A Variety Of Collaborative Approaches

Teaching is moving from an individual to a collective activity. The level of agreement and alignment across classrooms around powerful practices are increasing. The school is aligning its organizational resources around support for instructional improvement.

I approach collaboration as a team player, and I believe students need more than one person to guide them to their full educational potential. Also, active and prepared participation of weekly PLC meetings with the teachers of my special education students to plan collaborative curriculum have increased results in math and reading substantially. Participating in co-teaching furthers my repertoire of knowledge to assist my students. I have learned a vast amount from sharing and consulting with colleagues regarding students, observing mentoring teachers, and planning activities to ensure growth in students.

Collaborative efforts have created more cross-curricular focus throughout the school. When teachers know what each other are teaching, they can support each other in their own curriculum.

In Finnie Tyler High School, there is no mission, vision, or goals driving learning. Each teacher does what they want, when they want. This is an ineffective approach to instruction because students have a difficult time making connections between various subject matters and learning does not necessarily build from one concept to the next or even from one class to the next. Another issues is that teachers are professionally isolated, meaning they do not collaborate with one another. Collaboration is extremely important in improving instructional practices.

Teacher Collaboration measures the degree to which teachers engage in constructive dialogue that furthers the educational vision of the school.

Collaborative learning stems from the theory of Vygotsky’s conception of Zone of proximal development. The thought is that children learn best with “help and guidance” (Ormrod, 2012). In transitioning this zone to a collaborative learning experience, children work with their peers in broadening their learning experience, allowing small groups of students to work together to share knowledge, exchange ideas, problem solve, and more. These classroom environments help to create durable abilities in students and aid in producing a “smoother integration into adult society when the activities resemble real-world tasks” (Ormrod, 2012). As students work with peers and adults, they adopt some of the learning strategies demonstrated and develop more skills in problem solving. This scaffolding creates a trickle-down effect of knowledge construction. In collaborative learning, students are afforded a myriad of enriching opportunities to explore perspectives that may differ from their own. These activities serve to create a self-awareness in the student of their responsibilities to a group, requiring them to self-monitor their activity (Lee, Tsai, Chai, & Koh, 2014).

During my second preclinical experience at Westview Hills Middle School, I learned the importance of cooperation and collaboration among teachers at a school. I was able to observe team and department meetings during this experience. It became clear that it is important for teachers to work together in order to provide a positive atmosphere at a school and in a specific department. Although it became obvious that personalities and teaching styles were different throughout the school, the teachers still acted professionally and used each other as resources in

The high school where I currently teach consists of twenty-four hundred students from grades 10th through 12th. This school organization as many others is in the business of meeting educational challenges in the midst of innovative times in a noble attempt to prepare students academically for the demands of an ever-changing and knowledge driven work environment. There are several key factors that I observe in our school that have in some way hindered our progress in becoming an ideal learning organization. First, our school depends on the collaborative and communication processes

The final aspect of Darling-Hammond plan to improve education is “highly competent teachers who collaborate in planning and problem solving” (2010, p. 244). The idea of collaboration allows teachers and students significant time to discuss, problem solve

Our students come from a wide range of elementary and middle schools and enter our building without consistent levels of instruction that they would receive if they were all coming from a feeder middle school, which leads us to have students with an incredibly wide range of abilities and skills sets when they enter our doors. In response, we have had to create strong structures that hold teachers accountable to sharing and using data to modify their lessons because it is infeasible for us to level our classes perfectly. To do so, we have our instructional coaches work one on one with our teachers to create and update 6-week plans every single week to ensure that their instruction is actually meeting the needs of the learners that are in front of them. Due to these strategies, we had the highest growth in our entire network on the PSAT in quarter one for our ninth and tenth grade cohorts and we are on track to exceed our growth goals for the year. However, it is important to note, that our students have a high level of learning and emotional needs, which means that we have to approach classroom management and social work services differently than another school might. Our classroom management system has to incorporate a high emphasis on relationship and coalition building. It also means that we must approach our instruction in a way that is culturally responsive, culturally sustaining, and data driven. Another strategy that we have implemented to ensure that students have access to rigorous and challenging work is to consistently use data not solely to tell them where they are, but to empower and reinforce to students their worth and capabilities on a daily level. We have VIP lunches, ceremonies that recognize growth, and jobs well done. It is imperative to create a culture of celebration when it comes to acknowledging their hard

“Teamwork fuels group spirit, develops process skills that help teachers interact in more productive ways, and fosters a more intellectual atmosphere.” (Maeroff, 1993).

Collaboration between teachers is a key component to professional development that will lead to higher student achievement. There is a need for schools to set up time for teachers to be able to collaborate together. This allows for teachers to help each other, matchup content, teach each other new and best practices, troubleshoot student issues just to name a few of the areas that collaboration time can help foster within a school. The key is to build time for teachers to be able to collaborate during the school day or week. This collaboration time needs to be between grade levels, departments, and cross curricular when needed. For many schools this is an afterthought to the school schedule or a fleeting thought after the master schedule is completed. A principal needs to keep an open mind to any strategy that will enable the teachers to be able to collaborate for the good of the students and the school.

Fundamentally the role of the classroom teacher is to implement strategies to support, engage and extend the learning of all individuals. In order for this to occur we need to also consider how we involve, collaborate and communicate with parents, fellow colleagues and specialised teachers. Ashman and Elkins (2008) state that teachers need to make themselves aware of the support systems they can access or create to support the needs of all students. This in turn will ultimately enhance teaching potential allowing teachers to fully maximise learning for all. I personally believe that collaboration is not only essential to the professional growth of teachers (Cramer & Stivers, 2007), but a vital key when acting in the best interest of the students and their families.

My vision of collaborative learning is a learning strategy that affords the students enormous opportunities and advantages not available through traditional learning processes. I believe that students in a collaborative team tend to attain

That old saying, “two heads are better than one” rings true in collaborative teaching. “Teachers will learn from each other’s expertise and expand the scope of their teaching capacity” (Ferry, 2013). When teachers come together to provide instruction, they have the opportunity to observe good teaching practices. Teachers are often very isolated. They don’t get the opportunity to see other good teachers in action. It is difficult to learn new teaching practices when you are never allowed to observe other classrooms. Team teaching allows us to be able to learn from each other as we progress through