One area that I tried to get going in my school this year was to have open classrooms. This was the idea that several teachers for a block of time would open their classroom so that teachers on prep could come in and observe or participate in the lesson. This was met with a lot of resistance and very little success. I think that teachers very much do not want to collaborate in my school within their class. They really see collaborating as sharing resources and having common assessments. They are really missing the cultural piece where we can learn from anyone in the building and it would be nice to have that access any time.
I then moved from this idea to make Shared Practices one of our PLT blocks. Even though teachers picked this as their area of focus for the year I still was met with a lot of resistance. I suggested co-teaching and most were against that. I suggested watching each other teach and again most were against that. They just wanted time to talk to one another. I am not sure why so many teachers are scared to have someone see what they are doing. The students do it every day. Why are they so scared of co-workers that could actually learn from them or help them get better. It is going to be a bit of a struggle getting these guys to come around but I hope over the rest of the year I will make some progress. They know that my classroom is open (so far no one has come to it) and I will be asking my partner in this group to help co-teach so that modelling and maybe the learning that comes from it will help open up other doors. To aid in this I have asked for time that teachers can meet.
NTIP is another area that I touched on in Setting Direction. With the inclusion of pedagogy around better teaching practices in conversations between NTIP teachers and their mentors better practices will be learned. To help develop this idea mentors are from outside of the department that NTIP teachers are in. It is then assumed that department heads will also mentor the NTIP teacher within their department.
I decided to write a reflection on communicating with others mainly because I just finished teaching this as a unit in one of my classes and it really made me think about how I have and will need to improve in these areas throughout my career. I reflected on this because I believe that so many of the issues around support come from poor communication within the school. I also know that no matter how well you communicate your staff (or some members of it) will still say that you are poor at it.
Moving to the future I believe that this is a cultural issue within many schools and the idea of being judged. People are not good at accepting constructive feedback. I would like to continue the idea of open doors within the school and try to get at least a small group to agree to try it. I am hoping that the positive conversations that come from it will open more doors (literally). I believe another issue surrounding this is the presence of our Admin. They rarely make rounds popping into classrooms even though there is a weekly schedule of where they will be going and when (and I don't think a schedule should be made either). Also if they do come in I have heard they will ask questions of the teacher and class that can be seen as negative or as part of an interigation and then there is never any feedback to the teacher. I believe if they set the example of going into classes regularily (so it never came as a surprise that they were there) and then giving some feedback (mainly positive) this would help make this a more acceptable practice. This is a practice I will adopt as a Vice Principal.
I then moved from this idea to make Shared Practices one of our PLT blocks. Even though teachers picked this as their area of focus for the year I still was met with a lot of resistance. I suggested co-teaching and most were against that. I suggested watching each other teach and again most were against that. They just wanted time to talk to one another. I am not sure why so many teachers are scared to have someone see what they are doing. The students do it every day. Why are they so scared of co-workers that could actually learn from them or help them get better. It is going to be a bit of a struggle getting these guys to come around but I hope over the rest of the year I will make some progress. They know that my classroom is open (so far no one has come to it) and I will be asking my partner in this group to help co-teach so that modelling and maybe the learning that comes from it will help open up other doors. To aid in this I have asked for time that teachers can meet.
I also shared some research with my school to show that these practices did help in teaching practices:
http://www.ascd.org/publications/jcs/fall1997/Beyond-%E2%80%9CBest-Practices%E2%80%9D-Toward-Wise-Practices.aspx
NTIP is another area that I touched on in Setting Direction. With the inclusion of pedagogy around better teaching practices in conversations between NTIP teachers and their mentors better practices will be learned. To help develop this idea mentors are from outside of the department that NTIP teachers are in. It is then assumed that department heads will also mentor the NTIP teacher within their department.
I decided to write a reflection on communicating with others mainly because I just finished teaching this as a unit in one of my classes and it really made me think about how I have and will need to improve in these areas throughout my career. I reflected on this because I believe that so many of the issues around support come from poor communication within the school. I also know that no matter how well you communicate your staff (or some members of it) will still say that you are poor at it.
Moving to the future I believe that this is a cultural issue within many schools and the idea of being judged. People are not good at accepting constructive feedback. I would like to continue the idea of open doors within the school and try to get at least a small group to agree to try it. I am hoping that the positive conversations that come from it will open more doors (literally). I believe another issue surrounding this is the presence of our Admin. They rarely make rounds popping into classrooms even though there is a weekly schedule of where they will be going and when (and I don't think a schedule should be made either). Also if they do come in I have heard they will ask questions of the teacher and class that can be seen as negative or as part of an interigation and then there is never any feedback to the teacher. I believe if they set the example of going into classes regularily (so it never came as a surprise that they were there) and then giving some feedback (mainly positive) this would help make this a more acceptable practice. This is a practice I will adopt as a Vice Principal.