Broker Position Circulation¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

Brokers — people who bridge two or more practices in a Boundary Crossing Learning design — face a paradox: their effort and skill at bridging is what sustains the crossing, but that same centrality can prevent other participants from developing bridging capacity of their own, since delegating the role feels like relinquishing the thing that makes it work. This strategy addresses the paradox directly: a current broker deliberately and explicitly hands their bridging role (or a visible part of it, such as chairing meetings) to a successor who has not previously held it, framing the handoff as building the successor's ownership rather than as stepping back from the work. In the source study, this was done in a chain — a school director delegated the facilitator role to a teacher, who later delegated meeting-chairing duties to students — with each transfer reported to increase the recipient's sense of ownership.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• A broker who recognizes their own centrality as a constraint, not just a strength, and is willing to visibly cede a bridging function
• A plausible successor already present in the partnership (e.g., someone who has attended meetings, even peripherally) rather than an outsider

Constraints¶

• Evidence is from a single case study observing two role transfers in one school; the strategy's reliability across contexts, or its effect on the previous broker's own role satisfaction, is untested
• Circulating a role too early, before the successor has enough exposure to the practices being bridged, is plausible but untested as a failure mode

Implementation Variability¶

• Circulation can be partial (delegating a specific visible function, like chairing part of a meeting) rather than a full role transfer, which may lower the risk of a too-early handoff

Target Learners¶

• Participants at the periphery of a boundary-crossing partnership who have not yet taken on a bridging role, and the current brokers whose centrality risks becoming a bottleneck

Target Learning Goals¶

• Boundary-crossing mechanisms unfold sequentially across levels, and broker centrality creates an involvement paradox [+W]

Instructions¶

1. Identify a broker whose centrality has become a bottleneck — a sign is the broker describing themselves as indispensable ("the one who keeps it alive") rather than describing distributed ownership.
2. Identify a plausible successor already present in the partnership, even if only peripherally involved so far.
3. Transfer a specific, visible bridging function (not necessarily the entire role) explicitly, framing it as building the successor's ownership.
4. Have the outgoing broker remain available for support during the transition, rather than withdrawing immediately.
5. Watch for signs of increased ownership in the successor (e.g., shifting from describing the work as "the" research to "my" or "our" research) as an indicator the transfer is taking.

Related Strategies¶

• (none yet linked)

Examples¶

• A school director delegated the internal-facilitator role for a research partnership to a teacher already involved in the work, who subsequently began using possessive language ("my," "our") about the research; that teacher later delegated meeting-chairing duties to student teachers on placement.

Key Sources¶

• Akkerman, S., & Bruining, T. (2016). Multilevel boundary crossing in a professional development school partnership. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 25(2), 240-284. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2016.1147448