It’s all well and good to talk about the importance of collaboration in schools and colleges, but unless the systemic conditions have been established to facilitate quality time for collaboration, it won’t work. Here is what the National Center for Literacy Education describes as those necessary systemic conditions:
- Dedicated time is provided for professional collaboration within the work week.
- Training, assistance, and tools are provided for effective collaboration.
- Leadership supports and promotes collaborative work.
- Leaders ensure access to timely data sources.
- Experimenting with practice and trying new ideas are encouraged.
We’re advocating for such conditions in this year’s policy platform.
“Provide teachers with the time and resources that are essential to creating collaborative, sustained opportunities for professional learning and building teacher inquiry and decision making.”
— 2015 NCTE Education Policy Platform
- Here are some resources on the topic and a copy of that button image on this page that you are free to share.
- Read and share the NCLE paper, Building Capacity to Transform Literacy Learning.
- This is a handy infographic from the Center for Teaching Quality that nicely articulates why time for collaboration is important (but hard to find).