With collective teacher efficacy scoring at the top of the Hattie’s scale of effect sizes at 1.57 [Hattie, The Applicability of Visible Learning to Higher Education, 2015] and areas like teacher estimates of achievement, response to intervention, strategies to integrate prior knowledge and classroom discussion also ranking near the top; the way we conduct our collaborations with other educators becomes extremely important in addressing these areas. What makes collaboration time effective and efficient? Let’s take a look at some strategies that we can use for collaboration that will help us to make better use of our time together.

All collaboration meetings should be well organized. Even meetings with only a few items to discuss should have agendas. An agenda doesn’t need to be complicated and quite often is something as simple as an email with the points to be covered included. This will let everyone know ahead of time what to bring to the meeting and will serve to keep everyone on topic. This will help make better use of everyone’s time involved and lead to more targeted discussions. Regular collaboration meetings such as planning meetings might have a standing agenda that would cover the same topics each time. For example a planning meeting might include: discussing results from recent assessments, discussing needed intervention, planning and scheduling upcoming lessons, discussing future assessments, and setting agendas for future meetings. This agenda might fit a weekly team collaboration meeting and might be the same or similar from week to week. The Items on the agenda are the focal point of the meeting and serve to bring the meeting back on topic when discussion begins to move in other directions.

Collaborations should be student-centered. Meetings should be centered around how well instruction is meeting the needs of all students. These collaborations should not center on just what we are teaching but rather how well students are learning what we are presenting. Student-centered collaborations will look at and compare current data from classroom observations and assessments to see how individual students are doing. This data then becomes the basis for instruction planning going forward. Student-centered collaborations will always center around data that shows where student learning is and not around lesson planning based on what has been covered. Part of this student-centered approach is also the planning of assessment for future lessons and determining what level will represent student mastery. These assessment pieces, which could take many forms, must be short and carefully planned to assess exact learning objectives. All student-centered collaboration will follow the cycle of planning, assessing, looking at results, and reacting to results.

Finally, excellent collaboration always involves excellent communication. Everyone involved in the meeting must have the chance to be heard and communication must be open and honest. Each participant must be willing to honestly evaluate strengths and weaknesses and use assessment data to decide on the most effective ways to deliver instruction for all students. Assessment data should determine the most effective instructional strategies and teachers should be willing to openly communicate and adjust to strategies that are most effective. This requires that collaborators not be judgmental and each person willing to share and adjust as needed.

Excellent collaboration occurs when participants are willing to openly participate in an open and frank discussion about topics that are planned in advance, based on current data, and are student centered. Any collaborative meeting from a group of two to large groups can benefit from employing these strategies. Excellent collaboration leads to excellent planning, which leads to excellent instruction and most importantly excellent learning!