a high teacher turnover rate, resulting
in an influx of new, less experienced teachers who are, unfortunately, often only temporary.
My Inquiry
As someone who has always been extremely curious in nature, I am constantly trying to
understand the different phenomena going on around me. I know how impactful collaboration
was for me when I was starting out as a new teacher and was interested in learning about my
colleagues' knowledge and experiences surrounding collaboration. My passion for collaboration
led me to the following inquiry question: What are the perceptions and experiences of secondary

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school teachers with collaboration, and how have these experiences impacted their participation
in collaborative activities?
To answer these questions, I conducted three phenomenological interviews with teachers
from my school. When it comes to teacher collaboration and the formation of professional
learning communities (PLCs), some research suggests that PLCs can have a positive effect in
schools. This is especially true when looking at the influence of teacher collaboration on the
summative achievement of students. The potential benefits of PLCs do not stop at student
achievement, but may also have an impact on teacher efficacy and wellbeing. My views and
experiences with teacher collaboration during my practicum are substantiated by the academic
research on the topic. The goal of my inquiry question was to find out if these beliefs are also felt
by other teachers in my personal context. What one person or one school community feels about
collaboration may be vastly different than another. The purpose of this study was to try and
understand the perceptions and experiences of the staff in my current context, so that I can better
work to improve collaboration in the future.
As I will be interviewed colleagues that work at the same secondary school as I do, it was
important to consider how my relationship with them would impact my results. My relationship
with my participants was ultimately a benefit to the research, as they already had a trusting
relationship with me. Because of this, were more open and honest with me than they would have
been with a stranger.
While researching my literature review, I found numerous quantitative studies on the
topic of PLCs and collaboration, particularly on how they affect student academic achievement.
However, the number of qualitative research studies looking at the opinions and lived
experiences of teachers appeared to be limited. With my research I am hoping to gain some

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insight into the contextual factors that may be acting as barriers towards deep and efficient
collaboration at my school. This research is extremely personal and important to me because I
want to use it as a springboard towards creating a more collaborative culture at my school.

Literature Review
Teachers have long known the power of collaboration when it comes to the design and
implementation of the curriculum. A common theme in schools currently is the notion that
schools of today are antiquated systems in dire need of reform. It is commonly accepted that
schools were designed to create compliant factory workers that would prop up the economy and
keep the industrial revolution moving. The times have changed, and schools need to catch up.
More and more school districts are looking towards collaboration and the formation of PLCs to
enact and sustain school transformation. However, collaboration and PLCs are defined in a
number of different ways in the literature, making it difficult to draw empirical conclusions
about them. Stoll et al. (2006) describe PLCs as a “group of people sharing and critically
interrogating their practice in an ongoing, reflective, collaborative, inclusive, learning-oriented,
growth-promoting way” (p. 223). The purpose of this literature review is to identify the role of
collaboration and PLCs on the level of students and teachers, as well as describe some contextual
factors that can facilitate or hinder collaboration in schools.
Defining the Structure of Teacher Collaboration
While researching teacher collaboration, it was evident that there is no one size fits all
definition of collaboration in the literature. Every researcher has their own definitions and views
about what collaboration looks like. I was particularly drawn to an article by Hargreaves (2019),
where he compares true collaborative cultures versus what he calls “contrived collegiality” (p.

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610). Hargreaves (2019) states that successful collaborative cultures are almost always
established “through informality and spontaneity around interests and activities” (p. 610),
facilitated by teachers and conducted on their own time. Running collaboration in this manner
ensures that teachers are invested in what they are doing, and that they are working towards a
common goal.
This is in direct opposition to contrived collegiality, which is more formal, occurring at
pre-set meeting times, and is often directed by the district or the administration of the school
(Hargreaves, 2019). The result of contrived collegiality is teachers that feel like they are being
forced to work on something that they find little to no value in. For collaboration to be
successful, teachers need to be given a voice in what the structure of their collaboration looks
like. When collaboration is being used as an “exercise of administrative power” (p. 610), the
overall purpose or goal of the collaboration can get lost, along with any positive effect the
collaboration was supposed to achieve (Hargreaves, 2019).
The Effect of Teacher Collaboration on Student Academic Achievement
There is a rich body of literature describing the impacts of PLCs and collaboration on
schools. This is especially true when looking at the influence of teacher collaboration on the
summative achievement of students. Egodawatte, McDougall, & Stoilescu (2011) conducted a
collaborative teacher inquiry project at 11 schools across four school boards in the Greater
Toronto Area of Canada. As a part of this workshop, teachers were encouraged to join samesubject groups and attend workshops on how to collaborate to improve their practice as well as
improve the outcomes of their students, particularly in Grade 9 mathematics. At the end of this
two-semester inquiry project, the researchers interviewed all of the participating teachers and
conducted a qualitative analysis on the results. The researchers found that while working

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collaboratively, teachers were able to achieve their individual goals, create better professional
development opportunities, and increase student test scores on mock Education Quality and
Accountability Office (EQAO) math tests. A limitation of this research is that the EQAO math
tests were not part of the researcher’s methodology. One of the schools participating in the
inquiry project took it upon themselves to implement their own mock EQAO tests as part of their
achievement plan goals. As a result of this, we are unable to know how rigorous their methods
were in the implementation of these tests, leaving questions surrounding the validity of said tests.
However, this study nonetheless points to…(significance for your study?)
Saka (2021) also looked at the effects of teacher collaboration groups on student
achievement in mathematics; however, they used a pre-test post-test model. The study involved
testing of 135 students from two junior secondary schools in Nigeria. They had two groups of
teachers, one group were involved in collaborating in the design and implementation of math
lessons, whereas the other group of teachers were isolated with no communication regarding
their math curricula. Saka gave students gave students of both groups a Mathematic
Achievement Test (MAT) at the beginning and at the end of the semester. They found that
students in the experimental group where the teachers participated in collaborative practices,
outperformed the students in the isolated group on a post-test (Saka, 2021). The results of this
study confirmed the results of Egodawatte et al. (2011) and provides further evidence that PLCs
can have a positive impact on student achievement, particularly in the field of mathematics.
Both previous studies focused on mathematics because there is a large movement in the
field of teaching mathematics to reform the way it has been taught, particularly in secondary
schools (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2007). It is also much easier to assess a
student’s ability to solve a mathematical equation than it is to test their concept knowledge on a

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complex topic such as science. For this reason, it was much harder to find any literature
examining student achievement in science and how it is correlated with teacher collaboration.
Wigglesworth (2011) attempted to do just that by analyzing the effects of teacher collaboration
on students’ understanding of Earth Science concepts taught in secondary schools. This study
used a similar method of pre-test post-test used by Saka (2021); however, Wigglesworth (2011)
combined the test results with student interviews and student surveys to get a clearer picture as to
what content knowledge the students had gained.
Wigglesworth (2011) had his colleagues in a Boise, Idaho secondary school collaborate
on instructional strategies they would use to meet the assessment goals they had come up with in
previous collaboration sessions. Some teachers used the strategies the group came up with, while
others used strategies they had come up with in isolation. The results obtained from this study
demonstrated that students in the group taught using the collaborative teaching strategies not
only performed better on the post-test, but they also had a statistically significant increase in the
completion rate of assignments and lab reports (Wigglesworth, 2011). This research was
conducted by Wigglesworth (2011) as part of his Master of Science Capstone at Montana State
University, and as such has not been subjected to the rigorous peer review process. However,
when combined with previous research, such as that conducted by Egodawatte et al. (2011), and
Saka (2021), it is evident that teacher collaboration, taking a variety of different forms, can have
a positive effect on student academic achievement in the subject areas of math and science.
Impacts of Collaboration at the Teacher Level
Students are not the only ones that benefit from teacher collaboration, there is evidence to
suggest that collaboration can contribute to the professional growth and development of teachers.
Slavit et al. (2011) followed a group of middle school mathematics teachers on their five-year

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collaboration journey using the grounded theory methodology to collect data from their meetings
and interviews. They found that when teachers participated in collaboration using team roles,
focused on student learning data, the conversations were far more productive and teachers were
able to better achieve their personal goals for students (Slavit et al., 2011). Because teachers
were able to attain their goals with students and see their colleagues doing the same, this resulted
in a greater overall teacher efficacy among the math teachers at this middle school. Being part of
a group that was creating, and enacting change gave the teachers involved a greater sense of
confidence, a belief in themselves that they were capable of being change makers in their school.
Slavit et al. (2011) also identified an increase in the use of student-centered instructional
strategies among the participating mathematics teachers.
Main and Bryer (2005) also looked at collaborative groups in a middle school, this time
over a 3-year period. From their observations and interviews they discovered that teachers who
collaborated no longer felt isolated and perceived an increased teacher collegiality among the
staff (Main & Bryer, 2005). Being part of a teacher collaboration team was also correlated with
an increase in professional dialogue, increased job satisfaction, and the formation of a more
adaptable learning environment (Main & Bryer, 2005).
Context Matters
The literature highlights the importance of teacher collaboration and the formation of
PLCs on the wellbeing of both teachers and students. However, from personal experience and
speaking with colleagues, it seems to still be a rare phenomenon in schools. Educational
researchers such as Kelchtermans (2006) believe that this is likely due to underlying contextual
factors that investigations into collaboration often ignore. Factors such as school demographic,

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culture, values, socio-economic status, and balance of power are all capable of influencing the
effectiveness of collaboration and PLCs at schools (Kelchtermans, 2006).
In the pursuit of studying these contextual factors of collaboration, Bellibas et al. (2017)
used a tool called the Professional Learning Communities Assessment Revised (PLCA-R). This
tool is a questionnaire developed by Olivier et al. (2009) that’s purpose is to assess the
perceptions of a school’s staff surrounding the concept of PLCs. The PLCA-R describes a sixfactor model, examining a schools shared and supportive leadership, shared values and vision,
collective learning and application, shared personal practice, supportive conditions
(relationships), and supportive conditions (structures) (Olivier et al.,2009). The results of the
PLCA-R can be used to determine a school’s capacity for developing PLCs, as well as identify
possible barriers to collaboration in a school.
Bellibas et al. (2017) used the PLCA-R with 492 staff members at 27 schools across
Turkey and compared their results. They concluded from this study that many of the schools had
a culture of sharing and collaboration, however their attempts to collaborate were hindered by
factors such as limited time, material resource availability, human resource availability, and the
absence of school structures to facilitate their collaboration (Bellibas et al., 2017). School staff
indicated their desire for collaboration; however, they did not have access to the professional
development materials such as access to reading materials and experts in collaboration, to pursue
PLCs as a school wide initiative. They also found that these inhibiting factors were far more
prevalent in schools having a lower socioeconomic status, a younger staff, and a larger student
population (Bellibas et al., 2017). It is important to reiterate that these conclusions are based on a
one-time survey of staff perceptions, calling into to question the validity of the results. For more
conclusive data it may have been better to use the PLCA-R in combination with researcher

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observations to minimize staff biases in the results. This study was a good start in identifying
some of the contextual factors of collaboration that need further study.
Conclusion
The literature provides evidence for something teachers have known for a very long time:
collaboration and the formation of PLCs can improve a variety of issues, including student
academic achievement and teacher efficacy. However, there are also several different
methodologies researchers use to assess collaboration in schools, resulting in difficulty
comparing studies to one another. A gap in the research that I have identified is the lack of
studies tapping into the knowledge and lived experiences of teachers involved with collaboration
at the school level. In my personal context, I decided it would be beneficial to use
phenomenological interviews as a tool to analyze the perceptions and experiences of teachers
regarding collaboration in my school, as well as identify the barriers we may be facing as a
school moving towards a more collaborative culture.

Methodology
The goal of my inquiry was to explore if my beliefs surrounding teacher collaboration are
felt by other teachers in my personal context. This is congruent with the constructivist research
paradigm, as I wanted to make meaning and find understanding of the data I collected from my
participants (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018). My ontological belief is that there is no single
reality or single truth. Our perceived reality is based on contextual factors and is affected by the
ideologies and experiences of the people involved. What one person, or one school community,
feels about collaboration may be vastly different than another. My goal was to try and understand

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the perceptions and experiences of the staff in my current context, so that I can better work to
improve it in the future.
Epistemology refers to the relationship between the researcher and the participants
(Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018). In my situation, I interviewed colleagues that work at the same
secondary school as I do. I believe that my relationship with my participants was a benefit to the
research, as they have a trusting relationship with me, and were more open and honest with me
than they might have been with a stranger. The constructivist axiology says that the researcher’s
beliefs and values may influence the research itself (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018). As I have
personal relationships with all of the people I interviewed, I expected to have some bias towards
their answers. I strongly believe that teacher collaboration is a great thing, and I want others to
feel the same way so that we can build a collaborative school culture in our building. I was
careful to keep these biases out of the interviews that I conducted, and I made sure that I was not
using any sort of leading questions that may have influenced the way they answered. I ensured
that participants read the transcripts and the conclusions I was able to draw from them, which
prevented the possibility of misrepresenting them.
I conducted three teacher interviews as my data sources, which is part of a qualitative
research methodology. Qualitative data is sensitive to the contextual factors of the phenomena
being researched (Yilmaz, 2013). Since I know the context of my school will affect the
perceptions and experiences of the teachers there, I felt this was the best methodology for
understanding my participants' perceptions and lived experiences. As I want to touch on the
contextual factors of collaboration, I ensured that I interviewed teachers of differing experience
to try and understand if teaching experience affects their perceptions of collaboration. I also
wanted to interview teachers from different departments. Previous research has provided

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evidence supporting the notion that collaboration is less frequent at large schools (Bellibas et al.,
2017). I wanted to understand how a department or department size may also affect
collaboration.
While researching my literature review, I found several quantitative studies on the topic
of PLCs and collaboration, particularly on how it affects student academic achievement.
However, the number of qualitative research studies looking at contextual factors such as school
diversity, location, size, teacher perceptions, and lived experiences appeared to be limited. With
my research study, I was hoping to gain insight into the contextual factors that were acting as
barriers towards deep and efficient collaboration at my school. This research is extremely
personal and important to me because I want to use it as a springboard towards creating a more
collaborative culture at my school.
Method
The qualitative research method that fits the best with my research question is
phenomenology. A phenomenological study describes the lived experiences of a group of
individuals surrounding a specific event or phenomenon. The goal of phenomenology is to find
some commonality between the individuals experiences to gain new insights and understandings
(Creswell & Poth, 2018). To achieve this, the researcher collects data from participants who have
experienced the specific phenomenon being inquired about, which in this case is teacher
collaboration. When using phenomenology as a research method, the research “proceeds through
an inceptual process of reflective wondering, deep questioning, attentive reminiscing, and
sensitively interpreting the primal meanings of human experiences” (van Manen, 2014, p. 819).
The defining features of a phenomenological study include: (a) a focus on the
phenomenon being investigated; (b) the participants must have all experienced the phenomenon

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or event; (c) a discussion about the philosophy of phenomenology and its subjectivity; (d)
bracketing of the researcher to ensure it is the participants voices being heard; (e) interviews as
the main form of data collection; (f) data analysis that focuses on what the participants
experienced and how they experienced it; and (g) concludes with a description of the “essence”
of the experiences had by the participants (Creswell & Poth, 2018, p.149-150). By interviewing
three teachers who all had experiences with collaboration and reporting on them, this study
meets all of the qualifications of a phenomenological study.
Managing Bias
Due to the nature of phenomenological research, there is often a relationship between the
researcher and the participants. This means that researcher bias is unavoidable. For this reason, it
is vital that the researcher takes specific precautions when managing their biases. The
participants in this study are colleagues of mine that I have been working with for several years.
Because of this it was important for me to use bracketing during the interviews and ensuring that
I was not influencing the participants answers in any way. During my time in the TEP, I had very
productive experiences collaborating with my colleagues, experiences that helped shape who I
am now as a teacher. However, I am also aware that not everyone has had the same favourable
experiences with collaboration that I have. I aimed to set my beliefs and values surrounding
collaboration aside while interviewing the participants to make sure it was their voices being
heard and not my own. Another way that I managed my bias was by sending the interview
transcripts to the participants so that they could edit and approve them before I examined them
for meaning. By doing this I aimed to minimize misinterpretations of what the participants said
versus what they meant.

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I used a field journal to keep track of my ideas, questions, assumptions, and biases
surrounding collaboration. I also wrote directly on the participants’ transcripts so that I could
keep track of where my assumptions about meaning came from. I wrote in the field journal after
each interview and after the initial analysis of each transcript. This journal also provided me with
the ability to keep track of if/how my analyses of the interviews changed from one to the next,
making sure that I was not making any unwarranted assumptions. After coding the transcripts, I
sent them to my supervisor to review so that she could tell me if any of my codes or assumptions
were overreaching based on the data provided by the participants.
I further distanced myself from the data collection process by using open-ended questions
in my interviews. By doing so, I reduced the probability that my questions were leading the
participants responses or influenced them in any way and an interview script was created well in
advance of the interviews. During the interviews I made sure I stuck to the script questions and
only went off script to ask clarifying questions. By sticking to this script, I kept myself distanced
from the participants’ responses. All these steps served to ensure my biases and beliefs on the
topic of collaboration were bracketed from the conversation.
Participants
This research study took place at a large inner-city high school in the Fraser Valley
region of British Columbia (BC). To assure full transparency, I, the primary researcher, also
work as a teacher at this school. For the last two years, this school has had district-prescribed
collaboration sessions that occurred approximately once a month that all teachers were expected
to attend. During these sessions, teachers got together with their departments to collaborate on
inquiry in the classroom. For this reason, I used purposeful sampling. Purposeful sampling is
used in phenomenological studies because it allows the researcher to hand pick the participants,

14

making certain that those participants have experienced the phenomenon being studied (Creswell
& Poth, 2018). It is based on the notion that the researcher, to gain understanding and insight,
selects a sample from which the most can be learned (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015).
I chose to interview specific participants that had at least two years of experience
teaching in the district. This assured that they had ample experience with these collaborative
sessions. I chose participants from the same school I work at because I wanted to better
understand my specific context and use the knowledge gained from this research to enact
meaningful change at my school. As the collaboration sessions were department based, I also
made sure to select participants from different departments so that I could get a variety of
perspectives on the topic of collaboration. One participant teaches Foods and Nutrition, one
teaches Mathematics and Science, and one teaches Humanities.
Data Tools
Before recruiting participants, this research study was reviewed and approved by the
University of the Fraser Valley Human Research Ethics Board (HREB Protocol #101180,
November 17, 2022) and the local school board. Once approved, I emailed potential participants
a recruitment letter. This letter summarized the purpose and procedures of the study, the time
commitment required from participants, and mapped out a general timeline for the interviews
and member checks. Participants were advised that their information would remain confidential,
all data would be anonymized before analysis, and would be deleted at the conclusion of the
study. Once participants agreed to be interviewed, I hand delivered a copy of the informed
consent form, which they signed prior to their interview.
The data collection tool used in this study was a semi-structured interview protocol
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2015) of six open-ended questions (Appendix A). These questions were

15

intentionally designed to get participants thinking about what worked in their collaborative
experiences as well as identify any barriers to collaboration that they may have experienced in
the past. Interviews allow the researcher to discover information about things that cannot be
directly observed, such as thoughts, feelings, and perceptions (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). It is the
purpose of the interview “to allow us the enter into the other person’s perspective” (Patton, 2015,
p. 426).
Along with the six open-ended questions, I had prepared extending questions that I could
use if the need arose. These were questions such as “could you please expand on that thought…”
and “tell me more about…”. Using extension questions provided me with the ability to get
thicker descriptions from my participants regarding their experiences with collaboration. Other
than these extending questions, I was conscious to keep my interjections to a minimum, as to
make sure it was my participant’s voice being heard and not my own. The interviews were
conducted in the participants’ classrooms after school hours. The interviews were approximately
45 minutes in length. They were voice-recorded and transcribed using the Otter.ai application on
my smart phone. The transcripts were kept on my password protected computer, and backups
were kept on a USB thumb drive that was kept in a locked filing cabinet.
Data Analysis
When I was conducting interviews and analyzing the transcripts, I wrote notes,
observations, assumptions, and salient thoughts that arose in my field journal. I used these notes
as sort of bookmarks that I then used to go back and reread sections of the transcript to better
understand what was being said. Once data collection was complete, I cleaned up the grammar of
the transcripts, removing repeated words and phrases such as “umm” and “like”. I also
anonymized the transcripts by removing any names and other identifying information. The

16

participants chose their own pseudonyms before the interview took place. Once the transcript had
been edited, anonymized, and approved by the participants, I began the process of coding the
data.
I started the process of coding by conducting a preliminary reading of all the transcripts
to get a better understanding of the themes and overall flow of the interviews. I made sure to
make additional notes of key concepts or ideas that emerged in my field journal during this
process. This process is referred to as horizontalization of data, and I made sure to consider each
statement from the participants as having equal importance to the study (Moustakas, 1994). On
subsequent readings, I started to pull out important quotes, entering them into an Excel
spreadsheet. On this spreadsheet I had a column for the quote, who said the quote, what page the
quote was on, and the emerging code for that quote. Identifying emerging codes was the starting
point of first-level descriptive coding (Miles et al., 2014).
Once I had identified as many of the emerging codes as I could, I grouped them into
broader themes or “meaning units” as described by van Manen (2014). I did this by writing my
codes onto cue cards and spreading them out on my dining room table. This process provided me
with the ability to see all the codes at one time, at which point I began putting the cue cards into
physical piles that each represented a theme in the data. These themes allowed me to make
thorough descriptions of the participants lived experiences with teacher collaboration, as well as
gain a better understanding of the essence of their collaborative experiences.
Strength of Study
To ensure the strength of this study, I utilized Denzin and Lincoln’s (2005) Triple Crises
of Representation, Legitimation, and Praxis. Representation refers to the ability of qualitative
research to capture an accurate representation of an individual’s lived experiences (Denzin &

17

Lincoln, 2005). I assured my participants were being represented accurately and not being
objectified by providing them with the transcripts to edit and approve. I also made sure to
humanize them by asking them to provide context about themselves before the interview. I asked
initial questions such as “what is your definition of teacher collaboration”. This made sure that
there were no misinterpretations about the definitions of key terms used in the interview. After
the interview I asked each participant how they wanted to be represented in the study and what
they wanted to see come from it. This gave the participants more control over how their words
would be represented.
Legitimation refers to the researcher’s trustworthiness (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). I
implemented legitimation by providing direct quotes as evidence of how participants perceived
each aspect of teacher collaboration. By using open-ended questions during the interviews, it
gave participants the opportunity to respond without any constraints from the questions. Praxis
as defined by Denzin and Lincoln (2005) refers to how research findings were used and how they
could potentially benefit others. The findings from this research have the potential to inform the
school community regarding how to best support staff in productive teacher collaboration.

Results
This section identifies the key findings from the data gained from the interviews of the
three participants in this study. To ensure confidentiality, the three participants were assigned a
corresponding pseudonym: “Emily,” “Robert,” and “Sam.” Emily has been a Secondary Teacher
for four and a half years, teaching both science and math. Robert has been a teacher for a total of
15 years, teaching students English as a Second Language (ESL), Social Studies, and Foods and
Nutrition. He has taught students from Grade 5 to Grade 12. Meanwhile, Sam has been a teacher

18

for 17 years and is currently in a program that teaches every subject to students from Grade 9 to
Grade 12. After asking the participants to tell me about their personal teaching histories, I asked
them to describe their thoughts and feelings surrounding teacher collaboration. All three
participants then began to define what they believed to be collaboration in schools.
Defining Collaboration
It is important to note that all the participants had a generally positive view of
collaboration and expressed a strong desire to experience more of it in their current situation.
One participant said “I’m not sure why there is not more collaboration happening here. I guess
COVID had an impact, but even before that there was not much collaboration happening. I really
love collaborating…I wish there was more of that here” (Sam).
The Transfer of Resources and Knowledge
When asked to describe their thoughts about collaboration in schools, the participants
were quick to talk about the sharing of ideas and the transfer of knowledge between teachers.
Robert described an experience he had collaborating with his colleagues where “we had a very
broad and diverse group of teachers that all taught different subjects in different ways. We would
all come together once a month and share our ideas and resources with one another.” It was
evident from these interviews the value the participants placed on resources, and the distribution
of those resources, especially as early career teachers. Sam went on to say that:
[o]ne of the things I love about our school is that the older teachers that are the veteran
teachers are so generous to share their wisdom and their resources with the new teachers
that come here. Year one [of teaching] was absolutely overwhelming. That was so
incredibly helpful for those guys to just share with me. (Sam)

19

However, this transfer of knowledge and resources does not have to happen in person.
Emily described an experience where there was a shared Google drive that all the teachers had
access to and would upload lesson plans and projects that had worked well for them. She said
“collaboration does not have to always be in-person meetings. With all of the new technology we
can meet using Microsoft teams or upload documents to the cloud where everyone can access
them.” One issue a couple of the participants had with the shared Google drive was that while
they had access to these resources, there was limited information on how to implement them into
their lessons. As Sam stated, “most of the resources were hard to implement without having a
conversation with the teacher that made them. But I would take a resource and find that teacher
to have a deeper conversation about how to use that resource.”
Although the participants’ primary focus was on the sharing of projects, lesson plans, and
other material resources, Sam mentioned the importance of teacher collaboration in supporting
the wellbeing of students. He said:
Sharing resources is great…however it is the sharing of information that can be
invaluable. For example, say you have a student that you are having trouble reaching, it
can be beneficial to go to some of their other teachers and see if they have any strategies
that helped them break the ice with that student. Or maybe a student’s behaviour has
changed, it can be helpful to ask their other teachers if they noticed something similar or
if it is just in your class. These seem like small things but can make a world of difference
in building a relationship with that student. (Sam)
Clear Direction/Common Goal
Another theme that was a common thread in all the interviews was the importance of
knowing where you are trying to go with collaboration. Robert identified the importance of

20

purpose for collaboration to be effective, stating “[i]t needs to have a clear direction of where
you want to go with that collaboration. Are we collaborating just to collaborate? Or is there a
goal? …if you're collaborating just because, why are we wasting our time.” The participants all
mentioned that for collaboration to be successful, everyone needs to be working towards a
common goal that is significant to everyone involved.
Sam brought up the importance of “shared interests,” stating how “teachers need to be
invested in what they are spending their time on. There needs to be a shared interest in the topic
of collaboration. Otherwise, why waste our time?”. Sam described how this was achieved in the
past by getting teachers to make a list of topics they were interested in, and then forming groups
around those topics. “This way,” he said, “we could choose to work on something that interested
us, and most importantly, gave us purpose.” (Sam)
The Purpose of Collaboration
When conferring about the purpose of collaboration, the participants’ views could be
placed into two categories: (1) the impact of collaboration on students, and (2) the impact of
collaboration on teachers.
Student Impact
Participants mentioned the impact collaboration can have on students. Both Robert and
Emily discussed how students are far too often, learning in a “bubble”. When I asked them what
they meant by this, they explained that there are topics or concepts learned in one classroom that
are transferrable to other courses taken by the students. Emily said:
But the students do not realize this. The things that they learn in one classroom are locked
into that classroom in their brains. We as teachers need to help guide the students into

21

making these [cross-curricular] connections. That is much easier to do when teachers
from different subject areas are able to collaborate! (Emily)
Teacher Impact
When speaking about the purpose of collaboration, all the participants discussed the
positive impact it has on teachers and their practice. Emily mentioned how her collaboration
relationship with a teacher in the past “helped me teach my class more effectively.” She
described how collaborating with teachers that taught the same subject as her gave her a different
perspective on how to teach. “It is easy to figure out a way to do something on your own and
then never change. Working with that teacher gave me so many ideas, I realized that the way I
had been teaching could be improved.” This notion of improvement and professional growth
came up in my conversation with Sam as well. He mentioned how “it is so easy to become
stagnant [as a teacher]. Collaboration is the most efficient way you can improve your practice.
There is no reason to struggle on your own or try reinventing the wheel. Just find the time to talk
and work with your colleagues. Everyone wins.”
Robert talked about his past collaboration experiences giving him a new perspective of
what teaching is and what it can be, describing “When I started teaching, I was very content
oriented. I focused on getting through the notes. That is what I thought was expected of me and
so that is what I focused on.” He went on to say that:
Collaborating with other teachers, well, one in particular gave me a different perspective.
They showed me the power of doing team building activities with my classes to help
build relationships and facilitate a positive classroom culture. It made me realized that
content is not everything. I still cringe when I think about the teacher I was before I met
them. (Robert)

22

Structure
The participants shared the perspective that even if you have all the factors discussed
above, it is the overall structure of the collaboration that dictates how effective it can be. When
asked about what their ideal collaboration scenario would look like, participants started to
describe the structures that they believed were necessary for effective collaboration to take place.
Participation
They all believed that for collaboration to be effective, you need the participation of the
entire school. Emily stated that “for collaboration to occur, the whole school needs to be
involved. It cannot be a small subset of the population.” Sam had a similar sentiment and said,
“effective collaboration needs to get the whole school involved, there needs to something to
create teacher buy-in, to create a desire to participate.” When asked to elaborate, Sam went on to
describe how some of his past experiences with collaboration were successful because it was a
part of the school’s culture:
In my old school, there was a culture around collaboration. We were not forced, but there
was an expectation that everyone collaborated in some way. We were told, this is your
collaboration time, you are expected to attend a session of interest. I think that
expectation gave teachers that push that they needed to get involved (Sam).
This quote from Sam brought up another important aspect of collaboration that was shared by all
the other participants as well: the importance of time.
Time
If there is one thing that teachers are acutely aware of, it is the importance of time as a
non-renewable resource. All three participants brought up the notion and significance of time
throughout their interviews. Robert mentioned how “we need time within the school day to

23

collaborate. In an ideal scenario, the time for collaboration is built into the school’s timetable so
we do not have to give up our own time before and after school.” Sam shared this belief, stating
“…and so the beauty of having it during the school day is that everybody has time available and
you're making a priority, saying collaboration matters so much that we are going to include that
as part of your paid work time.”
Teacher Driven
Another topic that was discussed had to do with the idea of bottom-up, or teacher driven,
collaboration. All participants acknowledged that every positive collaboration experience they
have had was started by teachers. Emily said:
I think the teachers that have a desire to collaborate, are finding ways to collaborate.
They are working on things that they want to work on with their friends and with people
who they want to be working with. My best collaboration experience was with teachers
asking me to collaborate with them on the new reporting practices. Nobody told us we
had to do it. It was something we were all working on so let’s work on it together
(Emily).
Having collaboration facilitated by teachers is another way to increase the participation and buyin of the staff. Sam mentioned this, stating “when I started, it was completely bottom up driven.
And so, then there was a significantly larger amount of buy in and desire to participate.” Robert
summarized the feelings of the participants perfectly when he emphatically said, “It needs to
come from the teachers!” He would go on to say, “I have also experienced collaboration that was
mandated by the district, and I don’t think it was as effective as it could have been.”

24

Identifying Barriers to Collaboration
Although my interview questions were related to what effective collaboration looks like,
all the participants shared their beliefs as to why collaboration at our school was not as effective
as it could be. When analyzing the transcripts, several “barriers” to collaboration emerged.
Top-Down Collaboration
One such barrier identified by all three of the participants was the notion of top-down, or
district directed collaboration. It was evident from the interviews that teachers have different
opinions on what they find important and want to spend their limited time and resources on.
Robert said:
The thing is, if you're being directed to do it, you're going to get resistance. People do not
like being told what to do. And not every teacher wants to work on the same thing. We
need to have a voice in what we are spending our collaboration time on. Otherwise, they
are not going to participate. (Robert)
Sam had similar feelings but took it a step further and mentioned how district directed
collaboration demonstrates a lack of trust in the teachers. He went on to say “a part of healthy
collaboration is trust. Not just trust in your colleagues, but the trust of the admin and the district,
that you are capable of using collaboration time without being forced to do so.”
Although the participants were strongly against top-down collaboration, they did identify
the importance of administrative and district support. Robert communicated that the role of the
administrators and the district should be to “facilitate” and “support” the teachers in their efforts
to collaborate. He talked about previous experiences where:
[t]he district provided us with time once a month to meet with other teachers and
collaborate. If we needed more time, the admin would bring in a couple of Teachers

25

Teaching On Call (TTOC’s) to cover our classes for us so we could get together and
collaborate on our lesson plans.” (Robert)
Isolation
Another barrier identified by the participants was isolation. COVID has exacerbated the
issue over the past few years, but even before the start of the pandemic, isolation has been a
persistent issue for the participants. They described two ways in which isolation has prevented
them from collaborating effectively. The first is isolation via their departments. Most of the
collaboration experiences facilitated by schools/districts are organized by department. For
example, the Science or English departments get together to collaborate. Robert described how
this is isolating because at most schools he has worked at, he is the only Foods and Nutrition
teacher. He described how “it is tough because [as a Foods and Nutrition teacher] you are an
island unto yourself. You’re the only one in the building, and it is hard to collaborate with
yourself.”
The second type of isolation described by participants was social isolation. This was
particularly prevalent when teachers were either just starting their careers, or when transferring
to a new school. Emily said, “teachers tend to be cliquey, and when you are a new teacher, it is
difficult to break into those established friend groups.” She then went on to describe an
experience where she had made some friends at a new school, however “…they were in different
departments. I was Science, they were Math. So, when the admin told us to get together in our
departments to collaborate, the people I wanted to collaborate with were not there.” This
statement by Emily highlights something that came up frequently throughout the interviews:
effective collaboration requires relationships.

26

Importance of Relationships
All three of the participants discussed the importance of trusting relationships for
collaboration to thrive in schools. Robert said of one of his past experiences with collaboration
that “[i]t was organic. We were working with our friends on things we thought were important
and wanted to be working on.” Emily mentioned, “I think that’s why it worked. We already
knew each other and trusted each other. It is difficult to work with someone if you do not know
them and already have that trust built into the relationship.” Sam shared a similar sentiment, and
added how relationships can provide accountability:
As teachers we know that learning happens best in relationships…And I'm much more
willing to follow through on any commitments that I've made to improve certain aspects
of my practice if it's a commitment that I've made to somebody who I’m friends with and
works right next door to me (Sam).
It is evident from these statements by the participants that trust in your colleagues is a key factor
to effective collaboration. Robert points out that “part of healthy collaboration, at its foundation,
has to be mutual trust and respect. And you have to be willing to put yourself out there and share
your failures and not just your successes.” He continued by saying “in order to do that, there has
to be a climate of respect within the school before any collaboration can occur.” The participants
stated that these trusting, respectful relationships need to be formed before the process of
collaboration can begin. Sam mentioned how:
I do think to set it up properly, you would need to have a conversation on your first few
sessions around what are the norms for our group. How do we maintain mutual respect
without you know, bad mouthing somebody's poor lesson behind their backs. Because

27

any of those kinds of like, behind the back gossip stuff, will destroy trust, and it will
totally destroy healthy collaboration. (Sam)
Sam also mentioned that the relationship building is often skipped with school collaboration
initiatives, further stating “I’m not sure why. It is so important. Maybe the leadership already
assumes we are close to one another because we are colleagues? …and that just is not the case.
Most of us have a few friends that we talk to regularly, but that is it. So, when they try and get an
entire department to collaborate, the relationship aspect just is not there.”
In summary, the participants described a desire to collaborate and have a positive overall
view of collaboration. However, a lack of facilitating structures has prevented them from doing
so. For collaboration to be effective, there needs to be time set aside in the day, there needs to be
a common goal/clear objective, it needs to be teacher driven, and respectful collegial
relationships need to be formed. These often-overlooked aspects of collaboration are crucial for
its existence in secondary schools.

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of collaboration
had by teachers at a Canadian Secondary School. The participants defined what they believed
collaboration to be, discussed its purpose in a secondary school context, identified structures they
expressed needed to be in place, exposed some barriers to collaboration, and underscored the
importance of relationships when starting a collaborative venture. After evaluating each of these
emergent themes, they mirror what has been described in the current literature. These themes
need to be considered when planning future collaboration sessions in schools.

28

Supportive Structures
Olivier et al. (2009) describes everything that aids in the facilitation of effective
collaboration as “supportive structures”. These include factors such as the development of
trusting relationships, availability of time and resources, and organizational structures, all of
which were identified as being crucial aspects of collaboration by the participants in this study.
Relationships
Something that the participants kept going back to during their interviews was the
importance of developing trusting relationships with the people they are collaborating with. They
agreed that before we can even start to think about collaboration, time needs to be spent on
forming positive, working relationships with one another. This is congruent with what was found
by Bellibas et al. (2017)., who found that for collaboration to occur, you need to break the
isolation, and establish respect-based supportive relationships among the staff at the school. A
problem identified by my results was that this is a step that is often skipped by collaboration
initiatives. Whether it is seen as unimportant, or assumed to have already been established is
unclear. What is clear is that it is an imperative step that has been missing at this school. For
collaboration to have a chance at being successful, the implementation of team building
strategies and get-to-know-you activities during staff meetings might help combat the isolation
felt by the teachers at this school.
Time
It is impossible to have any discourse surrounding collaboration without talking about the
limited availability of time. In the past, teachers were expected to give up their valuable
preparation time if they wanted to collaborate or do it on their own time either before or after
school hours. It had even been asked of teachers at this school to give up some of their lunch

29

break to make time for a collaboration block in the schedule. When this was the case, only the
teachers that were highly motivated or had more free time would be the ones willing to give up
their precious time for it. Also, new teachers often need to use their lunches to prep and collect
resources, other teachers may run clubs or provide extra help to students at lunch. Expecting
every teacher to be willing and able to give up that lunch time is problematic at best and
inequitable at worst. Collaboration should be considered work, so the most equitable solution is
to set some time aside during the workday that all teachers can use to collaborate with one
another.
Circumstances at this school have changed in recent years, with teachers being given a
90-minute block once a month where they are required to collaborate with each other. All the
participants described this as being a step in the right direction. They are now being given time
during the schedule of the day, where they are still being paid, that they can use for
collaboration. However, the structure of this prescribed collaboration time is too rigid for any
meaningful collaboration to occur. My data suggests that more freedom is needed in these
collaboration sessions. It is imperative that teachers be given a choice in what they want to be
collaborating on. If that freedom of choice is stripped away, even when given the time to
collaborate, teachers will be reluctant to participate. Study participants suggested that teachers
also need to be given a choice in the people who they are collaborating with. For example.
professional learning groups should not necessarily be limited to the people working in the same
curricular department. There needs to be freedom for the participants to choose who they want to
work with, or again, they may be reluctant to participate.

30

Organizational Structure
My findings indicate that successful school collaboration must be facilitated by the
teachers. The common thread between all the failed instances of collaboration described by the
participants was the fact that they were directed by the district, or so called “top-down”
initiatives. When teachers are told who they need to collaborate with and what topic they must
collaborate on, it creates an us-versus-them mentality, leading to a situation of contrived
collegiality as described by Hargreaves (2019). When the administration of a school appears to
be directing teachers or telling what to do during collaboration time, it creates negative
perceptions of collaboration amongst the teachers. Hargreaves’ (2019) description of
collaboration is where collaboration is voluntary, spontaneous, can occur anywhere, and is
unpredictable. The best collaborative experiences described by the participants echoed those
qualities. They were started organically by teachers that wanted to work on their practice with
other teachers. Effective school collaboration would integrate this process and giving teachers
choice is the first step towards that goal.
Limitations
Due to this study only including a small sample of three participants from one school in
BC, Canada, the results cannot be generalized to all teacher collaboration. This study’s findings
may be useful for starting collaboration initiatives at the school the participants were from, or at
other similarly sized schools with comparable demographics in the same district.
Something missing from the data were perspectives from participants that had no interest
in participating in collaboration. This is likely because teachers with that opinion were less likely
to sign up for a research study based on a topic that they were not interested in. However, I think
it would be beneficial to center their opinions in future studies.

31

This study was designed to be manageable by both the researcher and the participants, as
it was being completed as a requirement for a Master of Education program. Because of this, I
limited the study to three participants, which were restricted to a single interview each. This
meant that the data retrieved was not as rich as it could have been if more time had been
available. If I had the time to go back to the participants and re-interview them to ask some
clarifying questions, I think it would have added some richness to the data.
Finally, as this was my first time conducting participant interviews in a study such as this,
I was careful to bracket myself and not insert my own views and beliefs into the interviews. By
doing so I was able to maintain legitimacy of the study, but likely resulted in the loss of the
richness of the data, as two of my transcripts were quite a bit shorter than expected.
Implications and Recommendations
An important takeaway I have gathered from conducting this research is the benefit that
can be gained by getting out of my comfort zone and having meaningful conversations with my
colleagues. By conducting this study, I have learned more about my colleagues, their values, and
their beliefs than I had the entire four years prior. With the majority of my colleagues, we see
each other almost every day, but our conversations seldomly go deeper that nodding hello in the
hallways. This research has taught me that I need to get out of my classroom “silo” and build
more relationships with my colleagues. Each participant echoed one another when they brought
up the importance of relationships to collaboration. I am going to use the information I have
gained from this research to start the process of building collaboration at my school, starting with
the teachers. I’m going to be meeting with the school administrators to see about implementing
some team-building workshops during our collaboration time. Hopefully once we start building

32

those relationships and school community, there will be more motivation for teachers to
collaborate in the future.
I also plan on starting a collaboration committee at my school where teachers can come
to share their ideas and collaborate on topics that interest them. The participants in this study
talked about how successful collaboration needs to start from the bottom up, beginning with the
teachers. I am going to be that teacher.

Conclusion
This research study further confirms the importance of collaboration in fostering a
healthy and productive school culture. More importantly, it highlighted the significance of how
collaboration should be structured for it to have the best chances of success. School collaboration
must start with relationships. It cannot be assumed that because everyone is working at the same
school, that they are all collegial and are capable of collaboration. Those relationships need to be
intentionally built by the staff and administration before effective collaboration can occur.
It is also imperative that collaboration initiatives give all teachers a voice. They need to
be able to choose what they want to collaborate on, and who they want to collaborate with.
Doing so ensures that PLCs have clear and common goals that they can work towards achieving.
Most top-down collaboration initiatives tend to fail when the teachers do not like being directed
to work on something that they find little value in. As educators, time is our most valuable
resource. However, within a school day, our collegial time is limited. Effective collaboration
needs a set time provided by the district, during the school day, where teachers can get together
to collaborate. If it is true that we make time for the things that we value…and the school district

33

thinks it is important for teachers to collaborate, (which they should), then they need to provide
the time to do so.
If the supportive structures discussed above are left out, school collaboration initiatives
will most likely devolve into the “contrived collegiality” described by Hargreaves (2019). As a
society trying to recover from the isolation caused by the global COVID pandemic, getting
teachers to come together and collaborate is as important now as it has ever been. Establishing
research-based methods and structures will make it easier for schools to implement effective
collaboration in the future.

34

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Appendix A
Ethics Approval

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Appendix B
Interview Protocol
Interview Protocol
Hello! Thank you for participating in my research! I just want to remind you that this
interview and every question I ask is voluntary. You may choose to stop the interview or skip a
question at any time and all documents will be destroyed.
Would you like to choose your pseudonym?
1. Can you tell me a little about yourself and your position within the school?
a. What department are you in?
b. How many years of experience teaching do you have?
c. How long have you been in the Abbotsford district?
2. What do you think about when I say school collaboration?
a. Do you have an example of collaboration?
b. Can you share an experience where collaboration went well?
3. What are your thoughts on teacher collaboration?
4. What does effective collaboration look like in schools?
5. What would be the ideal school collaboration scenario for you?
6. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Thank you for participating in this interview. I will be sending you a copy of the transcript
for your approval. You may withdraw from the research at any time, up until you approve the
transcript. If you feel you need to talk with a counsellor after this interview, please call UFV’s
counselling center to book an appointment: 604-854-4528.