Making Sense of Interaction in Teaching Teams

Teaching teams are increasingly central to how educational institutions organize pedagogical development, coordination, and daily academic work. Unlike hierarchical forms of organization, these teams often operate with substantial autonomy and must continuously negotiate roles, responsibilities, expectations, and relationships. Collaboration is therefore not only about allocating tasks, but also about how team members interpret their shared work and interactions.

Although previous research has examined team composition and the outcomes of collaboration, less is known about how members make sense of their everyday interactions. Processes such as communication, participation, negotiation, decision-making, and coordination remain underexplored, despite their importance for understanding team dynamics. This is particularly relevant as educational institutions increasingly delegate authority and responsibility to collaborative and self-managing teaching teams.

This study asks: How do members of teaching teams make sense of their everyday interactions? Depending on the empirical material, the study will focus on either problem-solving or communication patterns within teams. Drawing on sensemaking theory, it examines how members interpret ambiguous situations, such as decisions, disagreements, and uneven participation, and how these interpretations shape understandings of collaboration, responsibility, and authority. The study also considers how differences in cultural background, professional experience, discipline, and institutional position influence these processes. It contributes an interaction-centred perspective on collaboration in teaching teams.