Sunday, February 13, 2022

Teacher Leadership Pt.1: M3_FA 4-Collaboration

 As per course, 

"Read:

 

Sharing good Practice: Strategies to Encourage Teacher Collaboration

https://blog.irisconnect.com/uk/sharing-and-collaboration-in-schools

 

Watch:

 

Michael Fullan – Building Relationships of Collaboration

https://vimeo.com/88184195

 

As a leader it is important to let those around you know that you are also a co-learner; meaning you also need to improve, take risks, experience failures and successes, and continue to practice in order to master your craft.  Just as we understand that each and every one of our students comes to class with his/her own set of strengths and weaknesses, we must also acknowledge that we as educators also have areas we excel in and areas where we need improvement.  This is why collaboration among teachers is so important. 

 

In order for any of the strategies for collaboration to be successful teachers must be willing to be vulnerable with one another, and be willing to discuss challenges they are facing in their classrooms.  As a leader, you can promote this by expressing your own faults, and asking for help in the areas in which you need it. When others see this, they will be more likely to participate.  The end result will be meaningful, constructive collaboration in which the teachers and students will both benefit exponentially from. 

 

Post:

How can your leadership abilities provide a collaborative atmosphere that support teachers and students?

 

Review and comment on two other postings by your colleagues."


As per discussion,


"Leaders are not just people/teachers who are appointed, assigned or elected to a position of leadership. Advocacy in a community is also a way of which one may be able to identify a leader. 


In becoming an advocate in regards to a particular methodology, group of students or cause in the school community, one is demonstrating leadership. As a young teacher in a community with a dwindling number of returning staff members (or staff members who were not readily available for coaching/mentoring on a regular basis), the school I used to work at developing a "W.O.W." (watching others work) program. This program is built to reinforce dialogue within the school community and allow teachers/colleagues to finding mentoring opportunities as well as develop confidence in their appraisal/observations.


I had the opportunity of having a very supportive colleague observe my class (ENG2D) and provide lots of positive feedback, this was a way of building collaboration within the English department as well as the whole school. A friend of mine went to teach Math 10 (Academic), after only be certified as an English/PE teacher (this was a long time ago in a BC accredited school). His success was directly linked to the assistance he received from a member of the Math department. Without deep roots in Math, the Math department wanted to take advantage of having a surplus of English teachers and sought to insert English teachers as Math teachers into the department so that the grade 10 math and intro to Math in English courses were handled by someone who was adept at working with students at that level of ESL. A lot of the Math department was experienced and preferred having students who they could focus more on theory with rather than the basic language development.


These collaborations made the school successful for a period of time on a level that was marked with the transition into a new leadership that didn't quite fill the position as fully as the previous leadership team."

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