Simple Ways Schools Find Time to Work Together
In Learning by Doing (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2006), a suggested list is provided for finding time for teacher collaboration:
•Provide common preparation time.
Build the master schedule to give common preparation periods for teachers of the same course or department.
•Use parallel scheduling.
Schedule common preparation time by assigning specialists (specialty teachers, librarians, guidance counselors, etc.) to provide lessons to students across an entire grade level at the same time each day.
•Adjust start and end times.
Gain collaboration time by starting the work day early or extending the workday 1 day each week to gain collaborative team time. In exchange for adding time to the end of 1 workday, teachers get the time back on the end of that day.
•Share classes.
Combine students across two different grade levels or courses into one class for instruction. While one teacher or team instructs the students, the other team engages in collaborative work.
•Schedule group activities, events, and testing.
Non-teaching staff supervise students during times that require supervision rather than instructional expertise, while teachers collaborate.
•Bank time.
Over a designated period of days, extend the instructional minutes beyond the required school day. After you have banked the desired number of minutes, end the instructional day early to allow for faculty collaboration and student enrichment.
•Use in-service and faculty meeting time wisely.
Schedule extended time for teams to work together on staff development days and during faculty meeting time. (pp. 96-97)
Dearman and Alber (2005) listed options that Mississippi schools used to find time for teachers to study teaching and learning together:
• Grouping teachers whose students attend arts, music, physical education, and other special areas at the same time
• Grouping teachers by free periods
• Starting the school day 30 minutes later and having teachers arrive 30 minutes early one day a week to have 1 hour weekly for collaborative study (these teachers are provided release time as compensation for the extended day)
• Using trained assistant teachers and tutors in classrooms during study team times to implement whole-group strategies for fluency and comprehension
• Scheduling weekly reading camps by hiring and training a core of substitutes to conduct one-on-one reading tutorials until study teams begin meeting (during study teams the substitutes conduct whole-group strategies for fluency and comprehension)
• Amending school board policy to allow the early release of students one day a week.
• Using federal, state, local, or grant funds to buy time for faculties to study together (p. 637).
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