“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” ~ Helen Keller
At times, teaching can seem like a solitary profession. So much of teachers’ time is spent working with students and not with peers that some may feel isolated and unsupported even when school districts provide regular feedback and recognition.
At Alludo, we understand the importance of collaboration in professional learning because we collaborate with school districts every day to launch professional learning environments that suit their needs, support teachers, and help to achieve district goals.
Collaborative professional development can reduce teacher turnover and lead to better student outcomes. Here are our thoughts on collaborative professional learning strategies that school districts can implement to support and elevate teachers.
Collaborative professional development can take many forms. What they all have in common is that they turn what can be a frustrating and time-consuming experience for teachers into something that combines learning with peer support, providing teachers with ongoing feedback and guidance that they wouldn’t be able to get with traditional professional development opportunities.
Here are some common types of collaboration that may be useful within the framework of any professional development program:
Teachers who participate in collaborative activities such as the ones we’ve listed here report higher job satisfaction and higher self-efficacy than those who are engaged only in solo PD activities.
Collaborative professional development for teachers helps educators improve their effectiveness in the classroom, allowing them to connect with and engage their students and ultimately, deliver the best possible student outcomes. Here are the ways in which collaborative PD can help teachers develop professionally.
Learning in traditional PD training sessions and workshops is unidirectional, meaning that teachers learn only from instructors and not from one another. While instructors may have deep knowledge of the subjects they teach, they can’t offer the same perspective and experience as other teachers, particularly those in the same school district.
Teachers who participate in collaborative PD receive bidirectional instruction and feedback that allows them to grow professionally and better engage with their students.
No two teachers are alike. While all teachers receive important education and training, each individual teacher has the autonomy to try new things in the classroom and see what works with their students.
With teacher collaboration, educators can share ideas, strategies, and experiences to encourage innovation.
Collaboration and job satisfaction for teachers are inextricably linked. A common complaint of teachers is that they feel unsupported and overworked. Collaboration in teacher education adds a new dynamic to the learning experience, ensuring that teachers know that their work is appreciated and that they have support from their peers.
Finally, teachers who engage in collaborative learning improve their subject knowledge and learn new strategies that they can use in their classrooms. Any new topic they study in PD can be fleshed out with collegial discussions and observations, thus leading to a deeper knowledge of the subject and a higher likelihood of teachers using what they learn in the classroom.
Each school district should implement collaborative learning strategies that align with the needs of teachers and students as well as with district initiatives and goals. Let’s explore three teacher collaboration examples that may inspire you to implement collaborative learning in your district.
The Labsite Model is a collaborative learning model that takes place in a real classroom with students in the course of their regular school day. As you might guess from its name, the classroom serves as a lab to learn and model a specific teaching strategy.
A school district’s ability to implement the Labsite Model may depend upon the availability of substitute teachers. Here are some pointers if you want to try this model in your district:
Providing teachers with their next steps can and should be part of the debriefing process, as should follow up to ensure that teachers are implementing what they learned.
A collaborative learning strategy that can take place within your existing PD system is a book study. Here are the key components:
We suggest getting educator input on which book to read and providing a realistic timeframe to read it. Any strategies that emerge from the book study should be documented and then given to teachers with clear expectations of how they will be used.
Analyzing students’ work is another way to bring collaboration into professional learning. It can be a useful tool for schools wanting to standardize curricula, clarify standards of achievement, or ensure that students understand what’s expected of them.
Here are some pointers if you want to try adding analysis of student work to your PD:
This type of collaboration may be most useful when it engages educators who teach the same subject.
Learning communities may consist of a few teachers or a large group who are given the opportunity to establish connections inside and outside of the classroom.
The participants may be teachers, but a professional learning community may also involve parents, learners, and school leaders and administrators. Each of these parties has something to offer when it comes to engaging students and delivering optimal outcomes.
The group’s participants can use their time together, whether they meet in person or remotely, to reflect on their existing strategies and practices, share approaches to student learning, and even take online courses together.
This type of collaboration can be facilitated with a robust online learning environment with built-in communication. That’s what we do at Alludo.
Learning walkthroughs have a lot in common with evaluating student work in that the process is not meant to be evaluative of teachers but rather, to provide a framework for teachers to learn.
Here are some tips for designing a learning walkthrough, which is a form of classroom observation that involves walking through several classrooms at a set time:
Used properly, learning walkthroughs can provide teachers with practical information to use in their own classrooms.
Lesson study is commonly used in Japanese schools and can be extremely useful in developing lessons through an experimental process that allows teachers to collaborate. Here are the steps to follow:
The group continues to revise and repeat until they have a lesson that works the way they want it to work.
A charrette is a format for discussing an issue with colleagues. This type of collaboration is useful when a teacher needs peer feedback to overcome a struggle in the classroom:
Charrettes can easily be used in conjunction with any other strategy here to provide targeted feedback and guidance to address a specific problem.
We designed the Alludo professional learning platform to be learner-driven. That means giving teachers a voice and a choice in what they learn. It also means finding ways to encourage teachers to collaborate and share what they have learned and experienced.
Alludo school districts are experiencing record levels of teacher engagement and low teacher turnover, something that saves them money while delivering optimal student learning outcomes.
Collaborative professional learning gives teachers the best possible chance of success by providing them with peer support, mentorship, ongoing feedback, and a feeling of community that reduces burnout and improves teacher retention while also helping students.
Experience personalized learning for all levels of educators with a free trial of Alludo’s professional development platform. You’ll enjoy: