Teacher Collaboration

The articles I chose were “When Teachers and Administrators Collaborate”, “6 Paths to Better Leadership”, “Teacher Collaboration: When Belief Systems Collide”, and “Five Ways to Increase Teacher Agency in Professional Development.” These article resonate with me because I do believe collaboration is vital in implementing change in a school as well as increasing student performance. Also, teachers should have a more of a voice in decision-making. When teachers choose which professional development they want to attend will allow them to direct their own professional growth.
I love the suggestion from “When Teachers and Administrators Collaborate” which states that teachers and administrative teams should go to school board sessions together.
I often go to trainings that are either suggested or mandated by my administrators and/or school division. After the trainings, I may implement a strategy or two but rarely do I share what I learned with my colleagues. Another item I would like to start this year is creating a team of teachers and administrators that will attend school board meetings together. I know my school only sends 1 teacher now, and she shares her notes with the rest of the school. Over the next three years, I would like to promote institutionalized collaboration at my school. My administrative team does a great job of promoting collaboration; however, not all teachers take advantage of this opportunity. There is limited collaboration across grade levels which is a necessity for vertical articulation to be successful. Only a handful of teachers are responsible for the decision-making in my school. Those individuals are usually apart of the leadership team. Novice and non-vocal teachers have limited opinions on decisions. My administration emphasis teacher quality, but I am not sure that all teachers understand what that actually means and looks like. I do think institutionalized collaboration will take time and be hard to implement without direct support from administration and teacher