The+Benefits+of+Teacher+Collaboration

= The Benefits of Teacher Collaboration = //Leaders can help low-performing schools tap into the power of collaboration.// School leaders who foster collaboration among novice and veteran teachers can improve teacher retention and teacher satisfaction.

They have found that new teachers seem more likely to stay in schools that have an “integrated professional culture” in which new teachers’ needs are recognized and all teachers share responsibility for student success.The researchers suggest that school leaders foster a sense of shared responsibility, engage veteran teachers in the induction of new teachers and in their own professional growth, and earmark resources to support collaborative planning, mentoring, and classroom observations. Teachers who have worked together see substantial improvements in student achievement, behavior, and attitude. Teachers in a junior high school traced their students' remarkable gains in math achievement and the virtual elimination of classroom behavior problems to the revisions in curriculum, testing, and placement procedures they had achieved working as a group. In schools where teachers work collaboratively, students can sense the program coherence and a consistency of expectations, which may explain the improved behavior and achievement.

For teachers, collegiality breaks the isolation of the classroom and brings career rewards and daily satisfactions. It avoids end-of-year burn-out and stimulates enthusiasm. Instead of grasping for the single dramatic event or the special achievements of a few children as the main source of pride, teachers are more able to detect and celebrate a pattern of accomplishments within and across classrooms (Little, 1987, p. 497). Over time, teachers who work closely together on matters of curriculum and instruction find themselves better equipped for classroom work. They take considerable satisfaction from professional relationships that withstand differences in viewpoints and occasional conflict. ' Teacher collegiality avoids the sink-or-swim, trial-and-error mode that beginning teachers usually face. It brings experienced and beginning teachers closer together to reinforce the competence and confidence of the beginners. The complexities introduced by a new curriculum or by the need to refine an existing curriculum are challenging. Teacher teamwork makes these complex tasks more manageable, stimulates new ideas, and promotes coherence in a school's curriculum and instruction. Together, teachers have the organizational skills and resources to attempt innovations that would exhaust the energy, skill, or resources of an individual teacher. The conclusions that one draws from the experiences of closely orchestrated, task-oriented groups in schools are consistent with conclusions drawn from other studies of organization: The accomplishments of a proficient and well-organized group are widely considered to be greater than the accomplishments of isolated individuals (Little, 1987, p. 496). Thus, schools benefit from teacher collaboration in several ways:
 * Through formal and informal training sessions, study groups, and conversations about teaching, teachers and administrators get the opportunity to get smarter together.
 * Teachers are better prepared to support one another's strengths and accommodate weaknesses. Working together, they reduce their individual planning time while greatly increasing the available pool of ideas and materials.
 * Schools become better prepared and organized to examine new ideas, methods, and materials. The faculty becomes adaptable and self-reliant.
 * Teachers are organized to ease the strain of staff turnover, both by providing systematic professional assistance to beginners and by explicitly socializing all newcomers, including veteran teachers, to staff values, traditions, and resources.

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