6 simple steps for successful collaboration

While no collaboration of personnel and learners is ever the same, follow these six simple steps and you will be well on your way to establishing a collaborative learning space at your school.

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Learners independently timetabling

1: TALK

The first, and probably the most important aspect of successful collaboration, is talk. Making sure that you and your colleagues are on the same page is critical. Start with your school’s vision. Unpacking what it means for learners and the implications this has for your teaching, is the key to how your collaboration will work, and what it will look like for both the learners and the teachers. While the teachers might have different personalities and teaching styles, their vision for the outcomes for their learners MUST be the same. Having the same goals for your learners will help minimise conflict between the teaching team.

Having said that, issues may come up that unless dealt with appropriately, could lead to conflict. It’s important to get them sorted as soon as they arise. Once again, the key to conflict is talk. Keep going back to the agreed upon vision as this will often guide you as to what is the ‘right’ answer. At Riverdale School, we have weekly ‘formal’ meetings in which we discuss the learners, the programme and make any tweaks we need to. The teachers involved in each learning space brainstorm ideas, build on these, and come to an agreed course of action. I suggest you listen to everyone’s thoughts and opinions, negotiate and collaboratively come up with a solution that will benefit the learners and help reach your shared vision. By not having a ‘boss’, everyone feels equally valued and all ideas are able to be negotiated.

2: CREATE A TIMETABLE

Next you will need to think about timetabling. I’ve lost count of how many tweaks we have made to our timetable! We started with one teacher’s timetable – like you would in a single cell class, and then we ran the other teacher’s timetable alongside it. Initially we started in the purest form of collaboration, where one teacher was responsible for teaching each of the curriculum areas, but it wasn’t long before we saw opportunities for providing more valuable learning experiences. We minimised any time a teacher was sitting ‘watching’ another teacher teach. For example, when one teacher is modelling Writing, the other teacher is taking a Writing Workshop with a group of children who opt in.

The key to timetabling is to change, change, and change it until it works for you and your learners. Remember you have the luxury of TWO or more teachers. Utilise all the teaching personnel you have to the fullest. We swap who teaches what every four weeks. We use our team Data-Monitoring and Target-Setting meetings as ‘hand-over’.

Be creative with the timetable. You can afford to be – you have two teachers! Maybe more! We introduced STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) and Genius Hour, which have provided amazing learning and fun opportunities for our learners. Having multiple teachers allows you to offer a richer curriculum throughout the week and ensures learners aren’t stuck in rotations for the three core subjects, for most of the day.

3: GET DIGITAL

We have found Google Docs and Sheets invaluable; all our planning is done online. We have set up tabs in our Google Sheets so that the term’s planning in a particular curriculum area is in one place. This is a quick as easy way to make sure everyone has immediate, up to date access to all planning and anecdotal notes on the learners’ achievement. We use Google Sheets to track progress too.

4: ESTABLISH

I teach Year Ones and Twos and the thought of providing a Modern Learning Environment where the children would be free to choose where they sit and what

they do was initially scary. So I introduced the ‘Press Pass’ – where the learners earn the right to be freelance workers. This ‘independence system’ meant I had control as to who was ready to be more responsible for their own learning. The whole system is a bit tricky to explain, but basically, there is a set of criteria that each child must fulfil to earn the ‘Press Pass’. One of the criteria is linked to the Writing Levels and this has had a positive effect on our learners’ writing (particularly our boys), as they strive to achieve the privileges that go with the next level of independence.

Learners are introduced to Must Do’s and Can Do’s which are then scaffolded into their independent timetable. We have a large group of learners who have completed all the set criteria and are able to complete their own timetable and then work independently in our breakout spaces. All activities in our MLE have a task card which helps to reduce the Learners’ dependence on the teachers as they are able to follow the instructions and complete the activity independently.

5: MAKE LEARNING VISABLE

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Learners self assessing their writing against a rubric

Visible Learning is a new approach we have embraced this year. We have established workshops for Mathematics and Writing and these workshops are on display for the children to see. The idea of having the children’s names up where everyone can see them can be a bit daunting at first, but we have trained the learners (and parents) that it’s about celebrating progress, persistence and hard work – not achievement.

Learners know EXACTLY what they are working on and what their next step is. We are big on visible learning intentions, matrices, rubrics and success criteria. Children are self and peer assessing and are able to provide feedback and feed-forward to their peers.

6: SET UP WORKSHOPS

Our Mathematics workshops have probably been our biggest success of the year. Based on Junior Assessment in Mathematics (JAM), our workshops focus on the key areas of Numeracy such as Numeral ID, Forward Sequences, Grouping and Place Value and Basic Facts etc. We have adjusted our timetable (once again) to let one teacher teach Strategy while the other covers Knowledge. We have created sets of activities for the Knowledge area.

We begin each lesson with a Knowledge ‘hotspot’ and then I take the Stage 4 and 5s for a Strategy workshop, while my colleague takes the Stage 2 &3s for a Knowledge workshop. Half way through the lesson we swap groups. To minimise us both needing the same child to attend our workshop we have decided that the Strategy workshop has precedence. What is taught one day may be different the next, and since the Knowledge workshops are based on the same concept for two weeks, the child can complete the activity the next day. Learners have two instructional Maths lessons a day. What a ‘single cell’ teacher would cover in a year, we can cover in two terms. As a direct result, we are seeing accelerated progress in our learners’ achievement.

Workshops are a great way to develop Learner Agency. In Physical Education, we have Workshops operating too. Learners are able to choose which workshop they want to attend. Most recently our focus has been on throwing and catching. The children were able to choose whether they wanted to work with large or small balls. Interestingly, all boys came to my small balls Workshop. One of the learners told my colleague he went because he can already throw and catch a large ball but he needs to learn how to catch a small ball. We have 5 and 6 year olds, able to identify their own learning needs.

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Visible Learning enables learners to monitor their learning

IN CONCLUSION:

Collaboration has enabled us to provide richer opportunities for learners to be leaders, to work co-operatively to be creative and problem-solve. We have made all learning outcomes visible to the children and are providing them with opportunities for specific target teaching that meets their diverse learning needs. Our learners have told us how they see us as a family, and that we all help each other learn. Our learners are making accelerated progress which would not be possible if they were in a single teacher classroom. Collaborating with colleagues is the way education is headed globally. I hope these six simple steps will help you make a good start. Good

Luck!

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Jo Lunn


Jo is the Lead Teacher of a Year One and Two collaboration oat Riverdale School in Palmerston North. Her team currently occupies two single cell classrooms with an adjoining cloak-bay. This year has proved to us that collaboration is a mind-set... and not about a fancy new classroom.