When I first began teaching, I was surprised to find how individually and autonomously teachers went about their work of educating young people. It was a bit confusing to me, considering that we were collectively responsible for the academic, intellectual, and social development of our students. Yet, most of my colleagues worked alone in the confines of their own classrooms autonomously designing lessons and units.
Sure, there were the monthly department meetings, but most of that time was dedicated to sharing mandates and concerns from the administration, handing down deadlines for paperwork, or simply catching up socially with one another breifly before or after the meetings. Whatever shared time my department and I did have was not very collaborative. It was more a gathering of affiliated, but separate, teachers fitting one more thing into their already jammed packed school day.
According to "a MetLife Survey
of the American Teacher (2009), today’s teachers work
alone—they spend an average of 93 percent of their time in school working in
isolation from their colleagues, and they continue to work alone during their
out-of-school hours of preparation and grading. Their day-to-day work is
disconnected from the efforts of their colleagues, and their pullout
professional development is fragmented and poorly aligned with their students’
learning needs" ("Learning Teams and the
Future of Teaching" by Tom Carroll and Hanna Doerr).
This is precisely the environment I have witnessed at many schools over the course of my career as a teacher and a student. This says nothing about the quality of teachers I have learned from and worked with. I've had the honor of being influenced by and working with some extraordinarily dedicated, thoughtful, reflective, and gifted teachers. They were also some of the most time-strapped and over-worked people I have known.
As I think about my own role on this scenario, I can't help remember, with disappointment, the many times I had closed my classroom door and turned out the light after the students had left, only to hunker down at my desk to plan for the next day. On either side of me, there were departmental colleagues doing the same thing. It was as if we were connected by the same rope (helping our students learn and develop), but both pulling blindly in the opposite direction, trying to move in the direction that we both, individually, felt we needed to be moving.
The experience of having such extended and purposeful time with my colleagues to explore who we are as a community, where we are going in the 21st century, and what practices we need to undertake to get there created a strong sense of connectedness, trust, and shared vision and purpose. It also allowed us to practice the 21st century skills we will need to model for our students. Finally, it instilled in me a new faith in the importance of consistent and purpose-driven collaboration amongst teachers.
As I prepare for the upcoming school year, I will be thinking a great deal about the role of collaborative teams in education, for teachers and students. What might the formation of collaborative teams look like at the departmental level, at the grade level, at the division level, etc.? How do we go about developing the intended outcomes, structures, and norms of the teams? What does a successful collaborative team look like? How do we plan for meaningful and consistent meeting time in our tight school schedule?
The following is an article called "Learning Teams and the Future of Teaching" by Tom Carroll and Hanna Doerr, which was published in Education Week. The article provides some convincing arguments for Learning Teams, as well a list of 6 principles and practices of highly effective learning teams.
