Edyta Witek

Teacher cooperation

Successful collaborations happen when teachers work together to share the workload instead
of doubling their efforts. From the delegation of tasks, teachers are also able to learn more
from each other as they come back together to review and assemble their separate
assignments into a cohesive lesson plan. Unfortunately, school staff members sometimes find
that although accommodating schedules are in place, true collaboration is more difficult than
they had anticipated. Some find that the time set aside is not used productively or is not
having the hoped-for impact on teaching and learning. As a result, they can become frustrated
and begin seeing team meetings or common planning time as one more obligation that keeps
them from doing their real work. With regular lesson study, teachers can collect data about
how student thinking develops during a lesson and use the data to make informed edits to
future versions of the lessons. Imagine what we could build if enough teams built and shared
lessons and shared their understanding of the mistakes that were made and how they learned
to correct them. Lessons are never perfect that is not the goal. Even negative results allow
teachers, over time, to focus in on what works and what not. The goal is continuous progress,
creating increasingly deep understandings of the teaching-learning relationship.