The purpose of this lesson is to help educators develop a strong collaborative culture. Educators will reflect on their experiences with collaboration, identify a shared goal of all members of the school community, highlight key knowledge, skills, and dispositions within the InTASC standards, celebrate strengths of new and experienced teachers, evaluate examples of collaboration, and spend time improving collaboration within teams.
In education, we have many common goals and even more ideas on how to accomplish those goals. Collaboration is the process where multiple people work together to accomplish shared goals. Successful collaborators must work cooperatively and use excellent communication in order to achieve their goals. Effective collaboration among educator teams leads to greater learner success and increased educator well-being.
Activity 1: (20 minutes) WHAT IS COLLABORATION?
Invite educators to think about what comes to mind when they hear the word “collaboration.” Have them turn and share briefly with a partner. Read the information about collaboration and have a group discussion:
Give teachers 10–15 minutes to reflect on the following prompts and record their thoughts in a journal, on their phone, on their computers, etc. Let teachers know they will be referring to their answers later on in the lesson.
Journal Prompts:
Activity 2: (20) WE ARE A COMMUNITY
Invite educators to line up in the middle of the classroom and give a variety of “would you rather” statements, having educators move to the corresponding side of the room. Alternatively, have educators stand up or sit down to express their opinion for each statement. Go through the list of applicable statements below or create your own.
Would You Rather…
Have everyone return to their seats and pass out a sticky note to each person. On their sticky notes, have educators respond to the question:
Have everyone respond on their sticky note then place it on the board or on a poster. After everyone has had a chance to respond, read through each sticky note. As a group, synthesize all of the answers to come up with one sentence that summarizes the goal of educators at your school. Emphasize the idea that despite having different opinions, experience levels, and backgrounds, we are all part of the same school community with the same shared goal: the success of our students. Have a discussion:
Activity 3: (30 minutes) INTASC STANDARDS
Read about the InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards from the Council of Chief State School Officers and have a discussion:
Invite educators to gather with their collaborative team if they are not already. Pass out a copy of the Connection to InTASC Standards handout to each group along with 3 different colored highlighters. Explain that this handout includes the section introductions and InTASC standards that are the most closely related to collaboration. Invite groups to read through each description and standard and highlight the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to meet each standard. (Teacher Tip: If educators are unsure what to do, go through a standard together, highlighting the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed.)
Come back together as a group and have a discussion:
Have educators return to their groups and select the standard they feel is the most important. Give groups 5–10 minutes to discuss steps they could take to better meet the standard they selected. Display the prompts for groups to use to guide their discussion if necessary:
Activity 4: (20 minutes) EVERYONE MATTERS
Begin by reading the funny comparisons between new and experienced teachers from Bored Teachers. (Teacher Tip: Emphasize that these were written as a joke and are simply meant to break the ice.)
Divide the class in half and pass out a poster to each group. Ask one person in each group to volunteer to be the scribe. Invite one group to think of great examples of new teachers represented in the media. Invite the other group to think of great examples of experienced teachers represented in the media. If teachers need help getting started, share the examples on the slides. Give individuals 1–2 minutes to think about their answers, then have groups get together and share their examples, including what makes each example a great teacher, while the scribes take notes on the posters. After sufficient time, have groups choose a spokesperson to share their list with the whole group. Compare the lists and have a discussion:
Invite educators to add any other ideas they can think of to the lists. Read the quotes about collaboration from Alexa Adama at Edutopia and have a discussion:
As a group, brainstorm ideas for how to better facilitate new and experienced teachers learning from each other. A few ideas are listed below:
Emphasize that collaboration works best when we seek strengths of others, not weaknesses. Challenge teachers to listen to and learn from each other, regardless of age or experience. Apply one of the ideas the group came up with.
Extension: Have every educator draw the name of another educator at the school and challenge them to observe them over the course of a week or so and celebrate their strengths by writing them a note, sending an email, etc.
Activity 5: (20 minutes) COLLABORATION RUBRIC
Read about collaboration on the slides. Ask the group to come up with one more attribute that they think is essential for great collaboration in school teams.
Pass out the Collaboration Rubric handout. Have teachers add the last attribute in the bottom, left corner on their handout. Then watch the following video clips. As teachers watch, have them rate the teams based on the list of attributes.
After the clips, invite several teachers to share their scores with supporting reasons. Have a discussion:
Activity 6: (30+ minutes) IMPROVE COLLABORATION
Prior to this activity, select a team or teams who are highly effective at collaboration to share their tips or strategies with the group.
Invite educators to refer back to their collaboration reflection from an earlier activity, specifically what successes they have experienced as a result of collaboration. Invite the previously invited team or teams to take 5–10 minutes to share their tips with the group and answer any questions, as appropriate. Have a discussion:
Invite collaborative teams to gather together if they are not already sitting by each other. As a group, have them discuss:
Share the examples of sample agendas and team norms. Invite teams to consider what they could apply from the examples. Give collaborative teams the remaining time to take action on something they can do to improve their collaboration based on what they have learned during the activity, whether that is creating team norms, coming up with an agenda, or something else.
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