Over the past number of years, we have worked extensively with schools and districts in establishing Collaborative Response to serve as an overarching framework for how organizations collectively and systematically identifies and responds to the needs of all learners. In the bestselling text Collaborative Response: Three Foundational Components that Transform how you Respond to the Needs of Students, we laid out an overview of Collaborative Response and how to get it established in a school.
Collaborative Team Meetings at the Heart
Central to the book and the Collaborative Response framework is the critical understanding that collaborative team meetings are at the absolute heart of Collaborative Response. Healthy and vibrant team meetings fuel innovation for how we address student needs and lead to approaches or ideas previously left unexamined or unimagined for individual staff members. Unhealthy collaborative team meetings lead to stagnation, frustration and eventual eroding of Collaborative Response as a whole.
Over the past number of years, we have learned so much through conversing with educational leaders invested in ensuring effective collaborative team meetings and observing those meetings in action. We have had several moments of “we wish I would have thought of that in our own school” and we now intend to share some of those best practices in a series of blog postings.
Considerations for Collaborative Team Meetings
These considerations are shared in no relevant order of importance. Click on the hyperlinked title to review the idea in depth.
- Focus on Impact During Celebrations – when sharing celebrations to start a collaborative team meeting, going deeper to examine what led to that success for students
- Establish an Annual Calendar – determine and intentionally align when collaborative team meetings will occur throughout the year for your teams
- Establish a Focus – establish what the focus of the collaborative team meeting will be to assist in the flagging students to bring to the conversation and bring greater clarity to the collective conversation
- Determine Team Tasks – at the conclusion of a collaborative team meeting, determine team tasks that could provide focus for future collaborative planning time for teams
- Establishing a Collaborative Meeting Space - considerations when thoughtfully designing a space intended for the collaborative team meeting
- Question and Discussion Resources - ideas related to the intentional use of question and discussion cards, posters and other resources to prompt collective dialogue and team enquiry
- Roles in Team Meetings - ideas, samples and templates related to establishing roles in team meetings, as well as communicating the responsibilities for those assuming each role
- Pre-Meeting Organizers - establishing the use of pre-meeting organizers can ensure that all teachers come prepared for the collaborative team meeting conversation, with students identified to drive discussion
- Shifting to Key Issues - ensuring the primary focus in the collaborative team meeting is shifted to key issues surfaced through an examination of individual students, we can ensure attention is placed on the Tier 2 classroom-based supports and instructional practices
- Establishing and Reinforcing Norms - why are team norms critical for the success of any collaborative team, with resources and samples to assist in establishing norms, as well as reinforcing norms over time across your organization
- Maximum Staff Participation - focusing on the diversity of the team helps to extend the exploration of classroom-based strategies, accommodations, interventions and universal practices to help respond to students
- Establishing the Agenda - the intentional design of an agenda and corresponding notes document are critical to the success of the collaborative team meeting
- Action Focused - when teams are directed through the process to identify follow up actions and commit to the supports they will employ for students, we see results
Are you frustrated with productivity and impact when meeting in teams? Our time is precious so how do we ensure time spent together is maximized, whether engaging in PLC's, collaborative team meetings, staff meetings or any other meetings at your school?
In this free on-demand webinar, Kurtis will share 10 considerations essential when engaging in collaboration, with multiple samples and resources shared.