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Seven Tips to Make Teacher Collaboration Time Productive

Walk into a school today and you will rarely see teachers independently planning for instruction. Teachers today are expected to collaboratively plan, teach, and reflect. As a curriculum program coordinator, I spent many days working with groups of teachers during their common planning time. I found that some teachers dislike group planning because they believe it can be unproductive. However, the benefits of working collaboratively are too great to dismiss the practice. Concerted efforts must be made to ensure that common planning time enhances instruction, saves time, and is valued by teachers. The question then becomes: how is productive common planning time achieved?

Common planning time is most effective when team members establish ground rules at the beginning of the school year. Below are several that I have found to be effective; however, every team is different and must develop their own rules based on the needs and objectives of the team.

1. Establish roles

Determine who will be doing what at each team meeting and develop an organized system. For example, a team may need someone to set the agenda, keep the time, take minutes, or bring food (each of these is discussed in greater detail below). Many teams rotate these responsibilities, while others assign roles to individuals for the entire year. Also, an administrator may take on one or more of these roles if he or she is leading the meeting.

2. Set an agenda for each meeting.

For each meeting, a clear purpose must be identified. This purpose may be determined by an administrator, discussed at a prior meeting, or agreed upon by the team based on the week’s instruction. It is important that the meeting’s purpose be relevant to all team members. Once the purpose is set, the needs an agenda that includes realistic goals for the time allotted. Cramming too much on the “to do” list can result in the team merely skimming the surface of topics and may cause frustration. The agenda should also specify time limits for each item, and an assigned timekeeper should be responsible for keeping the group on track.

3. Ensure that all participants are prepared for the meeting.

Once the agenda is set, it should be emailed to the team members along with a description of how teachers should prepare. Preparation may include bringing work samples, curriculum materials, or lesson plans. It may also require that teachers read an article or preview a website that someone would like to share. If a team is meeting to discuss a previously taught unit or lesson, ask each teacher to jot down written notes prior to the meeting, which will help to ensure that each person has had an opportunity to reflect before sitting down with the entire team.

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