Teacher Collaboration Why/Why not

• We were fortunate to have Chris Bradbeer from Stonefields share some insight into collaboration, here are some take-home points

• Collaboration can mean Cooperating and collegiality (getting along)
• Teachers often think they are collaborating, when they are not.
• Collaboration is a more intense and sophisticated approach than what we can achieve by ourselves.
• If we want to achieve effective team teaching are we all using the same language?
• We need to pre-empt what the little stresses will be and make arrangements and allowances.
• "A process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their limited vision of what is possible.'
• It's beneficial to learn from colleagues and their strengths and skillsets. There is no point trying to collaborate if people aren't interested in developing these skills.
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  In Viviane Robinson's  Introduction to Open-to-learning Conversations, At the heart of the model is the value of openness to learning – learning about the quality of the thinking and information that we use when making judgments about what is happening, why and what to do about it.

Teacher Collaboration

Why?	Why Not?
Opportunities to learn  (Johnson, 2003)	Loss of Autonomy  (Johnson, 2003)
Collective Teacher Efficacy leads to increased teacher performance  (Moolenaar et al, 2011)	Time-consuming, increased workload (Bovbjerg, 2006)
Co-Planning and Co-teaching leading to decreased workload  (Egodawatte et al, 2011)	Tension amongst colleagues (Bovbjerg, 2006)
Teacher learning for Novice teachers  (Westheimer, 2008)	Balkanisation: teams as closed social structures (Bovbjerg, 2006;Main, 2007)
Improved student performances 9Goddard et al, 2007)	Hierarchies can emerge (Gunn and King, 2003)

Working as a team

Bradbeer, Martin (2016) found in their inquiry that the “capacity to give and receive trust, to sense make and be open, bridges a threshold that helps to move from an “I” space to a “we” space, a critical component of working together”.

During our Sommerville teacher only day, we asked the staff to tell us what collaboration means to them. We used google Jam board to get their feedback.

At Sommerville we work across many different sites, so collaboration across sites and in pathways can look different. One thing we were able to gauge from the feedback is that most staff are keen on collaborating and willing to work as a team. For those who still haven't fully grasped the concept of collaboration, it will be a work in progress.

Team teaching

Will this work in an environment for students with diverse needs? 

Collaborative teaching can be defined as “two or more people sharing responsibility for educating some or all of the students in a classroom” (Villa, Thousand and Nevin, 2008, p. 5). They suggest that it “involves the distribution of responsibility among people for planning, instruction and evaluation for a classroom of students (p. 5). What it’s not they add, is one person teaching, to be followed by another teaching a different subject, or one person teaching while the other one’s preparing material at the photocopier!

Collaborative teaching, at times called co-teaching or team teaching, has been around for quite a while in one guise or another. It first gained popularity in the 1950s, then evolved during the 1960s before becoming widespread in the early 1970s, particularly in open-plan primary schools, before enjoying something of a resurgence in the 1980s (Friend & Reising, 1993).

Team teaching by comparison is when two or more teachers do what teachers do for a class, to plan, teach, assess and take responsibility for all the students in the room, taking an equal share of responsibility, leadership and accountability (Nevin, Thousand, & Villa, 2007).

Team Teaching Tips and Options

Whether you’ve been told to team teach or just find yourself in an organic partnership with a teacher on your team, you might be wondering — what is the best way to approach team teaching?

Why Team Teaching?                                                  Traditionally the school model involved one teacher planning for, teaching, and assessing one group of students.Like many things, it’s only when you question why this is the status quo that you begin to wonder if it is the best approach. 

• Is this the best way to meet the needs of the students and move them forward in their learning? 
• Is this the best way for teachers to grow as a professional while enjoying their teaching role? Maybe not.
• Will this work for student's with diverse needs?

I don't have the answers but I will be looking at more research and collaborating with colleagues about team teaching.

The Benefits of Team Teaching as described by Kathleen Morris

There are many benefits to an effective team teaching approach:

• It can lessen the workload and stress for individual teachers
• Teachers can be powerful role models for students in regards to working collaboratively and productively
• With flexible grouping, the needs of the students can be met more precisely
• Teachers can be more creative and learn from one another
• Team teaching allows for powerful ongoing reflection and analysis
• Teaching partnerships can boost the morale of individual teachers, improve their confidence, and provide the catalyst for a positive classroom community

Again I ask the question -Will this work in an environment for students with diverse needs? 

Lockdown collaboration

During  lockdown, the Sommerville CoL teachers have been collaborating regularly. On one occasion, we were fortunate to have Fiona join us as well.
As a team, we compiled a range of questions around collaboration that we sent out to staff. We collated the data and I will extract the information that I require for my inquiry.
My colleagues Natasha and Sharon will focus on 'How does effective collaborative teaching have a positive impact on learning within the hub/class?'

You can check out Natasha and Sharon's blog for more details.
 https://collaborativecolleaguesinquiry.blogspot.com/

Initial Data Collection


From the data we collected, we were able to recognise that staff at Sommerville agrees that collaboration is beneficial. How we collaborate can be viewed differently.

Looking at the data collected from the question above, we wanted to find out if people believe they are involved in a collaborative planning partnership and if so, who is involved in their collaboration. The data shows us that over half of the staff feel they plan collaboratively; this is a great statistic for us to work with. We can spend time learning about the barriers for those who plan individually. I would also like to further investigate co-teaching. Will this work for our students with diverse needs.