Collaboration Corner
Long gone are the days of teachers working in isolation. Research, and common sense, tells us that professional collaboration among teachers is good for everyone. Through collaboration, teachers share the responsibility planning quality instruction, students all have equal opportunity to learn, and student achievement continuously rises to new levels.
Effective collaboration however, is often more difficult than it seems. There is a difference between acting as a group of teachers who teach the same subject and functioning as a team that is dedicated to student learning. When educators focus in on what they are teaching, why they are teaching it, and what students are really learning, conversations can sometimes become difficult and uncomfortable. Teams who push past that in the name of student learning will see amazing results.
Below are some tools to help guide your meetings. There is not one perfect flow chart, agenda, or protocol that will instantly make your team effective, but following regular guidelines can help to keep meetings focused on the right work.
Effective collaboration however, is often more difficult than it seems. There is a difference between acting as a group of teachers who teach the same subject and functioning as a team that is dedicated to student learning. When educators focus in on what they are teaching, why they are teaching it, and what students are really learning, conversations can sometimes become difficult and uncomfortable. Teams who push past that in the name of student learning will see amazing results.
Below are some tools to help guide your meetings. There is not one perfect flow chart, agenda, or protocol that will instantly make your team effective, but following regular guidelines can help to keep meetings focused on the right work.
Four Guiding Questions for Collaborative Teams
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Use this document, Guiding Questions for Collaborative Teams, to help lead team meetings. Keep this page out to help keep discussion focused in the right direction.
Questions number 1 and 2 really help direct lesson planning. Once you have clarified what the intended student learning outcomes are and know exactly how students will be expected to show mastery of the learning outcome, you can turn the discussion to instructional strategies and activities that will best help students learn.
Once data has been collected through quick, common, formative assessments, or through more in depth district checkpoints, the discussion should focus on what students did and did not learn and most importantly, what to do about it.
Questions number 1 and 2 really help direct lesson planning. Once you have clarified what the intended student learning outcomes are and know exactly how students will be expected to show mastery of the learning outcome, you can turn the discussion to instructional strategies and activities that will best help students learn.
Once data has been collected through quick, common, formative assessments, or through more in depth district checkpoints, the discussion should focus on what students did and did not learn and most importantly, what to do about it.
guiding_questions_for_teams_1.docx | |
File Size: | 14 kb |
File Type: | docx |
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