What I Do Right...
My grade level and I collaborate ALL THE TIME. We work together so well, and our strengths complement each other. We plan together, and offer ideas for high quality lessons that we can give our students. We also understand that we are all different. So, if an idea is presented, we realize that each teacher may put her own "spin" on it.
Here we all are {the second grade teachers} on Weather Day with Andy Wood, the weather man from Fox 21 News. We all collaborated to bring 5 different, exciting, and interactive lessons that each class rotated through to end our unit on weather.
What I Do Wrong...
When reading the chapter, I realized that my nonverbal listening skills need to be improved. Many times I find that my mind wanders because I am thinking about what I want to {or need to} do rather than soaking in the information from my colleagues. I also find that my collaboration with teachers OUTSIDE of my grade level is severely lacking. It is just so hard to find that time during the school day to meet together...possibly because other teachers typically have different planning periods than I do.
How I'm Going to Fix It...
I really like the forms that the book provides for note taking during collaborative meetings. I think that if I had a form with me, and I conscientiously made an effort to take notes of the ideas, then maybe I could keep my mind on the person who is speaking...rather than the fifty million other things I have to do. I also think that the school should set a day aside in the afternoons once a month for collaboration across grade levels. This would force teachers to pause, look at data from students we are concerned about, and discuss how interventions may or may not be working.
