Collaboration..the journey begins...again.

You know that feeling you get when your wonderings and gut feelings are vindicated, but not really in a good way? Well, the first step in the journey to know more about teacher collaboration has begun....again


Teacher collaboration can take different forms and I have also discovered that it means different things to different people. This has led me to mapping out the steps I am taking to learn more.


Step 1:
Introduce concept of teacher collaboration to colleagues.
I started with a staff meeting discussion which brought out these points:

• Using Google Docs was considered to have positive potential for planning whole school initiatives, but planning across grade levels was not viewed as useful. Indeed, there appears to be a belief that planning for literacy and numeracy across grade levels and sharing same was not acceptable.

"Why google docs?" rather than school intranet server?

• Accessible anytime anywhere.
• Can edit simultaneously.
• For sharing across grades, we can use teaching activities from each other's plan.
• Builds a culture of understanding different teaching approaches and an appreciation of colleagues' strengths and weaknesses.

Step 2: Input teacher response and adapt plan for next meeting 


In light of initial responses it is clear that we need to clarify and consolidate our understandings about teacher collaboration. Step 2 also involves gathering evidence:


What do other teachers do?

1. To cast a wider net we have contacted all of the small schools in our network to gather some ideas about how they collaborate.
2. Access resources and evidence online, for example

Making the most out of teacher collaboration
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teacher-collaboration-strategies-ben-Johnson


Pathways to collaboration - across grade levels
https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2012/10/18/pathway-to-collaboration/


Looking at student work collaboratively
http://www.essentialschools.org/resources/60


The Seven Principles of Highly Effective Professional Learning - DET Victoria


This highlights the value and the expectation that teachers will participate in professional learning together and collaborate.


3. Talk to my PLN - Twitter will be ablaze this weekend

What I read on the holidays

Kept reading about teacher collaboration
Supporting hesitant/resistant colleagues.
Leading others to unlearn
Specific tech tools to use in class and working on developing a way to bring the traditional approach of paper recognition and acknowledgement alongside the digital format of CD. This is in the name of honouring the opinions/beliefs and perception of others.
Collected a range of thoughts from Twitter to help my own thinking

Did a chat with #BastowLSDA ppl

You're quoted in: How can schls use social media to help their schl community feel better connected? http://sfy.co/h0on4

Josh Stumpenhorst‏@stumpteacher Jul 1

We need to be asking less "how do I get tech" and more "why do I need tech". Intentional use and purposeful integration. #ISTE2015

 

edutopiaVerified account ‏@edutopia 4h4 hours ago

Meta-collaboration = thinking with one another: http://edut.to/1NS4UGf .

 

Read about coaching as well.

 

 

 

 

Whaddaya stand for?

To lead you need to know what you stand for. To lead you need to be able to tell people what you stand for. To lead others, they need to know what you stand for.

I stand for empowering others through teaching and learning. I stand for giving others the power to create their own story. People have the right to find and work towards what they want in life. They have the right to follow their own passion.

As a teacher I guide students to develop the knowledge, skills and abilities which lead them to uncover the thing that are really good at and really want to do. When they do this, students build confidence and then they fly...take risks, try anything, because they know I believe in them.

I want to make sure that all of the students I teach get something out of my lessons. This will vary for each student, despite there being a clear learning intention and an expectation of what I am looking for.

Some students will understand the learning intention, link the concepts together and instantly be able to teach another student. Others will barrel past the instructions and hurl themselves at the task, then link the concepts together and be able to teach another student. Other students will be oblivious entirely and be unable to explain. These students may need reteaching

Some will appear to be oblivious but at the end of the lesson be able to explain part or all of the learning intention. Another group of students will link the learning intention to something else that they already know, or synthesise two areas of learning (like patterns in fractions and multiplication times tables) with little prompting from me.

For each student the outcome may be slightly different...and I can draw professional satisfaction from each child's experience of my teaching.

In the moment of teaching, when I am with the students, if I focus on the learning of the students and not on what I need to "cover" in the curriculum it is a much more fulfilling role. It is also in these moments that ego or self consciousness departs and I no longer wonder if my colleagues think I am doing my job "right".

As a leader I support colleagues to become the best they can be. In this I hope to enable teachers empower their students. So my leadership focus reinforces what I stand for. However one difference springs to my mind - adults already know stuff. They bring a field of experience, training and knowledge, as well as fixed opinions and beliefs to all aspects of their lives. Children as learners are forgiving, adults tend to be less so. This makes the task of leading others a slightly different challenge but nonetheless worthwhile.

So while trying to lead colleagues through collaboration a range of questions streak into my thoughts. These are questions you need to have responses for in order to show that you are able to lead. These responses also need to be firm, positive and with as little hesitation as you can muster.

• If my best effort cannot support struggling students to engage or learn, why shouldn't I ask others for help?
• And what reason would others have to respond with "We all teach differently" rather than "Have you tried ....?"
• Are you an effective colleague if you don't have the time or willingness to support the endeavours of your fellow teachers?
• Does it matter if I don't get my job right all of the time?
• Does it matter if my colleagues know that? Is it ok to make mistakes?
• Is it ok to be a bystander as these mistakes occur?
• Do we give up on a trial approach just because it's in the implementation dip?
• Do we need to disrupt the teaching and learning?

Next steps

A few days away from the beginning of Term 3 and I am planning, scheming and preparing.

 

I plan to:

•  Re-read our ICT change plan and check when and where I am going to deliver PL for Ts and Ps
• Share the results of LIP and my recommendations regarding teaching of growth mindset - perhaps even explore Hattie's teacher mindsets as well.
• Prepare HPE plan for Term 3 - Football skills, Dettol Healthy Schools, Growth Mindset - learning to learn.
•  Put these ideas into some coherent format:

Write a submission to CSSN/local secondary schools regarding Yr 6 to Yr 7 transition which assists Ts to understand the nature of each other's classrooms and support Yr 6s to make a successful transition.

Write a submission to same about involving some middle secondary students studying history to engage with us for the school centenary in 2016.

• Develop a digital learning work program for a neighbouring school's grade 3 to 6 class - Monday afternoons.