Developing Functional
and Integral Members of an Instructional Team
In the past three years of teaching, I realized that there is a need for
positive communication and idea sharing for the best interest of the students. I
have worked with four teams in the past three years and below is a graph that
shows the need of collaboration broken down by year.
As you can see, the need for support has grown. Looking at the first
year, although the “need support” group is not greater than the “do not need
support” group, when nearly half of the team is begging for some sort of
support, the team leader should be concerned.
With that said, my goal is for each teacher to function as an integral
member of the school instructional team and makes a highly significant
contribution to the educational program through positive communication and idea
sharing.
There is something called the Greenhouse school. It is where
the school carefully cultivates the environment for the teachers to grow and
care for the students. Teachers want schools with a strong instructional
culture, a culture that fosters great teaching. They
value schools where the entire faculty shares a clear vision of excellent
instruction, and where school leaders focus on helping all teachers reach their
full potential in the classroom.
Creating a positive, stable school culture is the key to solving this
issue. School culture is always going to fluctuate with the change in administration.
Sadly, the change in administration happens too often. I have been in two
schools where it’s the principal’s second year and changes are happening to the
dismay of the staff. Educational leaders and instructional team
need to realize that change will happen and will not stop, be flexible and push
through. How can the staff maintain the culture without influence of the
changes in the administrative team? The staff needs to look beyond the changes
in the school and look at what changes they want to see in their classroom. It is
up to the instructional team to make the school culture positive regardless of
the administration.
So, first here are some reflective questions to ask. In what ways can
our school develop a collaborative culture characterized by teachers from
different grade levels communicating, understanding, and sharing expectations
for all of our students? Teaching staff may not have a clear understanding of
the expectations of students in consecutive grade levels. Cultivating a culture
on campus where teachers can collaborate collectively about student progress
and achievement is the goal.
Setting the foundation is critical. A learning organization has a common
purpose and focus, a commitment to a clear vision, and collaboration on the
issues regarding improvement. Collaboration represents a systematic process in
which teachers, support staff, and administrators work interdependently in
order to impact their classroom or school practice in ways that lead to better
results for their students, team and school.
First the instructional
team will need to determine set priorities and standards of gathering
information. This is where the administrative staff can help; the instructional
team will need to gather resources and accommodate for the teaching staff. As a
whole, set an agenda for the school year on topics that will be discussed
throughout the collaboration meetings, urgent and necessary issues.
By taking action
for school improvement, the staff will be taking the issues into their own
hands. Organizing committees or groups
is vital; the enrichment team, specialists, etc. Monitoring improvement
actions, do any of the activities need to be altered? Have any of the
timelines, resources, or persons responsible changed?
One the key problems have been agreed upon, there are steps to take to
ensure resolution. After enacting the resolutions, there are ways to analyze
the data. There will be three focused collections of data that include student
assessment measures and scores, teacher interviews as well as administrative interviews,
and a collection of student work and artifacts. In order to sustain improvement
we can use of the CARE Model (concerns, affirmations, recommendations, and
evaluation) will help examine and improve this project throughout the years.
A strong school
cultures has better motivated teachers. Highly motivated teachers have greater
success in terms of student performance and student outcomes. School principals
seeking to improve student performance should focus on improving the school’s
culture by getting the relationships right between themselves, their teachers,
students and parents.
