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a ready-to-run workshopCollaborating With Your Team
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Collaborating With Your Team (Workshop)

New teachers do not have to figure everything out alone, and the strongest ones lean on their grade-level or department team. Collaborating well, sharing materials, co-planning, asking and offering help, multiplies everyone's capacity, especially yours.

Key takeaway

New teachers who collaborate with their grade or department team, sharing, co-planning, asking and offering help, carry less alone and grow faster than those who go it alone.

Format
Induction session
Length
45 minutes
Group size
Any (works 1-30)
Who can run it
A mentor or induction lead
You will need
Slides (5)Printed handoutYour team in mindA timer
Aligned to
Learning Forward: Conditions for SuccessInTASC 10: Leadership & CollaborationResearch on teacher collaboration
Share / assign

Why it works

Teacher collaboration, sharing materials and expertise, co-planning, and problem-solving together, is linked to better outcomes and to new-teacher retention. New teachers who engage actively with their team access proven materials and support rather than building everything alone, and contribute their own energy and ideas. Isolation, by contrast, compounds the first-year load.

The research: Research on teacher collaboration and retention.

The run-of-show

Choose your slot. The agenda, timings, and length update to match.

    The core activity: plan to collaborate

    New teachers leave with a specific ask, a specific offer, and a way to collaborate regularly.

    Lean on your teamYou do not have to build everything or solve everything alone. Share, borrow, co-plan, and ask, and the whole team is stronger, especially you.

    Facilitator notes

    Isolation compounds the first-year loadTrying to prove yourself by going it alone wastes energy and reinvents what colleagues already have. Collaborate from the start.

    Adapt it

    Participant handout

    One page for every teacher. Print it, or save it as a PDF.

    K12 Academics · Professional Learning

    Collaborating With Your Team: do not go it alone

    <b>Multiply your capacity:</b> share and borrow, co-plan, ask and offer, and bring problems to the team.

    1. Who is on my team and who I can learn from:
    2. One thing to ask for:
    3. One thing to offer:
    4. How I bring a problem to the team:
    5. A regular way I will collaborate:

    Make it stick

    Ask and offer:

    Common questions

    I feel like I should prove myself by doing it alone.
    The strongest teachers collaborate. Leaning on your team is not weakness; it is how experienced teachers work, and it lightens your load.
    What should I collaborate on?
    Share and borrow materials, co-plan units, bring problems to the team, and observe colleagues. Reinventing what a colleague already has is wasted effort.
    What if my team does not collaborate much?
    Start small: ask one colleague to share or co-plan, and offer something in return. Build the collaboration you need, one relationship at a time.

    Go deeper

    Build it into a bigger day

    Workshop
    Working With Your Mentor
    Workshop
    Finding & Adapting Resources
    Workshop
    Facilitating Effective PLCs