What We Learn from our Teaching: Teacher Collaboration as a Strategy for Professionalism
Kym Acuña, Mexico
Kym Acuña, a native Arkansan, was the language coordinator at the Tecnológico of Monterrey, Campus Zacatecas in Mexico for 6 years and is currently director of the Secundaria Tec, a bilingual junior high school in Zacatecas. Her interests are teacher development, activity design and critical thinking. She is currently working on her PhD in Education. E-mail: kym.rutherford@itesm.mx.
Menu
When in Rome…
Darwinian Collaboration…
The Proof is in the Pudding…
How to get the ball rolling…
No magic formula…
References
Educational evolution is a constant in most educational institutions. As educational theory and interconnected practice advance, the results should and can be seen within the language classroom. Over the past 5 to 6 years one of the many currents of, in my opinion, very positive change has been the introduction and solidification of the use of collaborative learning in the classroom. While this trend has affected every area of the curriculum, I am particularly interested in how it has affected language learning and teaching.
In my particular environment, a private secondary school in Zacatecas, Mexico where the mastering of the English language has steadily gained importance, we have learned a valuable lesson from our teaching. As I began teaching for the first time over 5 years ago, I (along with all my colleagues) was introduced to collaborative learning, as a contrast to competitive learning, as a way to facilitate deeper understanding by putting the responsibility on the students to learn through interaction, sharing, and investigation (Johnson, Johnson and Smith, 1998).
So we dutifully began to look for ways to implement language activities where groups had to work together in earnest and produce tangible results. As we began to see the awakening interest of the students and the quality of the product of their work, we became interested in sharing those results with one another. This is how our collaboration was born.
As language coordinator for my school, the responsibility for teacher development and language learning results falls clearly on my shoulders. Three years ago when I began in this position, my primary concerns were to see that everyone had pertinent information; test dates, class schedules, training opportunity schedules and etc. Even when these duties were performed without a hitch, it was evident that something was missing. This is when the changes within our teaching academy began to develop.
With the pressure we were receiving (and still do) to produce excellent language learning results in our students (unfortunately measured by the TOEFL exam), we knew that something had to change. Luckily, it did. We began to be interested in the successes and failures of our colleagues in the classroom and started to wonder what that had to do with us. Little by little a true collaboration was formed.
First, we began a program of colleague observation which went far beyond the supervisor observation which I had historically done. Teachers chose colleagues based on various factors, such as: teacher reputation, schedule coincidence and language level coincidence. They then began to observe one another in classes and give feedback to one another while at the same time having the opportunity to see successful and not so successful teaching practices by their colleagues. As we became interested in sharing these experiences in our bi-weekly academic meeting a transformation took place. We no longer were meeting only to deal with administrative issues but also with shared academic issues.
Next, in an attempt to deal with discrepancies in what teachers with the same academic syllabus required of their students, we began to work on creating departmental exams for the different groups of the same level. Some may consider this an infringement on the teachers' pedagogical freedom but our teachers did not see it this way. They questioned their own and their colleagues' evaluation practices to look for fairer, more accurate evaluation through testing, performance evaluation, self-evaluation and other alternative methods. When there were disagreements about proper evaluation, spirited debates often ensued. These debates led to an interest of some in being able to support their claims with research. Several teachers began to back up their points of view with research found in articles or books read as part of continued study in a Master's program or self-directed learning.
At the same time that this phenomena was occurring the ESL teachers also began to share successful language learning activities with their colleagues. First, we planned an "Activity Breakfast" in which teachers from various areas (secondary, university and language center) were invited to enjoy a formal breakfast provided by the school as a forum for sharing language learning classroom activities. In order to register, the teacher had to send in a description of an activity which he had created or adapted for his classroom. The description included the title, objective, materials needed, implementation process, and resources needed. These descriptions were then formatted, bound and given to each participant at the breakfast. At the breakfast, each teacher in attendance was given the opportunity to present a description of his activity to the others. I have had many of our teachers comment to me that the activity book which we created, "Activities for Active Learning," has been very helpful to them. Several novice teachers have told me that the material has helped them out of a jam when they couldn't think of how to get the students interested in a particular subject and a few experienced teachers have mentioned that the exercise of creating the book and sharing ideas has spurred them on to be more creative in their language classrooms.
Today we meet as an academy once a week. Apart from the administrative things that will never disappear, we spend the majority of the time working together on an ever widening array of projects. We plan events for our students and the community as a whole which promote the use of English in different settings. We have had a World Expo for three years in which students form groups and put on an exposition about their assigned country. We also recently had our first ever ZAcademics (Zacatecas…Academics) competition, a Jeopardy type competition held entirely in English, between several schools in our region. In addition to event planning, teachers come to me and tell me that they have an activity, idea, or article that they would like to share with the academy.
As you may be able to see from the description of the collaboration development in our academy, it has definitely been an evolving process. No one ever said, "Ok, collaboration starts today." As time went by, the natural desire of the teachers to improve and grow in their profession mixed with an idea that working together works has led us to our current stage in a non-ending quest by excellence.
You might possibly be asking yourself about now, "Okay, so what?" Let me answer that by describing what it has meant for us. Our experiences in teacher collaboration have produced some important results. First, our teachers who participate collaboratively are moving quickly from novice to experienced or experienced to expert teachers (Tsui, 2003) while our teachers who have not participated in this collaboration are more stagnate or at least moving at a much slower rate in their professional development. Our teachers, in general, have also received much more positive evaluations from the students and teachers have expressed a greater satisfaction with their work.
In the end, all the things mentioned above are important but what it all boils down to are results. Our students express more satisfaction with their teachers, take language learning more seriously or consider it more important than before and language learning results (as measured by the TOEFL exam) have improved. While we haven't reached the excellence we desire we feel that we are well on the way.
If you are reading this and think that teacher collaboration is something worth trying, here are some tips to help you get started.
- Introduce the idea gradually - teachers must buy into to the idea of collaboration with their colleagues. If they are not convinced of the benefits both for them and their students then they will either rebel at being forced to work with a colleague or they will give it lip service and not really try to make it work.
- Provide a space and time for collaboration - teachers need an adequate space and time in their schedule to sit down and listen and discuss. It's a good idea to have a breakfast (or lunch or snack) meeting where everyone can communicate in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere.
- Allow for different working styles - be careful to allow for differences among teachers. Some teachers may like to share their ideas in detail and explain details of implementation while others like to just get the general ideas, organize and tailor make the details to fit their personal teaching styles and students.
- Encourage - show by example how you have successfully implemented an activity that a colleague shared with you or how a collaboration effort with another colleague proved beneficial. Be sure to recognize any efforts of collaboration being made and ask for other ways in which collaboration could work.
- Include all teachers - some teachers will naturally come to the forefront in whatever activity is undertaken and others will tend to stay on the sidelines. Be sure to solicit participation, opinions and ideas from those who are more reticent.
While there is no magic formula to reaching greater professionalism in the second/foreign language classroom, in this case the product is definitely greater than the sum of all its part; meaning, together teachers can learn better practice working together than going it alone.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R., & Smith, K. (1998). Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.
Tsui, Amy. (2003). Understanding Expertise in Teaching: case studies of second language teachers. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Please check the Skills of Teacher Training course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Expert Teacher course at Pilgrims website.
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