Collaboration
Collaboration is key. There are few organisations, work spaces or industries that don’t work collaboratively in one way or another. John Spencer says humans have always been collaborative, we worked together in the hunter gatherer days and we will need to continue to work together in the age of artificial intelligence. It isn’t a 21st century skill, it is a timeless skill.
It is essential that our schools, our learning spaces and the way we work as teachers and leaders are also collaborative so we can do the best for our students.
Collaboration can happen at varying levels of the school, however I am talking about the collaboration needed for classroom teachers to plan and work together, ultimately in flexible or innovative learning spaces. If you are not in an innovative learning environment you can still plan and work collaboratively across your team, within your school or across your schools, if you are part of a Kāhui Ako.
Relationships
In my first years of teaching I was in a single cell class. Like all new teachers I did everything the long way. I spent hours before and after school getting everything ready so my days ran smoothly. The learning was immense. I used my release time to get to know my students, observe other teachers, visit other schools and attend professional learning. At the end of every single one of those first few years, my classroom resembled a funeral on the last day. It felt like our hearts had been torn out and were being crushed on the floor in front of us. I would always spend the first week of the holidays pouring over my cards from the kids and their whānau. I had done a great job getting to know my learners but it was too unnatural, too intense.
At the end of my first year teaching with 3 teachers in a space with 70 students the last day was sad. However I didn’t bawl my eyes out. I had established strong relationships with all of the learners in my space, and so had my colleagues. And because those students had three teachers with whom they could connect and go to for support they felt encouraged, backed and nurtured.
A common thought around collaborative teaching is that “our students need their teachers because they know them best”. My message: the relationships are still there. In fact you have three relationships. It becomes a net of support rather than a single taut rope connecting one teacher to 20 - 30 kids. Parents also have three teachers they can go to for support or talk to about their child’s learning.
Learning from our colleagues
It is really important in any workplace that your passions, skills, talents are brought to the table. A collaborative team won’t work if people water themselves down in order to fit in. Just like the students, we all belong, we are our community and everything you bring enriches the fabric at your place. Robert Oprandy says that the closer we are to the person outside of the classroom, inside the classroom, the easier it is to flourish and create authentic connections with those around us. If you love maths, shout it out. If you are creative, share it. If you are keen on basketball, let it be known. You don’t need to be an expert in any of these areas, you just need to be keen and enthusiastic and let that rub off on your students and colleagues. Ideally your school environment will foster this sort of ownership and you will have agency to drive passion, inspiration and interest amongst your team.
When teachers work together, open up and de-privatise our practice we will learn through each other. The learning will stick at a rate much faster than any conference will be able to achieve. Teachers working collaboratively need to be ready. There can be a real fear attached with opening up, especially if teachers have been used to doing things their way, successfully, in their own space for many years. An ‘open to learning’ approach will help here. Does your school foster an ‘open to learning’ approach? Or is there a ‘way we do things around here’ that has been withstanding for years? Once we open ourselves up to change, once we admit to ourselves that we don’t always know the best way, once we start to think outside of the box, once we question more and listen attentively, we prepare ourselves to be ready to learn and to work collaboratively on goals that will in turn benefit our students.
In a traditional classroom setting teachers may work together on various learning projects but may never really benefit from the pedagogical strengths of the teacher right next door to them. By working collaboratively in a flexible space you are able to see other teachers teaching, observe each other’s lessons and receive feedback from each other to propel your practice forward. This can happen organically or in a more structured way, in either case, when the teachers are ready to learn and open to the de-privatisation of their practice, their growth will be fostered exponentially within a collaborative environment.
Teachers have been known to say that “the success of a collaborative teaching team comes down to your team.” There is an element of truth to this. It comes down to how open you are as a teacher (or leader) to working with new people and how open you are to learning from each other. I say, you are all professionals and every new team opens up new opportunities to learn. Have candid conversations with your teaching team about being open to learning, and your willingness to learn from each other, this will set you up for success.
Sharing the belief
Jenni Donohoo, in her book Collective Efficacy states “Amazing things happen when a school staff shares the belief that they are able to achieve collective goals and overcome challenges to impact student achievement. When teachers share that belief, it outranks every other factor in regard to impacting student achievement including socioeconomic status, prior achievement, home environment and parental involvement.” When I first read this, my jaw dropped. You mean to say that if we believe, together, we will achieve our goals? But first the work has to be done getting everyone on to that same page, same bus, same waka and paddling in the same direction.
To me this is about ironing out any deficit thinking you may have in your organisation. Having candid conversations in your teams about your beliefs. Understanding that negative thoughts like ‘his brother was like that’ or ‘if only they would read with her at home’ or ‘he just needs to focus’ have a profound impact on your colleagues and your students and have no place in our schools.
I am all about the power of positive thought, but I do know that behind successful endeavours there is usually a pretty solid plan. As educators we need to know what it is that we are trying to achieve, together. Whether this is at a school wide level, within our team, or with a specific group of learners. Make the plan together, work on it together and believe that you can achieve it together. Key aspects to making this work can be found in John Spencer’s definition of Collaboration: Generate ideas together. Trust each other. Be vulnerable with each other. Support each other and empower each other. Share this goal, your vision, make it visible and in order to achieve it, make sure your values align. And as Simon Sinek talks about in The Infinite Game this is long term, you are believing together for the long run, there is no defined endpoint.
Your students seeing you authentically working together will have a positive impact on how they view collaboration. We are always role models.
Te Ao Māori
There is a natural connection between an international movement to be more collaborative in our teaching practice and the Te Ao Māori way of working together in an interconnected way.
Since colonial times our traditional schools have always had a western, individual ethos. This is visible in the way we strive for achievement, excellence and underlying this we encourage competitive endeavours producing outstanding results for top achievers. But at what cost? We now understand that this isn’t an inclusive way to teach and we could learn a lot through encouraging a Te Ao Māori view in all aspects of our classrooms and schools. It is affirming to see schools honouring and respecting our Te Tiriti o Waitangi commitments and we can all be inspired to continue to build on this work in our learning spaces.
As many of you will know, the Te Ao Māori worldview acknowledges the interconnectedness and interrelationship of all living and non-living things. This holistic approach seeks to understand the total system, not just parts of it and gives us a framework as organisations to understand and value all members of our community and our physical place in the world.
A Te Ao Māori world view will help us to be more collaborative and community driven in our goals and include the wider community in the success of our young people, most importantly them. Where learning is something the students are involved in and do as opposed to something that is done to them.
Janelle Riki explains in her Ed Talk - Te Ao Māori and Modern Learning Pedagogy that the expertise our Māori students have with collaboration and community can help them to be successful leaders in our schools and learning spaces.
Student agency
Just like you - your students need to know where they are going. They need to have some buy in and they need to have something to believe in. And student agency is something that naturally develops in a collaborative learning space as students have more ownership, choice and drive over their learning.
John Hattie expresses that formative assessment is the key to student agency helping students understand:
How am I going?
Where am I going?
Where to next?
As students become more in control of their learning, the need for ability grouping drops off and we see instead the benefit in students of various abilities working together, helping each other, bringing their own skills and passions to the table, just as we adults are. I heard a school leader make the analogy the other day that the reason we team our provisionally registered teachers up with experienced teachers is to provide that range of knowledge. Putting provisionally registered teachers with provisionally registered teachers could be likened to ability grouping where students may find themselves in a lower ability maths group never being exposed to higher level thinking. Not aspiration and not inclusive.
As Student agency becomes more prominent competition drops off as students become more collaborative and purpose driven. The need to reward students in order to manage behaviour also becomes more redundant as students are engaged in authentic work.
Sounds good doesn’t it?
The best place to start with collaboration is with yourself. You are the key to a collaborative work environment thriving. Are you in?
This interview features in everyday. Issue 1. To read the full article and many more, purchase a physical journal from our shop.
