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4 places to dig deep

To find more time for teacher collaboration

By Kristi Khorsheed
April 2007
Vol. 28 No. 2
The idea of teachers working together to improve teaching and learning seems so sensible that few would argue against it. So why don’t schools provide regular and ample opportunities for teachers to collaborate on their practice? Some schools are hampered by the limitations of union contracts and limited resources. However, the most basic problem is that many have difficulty finding new ways of using existing resources, such as time and personnel. When principals can envision a schedule with unequal time slots or music or physical education classes with fluid sizes, they can rearrange and reallocate limited resources to allow for new concepts of professional learning. For the last eight years, teachers at Garfield Elementary School in Livonia, Mich., have organized themselves into teams and have

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References

Ball, D. & Cohen, D.K. (1999). Developing practice, developing practitioners: Toward a practice-based theory of professional education. In L. Darling-Hammond and G. Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as a learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Choy, S., Chen, X., & Bugarin, R. (2006). Teacher professional development in 1999-2000: What teachers, principals, and district staff report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

Darling-Hammond, L. (1998, February). Teacher learning that supports student learning. Educational Leadership, 55(5), 6-11.

Darling-Hammond, L. & Ifill- Lynch, O. (2006, February). If they’d only do their work. Educational Leadership, 63(5), 8-13.

Desimone, L.A., Porter, A., Garet, M., Yoon, K., & Birman, B. (2002, Summer). Effects of professional development on teachers’ instruction: Results from a three-year longitudinal study. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24(2), 81-112.

DuFour, R. & Eaker, R. (1998). Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Little, J.W. (1999). Organizing schools for teacher learning. In L. Darling-Hammond and G. Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as a learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Miles, K.H. & Darling- Hammond, L. (1997). Rethinking the allocation of teaching resources: Some lessons from high-performing schools. Philadelphia, PA: Consortium for Policy Research in Education.

National Staff Development Council. (2001). Standards for staff development (revised). Oxford, OH: Author.

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