Effective Collaboration Makes a Difference

Experienced teachers know the importance of collaboration and understand its impact. I recently attended the San Antonio Area Association Bilingual Education conference and a few weeks prior attended the International Reading Association conference. I will admit, I am a bit of an introvert and being around all these people caused nervousness in me. Nevertheless, I learned something about myself and about teachers in general. I learned that one of the most important characteristics of a teacher is to be collaborative. Needless to say, by attending these conferences, I felt that I had many wonderful valuable conversations, discussed different instructional approaches and shared ideas.

Teacher collaboration is important because this allows teachers to share great ideas, resources, data, and discussions. It is also helpful to collaborate instructional approaches about what works and what doesn't. You have to keep in mind that what works in one classroom, may not work in your own and vice versa. Discussing your own practices with other teachers and reflecting is beneficial for both the teacher and the student. What teacher doesn't want to see academic success in the classroom?

On my team, collaboration is one of our strengths. We all have the same set of beliefs and share the same goals: striving for student academic achievement and growing professionally. Teachers on my team provide a sense of strong professional culture that goes unnoticed. They are experts. Nonetheless, they are dedicated individuals who will advocate for their most struggling students or most vulnerable teachers. These teachers are comfortable with sharing and building off individual ideas, analyzing data and sharing resources with each other for the purpose of overall improvement of our campus. We participate in book clubs, create professional developments for teachers at our campus to attend and cross-collaborate with other grade levels.

Recent research from the National Center for Literacy Association demonstrates that educators really are eager to collaborate and learn to deepen literacy learning. Their results were that 77% of educators, principals, and librarians across all fields were committed to improving teaching practices. However, respondents on that study reported the following:

· Only 32% have a chance to frequently co-create or reflect with colleagues about how a lesson has worked.
· Only 21% are given time to frequently examine student work with colleagues.
· Only 14% frequently receive feedback from colleagues.
· And only 10% frequently have the opportunity to observe the teaching practice of a colleague.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/11/what-teachers-need-and-reformers-ignore-time-to-collaborate/

The truth is that true collaboration is difficult, but not impossible. Teachers, you must make an effort to attend trainings, workshops or conferences to become equipped with the tools that you need to grow professionally. A professional learning community gives opportunities to learn and think together about how to improve our practices. It is understandable that not everyone can make it to all those available conferences that are offered.  My advice is to collaborate with a knowledgeable colleague at your campus. Create a campus-wide book study on a research-based authored book.  Make frequent attempts to meet with your grade level team or other colleagues on your campus to collaborate, reflect, receive feedback and if possible, observe each other.

Effective collaboration is focused on improved student learning, data to analyze areas of concern and provide evidence of academic achievement. You will find that through collaboration, you will build professional respect and trust among colleagues. A combination of all of this is a perfect recipe for teacher success and student achievement. Whether you collaborate with your grade-level team, other teachers on your campus or meet new people to collaborate with at a conference, the power of collaboration will be the most useful tool a teacher can experience.