Seven Tips for Meaningful Collaboration With Other Teachers

Many educators these days face a common challenge: balancing the new initiatives school leadership has asked them to implement with limited time for collaboration with colleagues. While teachers often need (and want!) to work together to implement these initiatives effectively, finding consistent opportunities to meet can be difficult.

One successful strategy for structured collaboration during the school day is using a dedicated time block to explore key topics as a faculty, such as during a lunch period. The following seven tips outline how you can adopt a similar approach at your school to create meaningful, manageable opportunities for professional learning and collaboration among staff.

Gather a Team to Lead the Group

First, take a look at the initiatives your school is tackling. What ideas do you need time to discuss? What topics require shared knowledge? Gather a few teachers willing to lead and begin planning together. A team approach works well because more ideas are represented and a variety of voices can be heard. In addition to classroom teachers, consider including special educators, support personnel, and special subject teachers as team leaders.   

Decide on a Schedule

Next, think about how many opportunities for learning and reflection each initiative needs. Meetings can be weekly, biweekly or monthly based on the need of your faculty and the initiative. Take other team meetings that are already scheduled into account and plan your collaborative meetings for days when the maximum number of faculty are free and can attend.

Choose a Meeting Space

Libraries and art rooms are great spaces for collaborative meetings. They usually are large enough to accommodate a group, and they often have the technology you may need. Classrooms are another great option. In addition to the space and technology, teachers love to peek into each other’s classrooms but often don’t have the time.

Set an Agenda and Stick to It

Communicate your topic and goal to your colleagues before the meeting. Be sure to let people know what to bring, where to bring it and when.

Start the meeting with a simple adult-friendly greeting that provides an opportunity for teachers to connect with one another. Then, devote the majority of the time to the content and discussion, but plan time at the end for reflecting and thinking about how to implement. The amount of time you designate to each chunk depends on how much time you have for lunch. For example, a typical agenda might look like this:

• Opening: “Micro-Wave” (3 minutes) from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades K–2
• Content and small group discussion: Read handout. Facilitate small group discussion by asking the question “What is one important idea you read about in the handout? How might it look in our school?” Allow staff to answer briefly. (20 minutes)
• Report out to large group: Facilitators summarize and report out small group discussions to the entire group. (5 minutes)
• Reflection: Staff turns and talks with a partner about the reflection question, “What is one idea you may try in your classroom tomorrow?” (5–7 minutes)

Make It Interactive

Plan the session around an interactive activity that will help your faculty understand new ideas. For instance, they could read an article and then turn and talk with an elbow neighbor about a focus question. Or, if they have access to laptop or computers, they could explore a website and turn and talk about their observations. You might also use the time to have grade levels delve into an idea and plan for implementation. The activity doesn’t have to be complicated, but you should plan carefully and make sure to have the correct amount of copies, materials, or technology ready.

The More the Merrier!

Include special subject teachers, special educators, and support personnel if the content applies to them.  Each professional offers a unique perspective that will help everyone gain a greater understanding of the initiative and how it affects our students.

Reflect on the Experience

Finally, be sure to find a time for your team to huddle after the meeting. Use this huddle to debrief and plan for the next time. Reflect on what worked well and what seemed to be challenging, and review notes you jotted down when facilitating the small group discussions. Make plans to address these observations at your next gathering. Or, if you ask attendees to respond to a reflection question as their “exit ticket” before the end of the collaborative meeting, you can use that feedback for planning your next gathering.

Planning and implementing collaborative meetings can help your faculty find time to communicate and develop meaningful professional learning communities. I hope you give it a try! If you do, let us know how it goes!

Candace Roberts contributed to this article.