I think the biggest thing I have been wondering about as I have read about teams is how a large team works. I would think that more voices and opinions would make it very difficult to get anything done. Many of the articles suggested solving this problem by making sure there is a set agenda at every meeting, and holding everyone at the meeting accountable. I think this is important. The only way teachers are truly going to collaborate and create a curriculum students will enjoy is if team time is used properly and effectively. Another thing I thought about is how much involvement from the administration is appropriate and sufficient. When I was a middle school student I remember my teacher often complaining about our administrators. I was wondering if there is such a thing as too much involvement? I believe it is really important for administrators to be present at team meetings and provide teams with the tools to become even better teams. So I believe that administrators should be very involved in the process, but I'm not a teacher yet, so I was wondering if team teachers believe there is too much involvement at these team meetings, or maybe even not enough?
I had many ah-ha moments as I was reading the Clark & Clark article on teaming. This article was more geared towards school leaders and how they can make teaming more effective. Ioved the article, because I hope to be a school leader myself one day. The article had many valuable strategies, including common planning time, collaboration, holding team members accountable, and communication to better the team. With each of these strategies it offered ways for administrators and leaders to foster these strategies in their schools. This article made me realize strong and involved leadership is a very important part to implementing successful teams in middle schools.
I had many ah-ha moments as I was reading the Clark & Clark article on teaming. This article was more geared towards school leaders and how they can make teaming more effective. Ioved the article, because I hope to be a school leader myself one day. The article had many valuable strategies, including common planning time, collaboration, holding team members accountable, and communication to better the team. With each of these strategies it offered ways for administrators and leaders to foster these strategies in their schools. This article made me realize strong and involved leadership is a very important part to implementing successful teams in middle schools.
Kristen, I definitely agree with your thoughts on how large teams work. It does seem as though making choices would be difficult due to the amount of voices and opinions. I think this is were communication skills and collaboration skills are very important. I also found your thoughts on administrations involvement to be very interesting as well. I definitely think administration should be involved as well so it would be interesting to hear what teachers have to say about it!
ReplyDeleteHi Kristen! I love that it appears that we came at the idea from teaming from a similar but different way. You were thinking about large teacher teams, and I was thinking about large classes within those teams. I definitely think that as long as there is a set structure for meetings or an agenda of things that need to be covered really could help with ensuring that meetings run efficiently. There may also be a need for a time keeper to make sure that everyone is staying on topic. I am super excited to work on a team for my student teaching placement so I can see just how meetings are effectively ran. Also, I think involvement from administrators could very well be a school by school thing. For example, at my placement, it seemed that the administration had a large presence and involvement with the teams, but at the same time wasn't attempting to make every little decision. I think, depending on the school, there could possibly be a mix of both to much or too little because I would imagine that it could be left up to each person's opinion. I would be interested to know what one would do in a situation where there was either too much or too little involvement, or if one had the power to do anything at all.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your focus on the role of school leadership in ensuring the success of a team. From the very minimal involvement of allowing for common planning time in the master schedule, to participating at times in the meetings, it is essential to have the administrations support of strong teaming structures.
ReplyDelete