Monday, July 27, 2009
Teaming
Each rotation has a team of teachers that cover the core academic areas. 6th & 7th graders have two sections of language arts and 8th graders have two sections of math to prepare them for algebra (there is a really high correlation between failing algebra and dropping out). Each team member has an individual planning period and a team planning period. Grade levels dedicate one of the 5 weekly team planning periods for a grade level meeting which would include both teams of teachers. Grade levels typically plan common field trips, assemblies, etc. Additionally, each “pair” of subject area teachers on a grade level (i.e. both 7th grade math teachers) meet weekly for a “Target Team” meeting to discuss what worked and didn’t work (and why) and what lessons they are going to teach the upcoming week. While many of the team meetings shift towards managerial topics, the real push should be to develop cross-curricular connections which increase a student’s propensity to store information in their long-term memory.
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ReplyDeleteTeacher collaboration is a systematic process in which educators work together, interdependently, to analyze and impact their professional practices in order to improve individual and collective results. It has been discovered that a positive relationship exists between teacher collaboration and student achievement. Within these target team meetings, there is a need for specific and clear priority standards to be established. These essential standards are going to be the driving force behind curricular development. Target teams will place extra emphasis and focus on teaching the most essential standards. The final component is most likely the most valuable. The target team teachers collaboratively must review their progress through formative assessments and make adjustments when needed.
Some of us still had a lot of work to do as far as utilizing our target teams... but, Edusoft is a great tool for comparing and tracking progress, and identifying weakness the students need addressed.
ReplyDeleteEdusoft is the testing system that we use to administer quarterly benchmark tests. Kids take a paper test which is scanned and uploaded into the Edusoft system. Teachers can go online and manipulate the data very easily.
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