Team Teaching

Team Teaching Team teaching is a strategy that has been around for years, but creating teams, whether in response to district expectations or as a way of dealing with changes in teaching practice, needs careful thought in order to succeed. While teaming means the partners must reconfigure much of their teaching lives, it can be done successfully. Alan Engle, ITC Executive Director, has many years of successful team teaching experience. Through this experience he has compiled a checklist to review when considering establishing teaching teams or looking for a teaching partner. Team Teacher Checklist: Discussing and then making decisions about the following issues before beginning to teach together help to prevent conflict later and make the team more efficient right from the start. Classroom Space, Materials, and Time •

Work spaces?

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Storage?

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Furniture?

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Desks/tables?

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Teacher desks?

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Materials, books, supplies?

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Which materials are mine, which are yours, which are ours?

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Partitions/room dividers?

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Centers?

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If school doesn’t provide what we need/want, how will we get it?

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How can we set aside several hours of joint planning per week?

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Which content should each of us teach?

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What content should be divided?

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What content should be taught jointly?

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How will we keep records? One or two grade books?

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Who grades which papers?

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What grading system?

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Lesson plan book?

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Personal neatness preference?

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Work outside of school hours?

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System/organization?

Needs/Values/Philosophy •

Tolerance of noise level?

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Personality strengths/weaknesses?

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What I know about my own learning style?

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How I feel about my teaching?

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Phonics? Whole language?

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Teacher training or staff development I’ve had?

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Schedule as related to my out-of-school life? (i.e., have to pick up own kids, taking classes, etc.)

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Parent conferences? (Yours? Mine? Ours?)

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Things about my teaching I’d like to be better at?

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Social interaction between us?

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Things we have in common?

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Things that make us different?

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Affection?

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Humor/Drama?

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Cooperative learning?

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Grouping?

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Level of expertise? (Subject matter? Teaching strategies?)

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Who teaches what?

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Interactions with children?

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Spontaneity/asking for help?

Classroom Management •

Disciplining?

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Rules/Expectations?

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Consequences?

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Classroom routines? (i.e., lining up for recess etc.)

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Movement within classroom?

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Constructive criticism?

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Communication with parents?