Over the past decade, my professional work has been changed for the better by members of my collaborative teams.
I’ve tried new strategies as a result of my exposure to the ideas of my peers. I’ve become more systematic about documenting my practices. I’ve become more deliberate about intervening and extending learning for my students. And I’ve become more confident about my ability to meet the needs of all students because I know that I’m not tackling that challenge on my own.
(Click to enlarge. View original image and credit on Flickr here.)
Since then, I’ve started consulting a bit — helping other schools to strengthen their collaborative practices.
In that work, the most common struggle that I see are teams that are open to collaboration but unsure of exactly what it is that they are supposed to be doing with one another. It’s easy to imagine that we are more powerful together than we are as individuals, but without direction and clarity, collaboration feels like a waste of time.
As my friend and mentor Rick DuFour used to say, “Collaboration is only worthwhile when you are collaborating around the right things.”
So I’ve developed a resource to help teams determine if they are doing the right things in their meetings with one another.
I call it the Tasks Teams Tackle worksheet.
It is designed to be used like a checklist that teams can use to evaluate the work that they are currently doing and to identify collaborative practices worth pursuing.
Hope you can find a way to use it in your work.
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Related Radical Reads:
Note to Teams: It’s Time to Complete Your Mid-Year Checkup Together
Is Your Team Flunking Unsuccessful Practices Together?
Five Important Roles for Collaborative Teams
