Elementary, Middle, and High School Teachers Demonstrate Five Dilemmas of Collaborative Practices
Hosted by Dr. Marilyn Friend
While collaboration can only be learned though actually doing it, it also requires deliberate and sustained attention through critical discussion and professional development activities. Though fostering collaboration raises dilemmas. Complexities of Collaboration hosted by Dr. Marilyn Friend, illustrates five significant dilemmas that occur when school professionals work together. Each dilemma can be viewed separately or in combination with others. They provide the stimulus for collaborators to examine their own relationships with their partners and team members. This DVD is an excellent training tool for school professionals beginning to share planning and teaching chores. Each scenario described below is played-out by real teachers. Dr. Friend offers commentary and instruction for each section. Tons of classroom footage and practitioner interviews.
1. Meeting Classroom Expectations: Two elementary teachers confront their differing perspectives of student performance and how they deal with it. Dr. Friend joins the discussion and helps the teachers express their concerns in a constructive manner. (6:00)
2. Classrooms Partnerships: See teams teach collaboratively. Three separate teaching partnerships at the middle and high school levels discus their evolution. How they surrendered autonomy, made accommodations for students with special needs, merged teaching styles, and managed discipline in their joint classrooms. (13:00)
3. Managing Disagreements on the Team: Watch a scenario where Kim pulls Mark out of class for individualized instruction, but the question becomes, how much service is the right amount? Then Dr. Friend introduces a team meeting that discusses the amount of service Mark receives. The school principal both disagrees with, and supports team members when making recommendations in the team meeting with Mark's mother. Then, Dr. Friend debriefs with two team members. (10:30)
4. Time! Time! Time!: Six middle and high school teachers role-play 5 common problems related to teacher time, and how collaborators find ways to maximize their teaching and planning time together. Dr. Friend interviews team members on their use of time. (9:15)
5. Pulled in Too Many Directions: We follow Carolyn, a special needs teacher as she starts her school day. . .the questions and demands start before she can take off her coat. Later she and Dr. Friend discuss her day and catalog the many functions she performs, her "typical" schedule, how she has learned to cope with the job's demands, and how her collaborators have come to work with, and assist her. (9:00)
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