Dr. "TKA" Kulla-Abbott's List: 21st Century Collaboration

Social Collaboration…
May 30, 2013
By Sean Grainger


  The Collaboration Pyramid by oscarberg, on Flickr

The Collaboration Pyramid offers a great visual to dive deeper into the nature of authentic collaboration and optimized production.

Collaboration in Schools
by dhatch • January 9, 2014 • 1 Comment

This is a cross post from my own blog.



I have been doing quite a bit of reading and reflecting lately about collaboration in schools. There are many articles like this one that leave me scratching my head.

What does it mean to collaborate? To me, collaboration is when learners share and work together to achieve a common goal. This means that everyone who is involved in the collaboration takes an active role and understands their own role, as well as the roles of others.

I Am Among Experts
by Dwight Carter • January 18, 2014 • 2 Comments

I attended the Ohio ASCD Conference on Tuesday, January 16th and heard former State Superintendent, Stan Heffner, deliver a compelling keynote presentation. He shared the three main correlates of successful schools: instructional leadership, a positive school climate and culture, and frequent monitoring. An example he gave of effective instructional leadership is when teachers share best practices. He said,

“The best professional development in the world is when teachers can collaborate and share ideas.”

When You Fail, I Fail – Approach To Leadership
by sblankenship • January 20, 2014 • 0 Comments



As school leaders, we must realize we are in this together.  If we can create the following conditions, we can experience success together.

Supervision of Instruction occurs between 8:00 and 3:00 or it doesn’t get done!

The power to change education, for better or worse, is and always will be in the hands of teachers. Therefore, principals as instructional leaders must separate the managerial side of the principalship with that of improving teacher effectiveness. No longer is it acceptable to sit in an office, work on state reports, complete teacher evaluations, or engage in any other activity that can be completed outside the school day. An effective principal designates school hours for students, teachers, and parents, every day.

More on Collaboration: Essential Ingredients
by dhatch • February 7, 2014 • 0 Comments

This is a cross post from my personal blog.



I experienced an overwhelming response to my posts (here and here and here) about collaboration in schools. From my thinking and from the comments of others, I have come up with the following list of essential ingredients for collaboration in schools. When I say this, I am referring to collaboration of all learners (staff and students). I tried to write the following items so that they could be applied to students and staff.

Thanks to Maureen, Bruce and Shawan for their comments.

Adventures in Team Teaching
by Derek Hatch • February 26, 2014 • 0 Comments


This is a cross post from my personal blog. Recently, at a PD session, I ran into a former colleague with whom I used to team teach. Since we have not worked together in a decade or more, it was fun to reminisce and remember some of the memorable (not to mention funny) times that we had. We both taught Applied Mathematics (gr. 12) and our teaching styles were pretty similar. One year, we asked the AP that created the school schedule if our two sections of the math course could be scheduled at the same time, in the same room. The schedule worked out and, between the two of us, we had 70 students in one room. We team taught the course for the next few years after that. We have since left that school and now we both work as AP’s at different sites.

We All Play a Part
by dkerr • May 18, 2014 • 0 Comments

So I received an email this past week from a former student of mine who wanted to check in and catch up. He’s just now finishing his degree in sports medicine, and at the end of the message he thanked me for playing a part in his success, and for helping him grow into the man that he has become. It was a beautiful and emotional letter, and it got me thinking about the part that we all play as educators in the lives of our students as they slowly grow into themselves. He wrote appreciatively about how the school had provided him with opportunities to shine, as well as avenues outside of the classroom to discover and develop his love of helping others and giving back to the community. He found his passion and his spark with the help of his teachers and the many school programs that were offered, and he eventually married the two things that he loved the most to find a vocation that he’s desperate to begin…and I wondered…isn’t that what education is all about?

Collaboration
by Jesse McLean • June 15, 2014 • 0 Comments

 



So a few weeks ago I attended the Innovate West Conference at the Connect Charter School in Calgary, with a team of 7 teachers from our school. Along with Claudia Scanga, our school’s learning coach, Lynn Lang and Ashley Solomon, teachers from our school, we facilitated a discussion we called “Collaborative Teaching Models”. My hope, as I put our presentation together, was that we would share our story and what we do at Greystone Centennial Middle School, and then open up the floor to hear about other models, and maybe discuss how we could create more opportunities for teacher collaboration in all schools. It didn’t end up going that way.

Tough Conversations
by Bill Carozza • December 27, 2014 • 3 Comments

 



  

A teacher who has known me for many years, knows that I appreciate my job because of the energy I receive every day from teachers and students. Yes, Sunday night is not always easy on the soul but once I’m in the building on Monday morning, all is well. I avoid my office as much as possible during school time and work the job in classrooms and hallways. 

It doesn’t hurt my allegiance to the job that many members of our staff have been together for years and those that have been recently hired have melded in nicely with the family. Truly, it is all about relationships. 

Collaboration…who doesn’t have time?
by Amber Teamann • February 17, 2015 • 0 Comments

There is clearly not enough time in the day. I have a never ending to do list that seems to grow more than it shrinks. Recognizing that I don’t have enough time to do all the things that I have to do, much less what I want to do, I still feel like this post needed to shared.

 

Collaboration isn’t an option, it is now a necessity.

 

Knowing that we can get bogged down in our buildings, or in our classrooms, can make us feel like taking an extra step to communicate and collaborate with other teachers may push us over the edge. But sometimes? It can lead to the most organic of discoveries!