Creating A New Shared Vision

Collaboration: In a community of learners, students work together in teams, partners, or groups. This allows students to gain social skills and increases students’ motivation for the project. Students share ideas and gain a new understanding of the content.

The article goes into great detail over the fact that co-teaching, when implemented correctly, has the potential of really enhancing the learning of all students (Conderman & Hedin, 2014, p.359). Before any co-teaching can happen though the article elaborates on the fact that a teacher needs to know who their students are. And when differentiating instruction a teacher needs to be able to address a “students’ unique strengths, interest, skills, and readiness” (Conderman & Hedin, 2014, p. 353). After all helping each child learn, whatever that looks like, is the ultimate goal, and this article shows how teachers can do this with a co-teacher.

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

be properly addressed through one’s teaching so that educators need to collaborate so that they

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.

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.

Collaboration within groups allows individuals to use their own specific ideas and own talents to succeed when they needed it the most. When succeeding in a collaborative environment an individual gains the ability of communication that is growing in the world today. The school system used to be completely individual based with little to no feel of a collaborative environment. However, schools are now beginning to understand the benefits of losing the standard approach to school and is now leading the world to a collaborative environment. While working in a collaborative environment the members of these groups usually gain insight on what they are effective at and what they are no effective at.

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.

Educators in secondary education public schools have adopted new methods in the delivery of instruction as a response to the increase in the number of students per classroom, the increase in ethnic diversity among students, and the inclusion of special education students in general education classrooms. These methods include collaborative teaching practices that incorporate a joint effort among educators to ensure that students gain a more productive and effective learning experience while in school. Not only would collaborative practices be ideal for student-centered teaching, but it would also be beneficial to educators as a collaborative experience may give teachers insight into alternative lesson planning approaches, offer opportunities for teachers to try new co-teaching techniques, and allow teachers in different content areas to share knowledge. However, collaborative practices may also become problematic if educators have incompatible personalities, are unable to develop clear communication, or lack administrative support. Through interviews with a special education English teacher, a Spanish language arts teacher, and the principal at the Bronx High School for Medical Science, an analysis of this school’s implementation of collaborative teaching was conducted to identify central aspects that promote successful collaborative experiences for educators.

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

“Research by Amy Edmonson at the Harvard Business School finds that organizations often thrive, or fail, based on their ability to work as teams to learn, improve, and innovate.” (Poulos, Culberston, Piazza, and D’entremont, 2014). The popular saying of teamwork, makes the dreamwork, comes to mind when thinking of the importance of collaboration amongst fellow teachers. In my short experience teaching, I have found both of the above statements to be true. I can honeslty say, if it had not been for certain coworkers who allowed me to bounce ideas off of them or who took me under their wing and taught me how to complete a particular task, then I would be the successful teacher I am today. Collaboration is vital because it allows the educators

The first is where one teaches and one observes, a useful model when observation and data collection is necessary, but it does not give both teachers equivalent responsibilities. Station teaching breaks students into small groups and has them rotate to several teacher-led and/or independent work stations, a model which involves both teachers but can be noisy and distracting for both teachers and students. In parallel teaching, students are divided into two equal groups and each partner teaches the same material; this method ensures diversity and lowers teacher-student ratio, but requires that both teachers have similar content knowledge and teach at a similar pace. In alternative teaching, one teacher works with a small group of students who need additional instruction, while the other teacher works with the remaining students; this benefits those students who need more intensive instruction, but it can stigmatize them if they are always placed in this small group instruction. One teach while one assists is a method that allows for students to be supported during a lesson, but it can be over-used with the eventual result of having little benefit over a one-teacher classroom. The final and possibly the most effective method is team teaching, where both teachers equally share planning and instruction. This method allows teachers to draw off one another’s strengths and provides greater diversity of teaching, but it may be difficult for

In any collaborative environment, an open-line of communication is a critical factor. Communication is a two way interaction of listening and speaking in turn. One speaks while the other listens for true comprehension is a key factor. One must get an understanding before the vision can be implemented within any leadership role. The presence of collaboration in schools are the result of principals, educators, parents, and administrative leadership in working as a team. The purpose of this essay is to explain the importance of teacher leadership, the principal 's role in developing teacher leaders, and their connection to the development of a collaborative culture in schools.

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.

“Through collaboration, ideas can be shared, new and better strategies can be developed, problems can be solved, students’ progresses can be better monitored, and their outcomes are evaluated effectively.”¬ (Lee, 1996).