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Collaborative Planning

How do we increase collaboration between teachers | departments?

Collaboration lies at the heart of implementing a successful Diploma Programme. Good pedagogical leaders build highly collaborative and effective teams. However, building a collaborative learning community takes time and effort. It is a challenge that calls for perseverance. The process cannot be rushed.

Context ~ it is the IB expectation that teachers and pedagogical leaders collaborate regularly and systematically. Collaboration and reflection are always used as two inter-related concepts. However, schools often find it difficult to evidence the impact of collaborative planning when it comes to the IB five year evaluation process.

WHY is collaboration important?

Provocation: A puzzle to start you thinking

The fox, goose and bag of beans puzzle is a river crossing puzzle. It dates back to at least the 9th century, and has entered the folklore of a number of ethnic groups.

The Puzzle

Once upon a time a farmer went to a market and purchased a fox, a goose, and a bag of beans. On his way home, the farmer came to the bank of a river and rented a boat. But crossing the river by boat, the farmer could carry only himself and a single one of his purchases: the fox, the goose, or the bag of beans.

If left unattended together, the fox would eat the goose, or the goose would eat the beans.

The farmer's challenge was to carry himself and his purchases to the far bank of the river, leaving each purchase intact. How did he do it?

Did you work it out?

Here's the solution ...

    Collaboration is at the heart of IB pedagogy

    IB educational philosophy is based on a constructivist understanding of how people develop their knowledge and make meaning. Constructivism is a theory of how learning happens. It describes how people construct knowledge and create their view of the world. It believes that people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world through experiencing things and reflecting on those experiences.

    Constructivism is based on a theory that people learn best when they construct new ideas based on comparison with their current and previous knowledge. They do this in relation to the experiences they are having and the people they are with. A central idea of a constructivist view is that learning needs to be active, it is something people do.

    Read the following description of constructivist learning.

    Identify connections with collaboration.

    • Learning is an active process - it is not a matter of passively receiving knowledge; instead it is a matter of the learner engaging with the world.
    • People learn to learn as they are learning - it is about constructing meaning as we learn.
    • Learning happens in the mind - it is a reflective activity.
    • Learning involves language - the language we use influences learning.
    • Learning is a social activity - it is something we do together, in interaction with each other.
    • Learning happens in a context - is a social and active process and not abstract.
    • People need knowledge to learn - and builds on previous knowledge.
    • It takes time to learn - it is a matter of reflection and deep thought.
    • Motivation is key to learning - we need to know why we learn and how the knowledge we are acquiring can be used.

    Professor Hein, Constructivist Learning Theory (1991)

    Collaboration is at the heart of the IB Standards and Practices

    Read:

    The IB dedicates one whole standard (Standard C1) to the importance of collaborative planning. According to the IB collaborative planning should:

    • integrate theory of knowledge in each subject.
    • explore connections and relations between subjects
    • reinforce knowledge, understanding and skills shared by the different disciplines.
    • ensure that all teachers have an overview of students’ learning experiences.
    • recognize that all teachers are responsible for language development of students
    • address the IB learner profile attributes.

    Reflect:

    How does your school provide collaborative planning time for you (including collaborative professional development)? How is your leadership so structured to encourage collaboration - e.g. distributed leadership, specific leadership responsibilities?

    OBSTACLES to collaboration

    Challenge #1: Change in habits

    Collaboration is challenging. In traditional settings many teachers have been expected to teach alone. They may not have been expected to collaborate as systematically and regularly as the IB expects. Therefore, when a school becomes an IB school a change in the way they behave is called for. Pedagogical leaders need to understand how and why some people find collaborative planning challenging.

    Watch the following video to establish how challenging and difficult change can be.

    • What are the key messages?
    • To what extent does it resonate with your experience of working in teams | bringing about change?

    Challenge #2: Teamwork

    Collaborative working requires good teamwork. In his leadership fable, ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’, Patrick Lencioni explains the pre-requisites of great teamwork by identifying five things that often go wrong.

    By identifying the dysfunctions by name, leaders can be on the lookout for them and learn to address the root causes that keep collaborative teams from reaching their full potential.

    • Examine the Summary PDF of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. You may like to start at the bottom of the pyramid since trust is the first, and most critical foundational piece for building strong teams. The five dysfunctions build on each other.
    • Highlight the sections that are pertinent to your team.

    Dig deeper

    Overcoming the 5 dysfunctions of a team using adventure play - provides ideas for a very interactive workshop!

    Deep Dive: Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Summary, Notes, & Tons More). This a great article providing you with a number of excellent links to dig deeper into each of the five dysfunctions, many of them from the Harvard Business Review.

    Business Balls summary of the 5 dysfunctions.

    Mind Tools - Team Management Tools.

    UNDERSTANDING your colleagues

    Why do some teachers like to collaborate more than others?

    Teachers have been classified in a number of ways. Although we need to be careful of stereotyping and putting individual teachers 'in a box' it can be helpful, as a leader, to be aware of the following classifications as we prepare to work with teachers in a collaborative way.
    • Reflect on each of the following three classifications. What are the implications for leadership?

    References

    Barth, R.S., Improving Relationships Within the Schoolhouse, March 2006 | Volume 63 | Number 6 Improving Professional Practice Pages 8-13, ASCD. “Relationships among educators within a school range from vigorously healthy to dangerously competitive. Strengthen those relationships, and you improve professional practice.”

    Brighouse, T. & Woods, D.quoted in Fullan, M. (2005). Leadership and sustainability. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Corwin Press.

    Muhammad, A., Transforming school culture: how to overcome staff division, 2009.

    Dig deeper

    In ‘5 Ways to Promote an ‘Inquiry Mindset’ for School PD’, Holly Clark (February 2019) explores how teachers should drive their own learning through an inquiry mindset. She uses the concept of “heutagogy", the study of self-determined learning ~ collaboration as a way of ‘knowledge sharing’ rather than ‘knowledge hoarding’.

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