Teacher Teamwork

How do we make it work? (ASCD Arias)

Margaret Searle, Marilyn Swartz

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781416620662
• eBook ISBN: 9781416620693
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Packed with strategies, tips, and activities you can quickly put into practice, this book shows how to build productive teams and intentionally create an environment of professional engagement in your school. Authors Margaret Searle and Marilyn Swartz organize the work into four key steps: (1) establishing guidelines and protocols, including drafting agendas and timelines; (2) managing and resolving conflicts, including giving honest feedback and building team morale; (3) refining decision-making skills, including creating win-win situations and improving flexibility and efficiency; and (4) building team capacity, including evaluating and sustaining teamwork. With the guidance in this book, you'll soon see the benefits that come from highly effective teams of teachers who powerfully focus on student results.

Introduction

The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.

—James Cash Penney

When we asked educators across the nation the question, "How well do your teams use their common planning time?" the same issues kept popping up. "I would rather eat glass than go to a meeting at our school. It’s a waste." "I need my planning time to do my own work." "If I would die during our team meeting, the transition would be very subtle. So boring!"

We know that working together can help us solve tough problems and keep our sanity at the same time. People have far more potential for reducing anxiety, addressing complex issues, and improving creativity when they work in teams, so why do many educators have such adverse reactions to teamwork? Perhaps they do not take the time to establish unity and purpose—the glue that holds a team together. Maybe they forget to apply the oil of routines, norms, and procedures to make things run smoothly.

This book will guide paraprofessionals, teachers, and supervisors through simple steps to move your school from "groups of reluctant players" to "highly effective teams." We will look at how the needs of your team change as you move through predictable stages of team development. The first section provides guidelines for setting up purpose, protocols, and norms. If you are an established team, this section will serve as a quick reminder to make certain you didn’t skip any basic steps. The next section discusses ways to build the skills necessary for resolving the conflicts that eat away at team time. The following section focuses on reducing conflict through solid decision-making procedures. The last section provides strategies for building the capacity a team needs to take on tough problems.

If your teams follow this advice faithfully, ongoing frustrations about team time will be replaced by feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction. The insights and procedures in this book are simple to learn, but creating an environment of collaboration is not as easy as just knowing the steps. To build productive teams you need to intentionally create an environment of enthusiasm and engagement. So let’s take a look at elements of effective teaming.

Establish Guidelines and Protocols

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

—Henry Ford

Think of the most enjoyable, satisfying experience you have ever had as a team member. It may have been a choir or a sports team, a community or school group, or a club you were interested in. The team may have been two people or 22 people working together. List the qualities that made this teaming experience enjoyable and satisfying.

Even though each person’s positive experience is different, the list of what makes the experience great tends to have the same basic themes. Here is a summary of the top six statements we heard from educators we surveyed:

• We worked on things so important that I knew it was worth my time and effort.
• Group members were competent and cooperative and made all members feel that they were an important part of the process.
• We were well organized, efficient, and flexible.
• We stayed committed and I was proud to be a part of the quality work that the team produced.
• Communication was honest, upbeat, and positive as well as clear and timely.
• I felt supported and grew personally as a result of being part of this team.

Things like worthy goals, sense of belonging, commitment to quality and feeling supported are the essential glue that binds a group to both the work and each other. Organization, communication, and flexibility act as the oil that reduces friction and keeps things running smoothly. Now think of your own team. How many of these statements accurately describe how members feel about your group?

Support and commitment doesn’t just happen. It takes intentional work to get people to put aside self-interest and act for the good of the team. People always start out as a group of individuals and if they hang together as they go through what B.W. Tuckman calls the four stages of group development (1965) they become a highly functioning team complete with all the joy and satisfaction that implies. These four stages are Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing.

The Forming Stage of Teaming

At first members are highly dependent upon their leader for direction. Members tend to be polite and hopeful but at the same time wary and unsure about the team and how each member fits into it. During this "getting to know you" time members are reluctant to voice differences of opinion. Controversy feels like unsafe territory because trust has yet to be established. People are unsure of the "who, what, when, where, how, and why" of the work, so they hold back on commitment until they have answers. This holding back can prevent the team from getting important work done.

What Does the Team Need At This Stage?

During the Forming Stage teams need to clarify their purpose, set up norms and procedures, and form relationships. For some teams this stage takes months and for others this stage happens quickly. Many successful groups we interviewed attributed their team’s initial success to the strength of their leaders. They said that in the beginning the leaders played a critical part in helping the team get a clear mental picture of both the goal and the processes for working collaboratively. These leaders fostered team ownership of the processes as well as responsibility for the results. They focused as much on developing positive interpersonal dynamics as they did on the work at this stage. This "laying the groundwork" part of team-building often frustrates people who want to "get down to business," but it is relationships, common vision, trust, and collaborative practices that create the cornerstone for keeping morale and productivity high.

A team from Garfield Elementary in Ohio said their secret for successful teamwork was quality time. They said that a district-sponsored training launched their biggest boost in productivity. The training gave their team guidance as well as uninterrupted time to plan and get to know each other personally and professionally. Trust and a sense of purpose developed as their vision and work became clearer. A calm environment with time to talk is essential for forging relationships that result in a strong collaborative team.

Creating an Inspiring Vision

There is an old proverb that states, "A vision without a plan is just a dream. A plan without vision is just drudgery. But a vision with a plan can change the world." Research shows that having a clearly articulated high-impact vision is an essential characteristic of effective teams (Larson & LaFasto, 2001). When a team looks like it is capable of accomplishing something great and the challenge seems worth the effort, people want to be a part of it. According to our survey, lack of a significant purpose is a key problem with many school teams. Putting together schedules, studying data, and doing work imposed from outside the team were cited as examples of the uninspiring kinds of tasks most teams worked on.

One team from Nebraska decided to create a vision worthy of their time by asking themselves, "What do we want our students to say about this team when they look back on their time with us?" They came up with things like: "They helped us develop a system for solving complex problems and taught us not to give up when work is hard" and "They made me fall in love with reading." These are the kinds of visions teams can dedicate themselves to and would be hard pressed to accomplish alone.

Daniel Pink, in his book Drive (2009), states that what motivates a team is a sense of purpose, autonomy, and competence. Pink has a clip on YouTube that can help you establish your vision (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyRu7k70Jhc).

When you are ready to move forward on establishing a successful team, begin with this activity.

Activity: What’s Our Sentence?
Purpose: Create an inspiring vision that results in both the enjoyment of teamwork as well as a sense of pride in the quality the team produces
Time: 30 minutes
Materials: Internet access, computer, projector, sticky notes, chart paper
Processing Tools: Brainstorming
Procedure:

1. Watch the Daniel Pink video.

2. Brainstorm words or phrases stating what the team will accomplish that will have a significant impact on students (see an excellent brainstorm protocol by viewing "Brainstorming Done Right" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K8W4ooygUU).

3. Combine and consolidate your ideas into three or four powerful thoughts.

4. Divide your team into pairs. Each pair writes an inspiring vision sentence incorporating these thoughts.

5. Share the statements and combine the ideas to form a sentence that will drive your team’s work.

Once your sentence is determined, ask these seven questions to verify that the sentence you selected is worth committing significant time and energy to.

A. Is this team’s work something that is personally important to me?

B. Could I accomplish this just as effectively by myself?

C. Will this group and its work have a positive impact on my personal growth and that of my students?

D. Are the results worth the time and effort I am being asked to give?

E. Will my contributions be valued by this team?

F. Do I have or can I develop the skills needed to make a real contribution to this group’s work?

G. "What differences will we see for our students and ourselves when our team creates this new reality?" and "Is this challenge big enough and important enough to keep us excited about working and growing together?"

If "no" is the answer to any of these questions, your team should revisit and revise the vision sentence. People must feel challenged by the work but not be overwhelmed by it. The best way to make the vision seem both challenging and doable is to involve all members in creating goals that will make this vision a reality. A worthy vision won’t be a quick fix. It may guide your team’s work for years.

Setting Goals

Writing challenging goals requires breaking the vision down into doable steps, laying out a realistic timeline, and agreeing up front about what constitutes high quality work. This activity can help you get started.

Activity: Vision to Reality
Purpose: Clarifying the vision by creating a step-by-step plan with assessments and benchmarks
Time: Two sessions of 40 minutes
Materials: Chart paper, sticky notes, markers, pens
Processing Tools: Brainstorming and affinity diagram
Procedure:

1. Study the vision sentence and ask each person to individually brainstorm goals for accomplishing this vision. Write one goal per sticky note.

2. Cluster goals either individually or as a group. Give each category a title. This focusing process is referred to as an "affinity diagram." For a video example of using affinity diagrams go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9sfJTp8tzc.

3. Divide the team into pairs. Ask each pair to map out suggested steps on a timeline for reaching the vision using the categories from the affinity diagram. This allows everyone’s ideas to become clearer and the team can consider several implementation options.

4. Combine the ideas from the pairs and place the goals on a timeline.

5. Answer the questions, "How will we know if what we created works for students? What data will we collect to measure our successes or know when to make adjustments to the plan and how often will we collect it?" Add that information to the timeline as benchmarks.

6. Brainstorm ways to anticipate and address barriers along the way. Will you need training to build the ski...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Encore Divider
• Encore
• References
• Related Resources
• About the Author
• Copyright