Tool 10
Collaboration
Objectives
Teachers will:
Develop a plan for ongoing review of The Reading Teacher’s Top Ten Tools pedagogy with your colleagues.
Engage in collaborative efforts with your teaching partners and administration that focus on student success.
Learn and use a model for assessing and planning appropriate and targeted instruction for students for whom you have learning concerns.
Part 1: Introduction to Collaborative Models
Topic 1: Collaboration - What does it look like in your school?
The professional learning community is popular. Teachers are asked to reflect on whether or not their PLC is being implemented in ways that focus on student success.
Collaborative models are important. There is good reason to put our heads together when problem solving or sharing successes.
Teachers use an Anticipation Guide to help them reflect on current thinking about professional learning communities.
Topic 2: The Professional Learning Community
This section helps teachers consider the original intent of the PLC.
The importance of collaborating, sharing, and focusing on student learning through the PLC model has improved the work schools do with students in many ways.
Part 2: The Research: Collaborative Models
Topic 1: Analyze Data and Plan Instruction – The Outcomes Driven Model
Teachers are guided through the steps of the Outcomes Driven Model which is a structure that fits nicely with PLCs in schools.
The model focuses on student data and problem solving within collaborative settings.
Teachers view several video snips from PLC meetings.
Part 3: Practice
Topic 1: Share Successes and Challenges
It’s always a great idea to start collaborative meetings with a general discussion of our successes.
Challenges follow the discussion of review since the previous meeting.
Teachers are encouraged to review content from professional development classes they have taken together as they work together to problem solve.
Video snips from PLC meetings are viewed in this section.
Topic 2: Review Meeting Content
An important component of PLC and Outcome Driven Model meetings is to review the decisions that were made during the meeting upon closing the meeting.
Topic 3: Observe Meetings
If possible, it is helpful to attend other grade level and PLC meetings to observe how other teachers collaborate and learn from them.
Part 4: Planning: Identifying How Teaching Will Change and How Student Learning Will Change
Topic 1: Evaluating Ourselves and Our Students
True evaluation identifies how student learning will change and how teaching will change. Teachers are asked to follow these evaluation processes to engage in stronger data driven and teacher driven success.
Part 5: Wrap Up
Topic 1: Summary
A school’s culture is comprised of three elements: these three elements are artifacts and creations, values, and basic assumptions (Evans, R., 2001).
Teachers reflect on their school’s culture and define the culture that collaborative efforts produce.
Topic 2: Video Conversation with an Expert