Team Planning Tips
When I was an instructional coach, we had several teams at my school that struggled with team planning. It was so much of a struggle, actually, that some teachers had started questioning whether team planning was a valuable use of their time. Wouldn’t it just be better for us to all do our own thing? So, I took the question to a PD session where teachers from all over our county were present. I asked:
If you could all tell me, with a show of hands, who here participates in some level of team planning?
100% of the hands in the room went up.
Wow! Ok. How many of you do this because it is mandated by your principals?
All of the hands stayed up.
How many of you feel that it goes well, and you enjoy it?
Over half of the hands went down.
How many of you want to continue doing team planning, because you don’t want to plan all subjects alone?
Many of the hands go back up.
So, at least in my corner of the teaching world, we have a team planning crisis…but we clearly feel that we need it. So, what do we do?
Side note: I hope you can’t relate to this. I hope your team planning situation is dreamy. I’ve had exactly one completely conflict-free year in my teaching career, and it was HEAVEN. But one out of eight years is a really sad statistic.
In fact, when I was a student teacher, my mentor teacher had a rocky dynamic with her team. I learned right there on day one how to tiptoe my way through a conversation with a team, smile and nod, and then close the door and get back to teaching. This has served ME extremely well. I have very few hurt feelings when it comes to team dynamics. Don’t want to use my idea? Cool. I will still use it, but I am not even slightly unnerved by the fact that you don’t. I was molded to be this way. I operate under the assumption that I have lots of great ideas, but so do you. And we don’t have to be doing the same thing.
Unfortunately, I have rarely run into a situation where the 5-6 other teachers that I am working with all carry these attitudes. I have (very accidentally) hurt feelings by not sending something out that I came up with at the last second. I have (again, accidentally) hurt feelings by not using someone’s ideas. I have hurt feelings by hanging work up in the hall that my team didn’t all agree we were going to hang up. I have hurt feelings by using a different powerpoint than the rest of my team at open house. I have hurt feelings by opting out of something the rest of my team planned to do. I have been the person who has hurt a lot of feelings, because those particular things wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all.
So, I return to the initial question: what do we do? Maybe you’re like me: you love what you’ve got going on in your classroom, and you’re happy to share and collaborate, but you don’t really need your team for weekly plans. You already know what you want to do each week regardless of what gets put on paper. Maybe you’re farrrr on the other end: you’re a brand new teacher who desperately needs the team to work together and stay consistent, because you’re totally lost. Maybe you’ve had a lot of turnover on your team and you’re starting over, and the way the old team used to do it isn’t working for your new team. Maybe your team is fractioned…a few people get along really well, but you have some people who are outliers, and there is tension created because some people feel left out.
I’ve had some really tough years with team relationships, and some great ones. During the rougher years, I thought through what my teams had going for us when we were all getting along…trying to apply some of those principals has helped. So today, I want to share my basic team planning tips, in the hopes that it helps some of you all in the midst of navigating your own team relationships.
define team norms.
Let me add a disclaimer right off the bat: I do not think this has to be a formal thing. In fact, if you can get everyone to go out for happy hour and talk through what makes you feel respected during team planning, that’s the best! Whether it’s showing up on time, giving everyone an equal amount of time to speak, coming fully prepared, having plans submitted to each other the day before you meet to discuss, etc. Have some routines and rules in place that make it easier for everyone to feel comfortable. But say them CLEARLY. Say them with everyone present. Say them loud and proud. Express what makes you feel respected, heard, at ease…don’t wait for your team to be mind readers. Setting the precedent that this a team who says how they feel (and in turn listens) will serve you all so well.
Elect a leader.
This may not be your “team leader”. Team leaders sometimes have fantastic leadership qualities, buuutttt sometimes they’re team lead because of seniority and they aren’t the best with assembling and leading groups. They may even admit that this is true. If you can make the person with the best leadership skills the leader of planning meetings, you will all be better served. I totally get that you could hurt feelings, but I think there are ways to frame it where you can value what the other person brings to the table at the same time:
Lisa, you’re so great at always providing us with lots of quality materials. You have so many good ideas. But, I’ve noticed that Aubrey seems to always be the one keeping us on schedule. Does anyone object to making Aubrey our time keeper to make sure that everyone has time to share during these meetings?
Clearly define everyone’s job.
This is where things get SO MESSY. OMG. You’ve got 6 teachers, and all y’all have done is dole out subjects. Then everyone comes back with 6 totally different ideas of what a thorough lesson plan looks like, and what quality materials look like. This is where the smiling and nodding comes in, and then half of the team doesn’t use something and someone’s feelings are hurt, etc. etc. until a big dramatic confrontation occurs.
Y’all, we have to talk to each other. Look at some lesson plan examples online. Start the year by choosing a template together, selecting lesson plan models that you would like to emulate as a team, and going from there. Someone has the math plans…what does everyone’s math block look like? Did you guys agree on the same schedule? The same rotations? Someone has science. How many experiments a week do you want to do? How much journaling do you want to do?
These discussions will definitely take time, but it’s worth it. Without the discussion up front about everyone’s expectations of what lesson plans will look like, all you get is a bunch of people sitting around in a planning meeting secretly wondering why they feel like everyone hates their ideas. This makes teachers less willing to share next time, making your team stuck in place rather than growing.
Psst…Need some lesson plan templates?? Check these out! ;)
Have a basic agenda each time you meet.
Sample: (for a team full of self-contained teachers)
Team planning time is every Wednesday from 2:00-3:00 PM.
2:05: Everyone is present with materials. (Depending on your team…five minutes into planning time may not be enough. I am a “leave the classroom with enough time to drop my kids off EXACTLY at the start of planning because this is my time dangit” kind of teacher…but not everyone is like that, I guess??? Definitely set a time that things will begin though. Don’t leave this loose or someone will get distracted by an email and be 20 minutes late. Every time.)
2:05-2:15: Review ELA plans. Teacher responsible for this goes over it, highlights main materials, shows small group plans/routines he or she has pulled. Leaves time for questions.
*LET IT BE KNOWN that each teacher shouldn’t feel like they have to lecture y’all on their plans. They entered them and you had time to read them. Please do this ahead of time if you’re doing any kind of digital template. This isn’t where they’re telling you what the standards are. If you feel the need to basically teach this lesson to your team to make it clear, reflect on what the issue is, and maybe reach out for extra support.
2:15-2:25-Another subject (math maybe??). Same thing, but for that subject.
2:25-2:40-Repeat with subject 3.
2:40-2:50-Repeat with subject 4.
Last 10 minutes: you have a glorious 10 minutes to answer questions for each other, stack master copies up to be taken to the copy room (if you have parent volunteers or TA’s who will run them for you), time to catch up, etc.
*Another IMPORTANT note. Team planning days and “random housekeeping” days need to be separate. When you try to review all of that content, and go over all of the notes from the last PTA meeting, you won’t get to everything. When you can’t get to everything, someone leaves the room either not having had time to share, or not understanding the week’s lessons in depth…and it just gets hairy all over again. I had a team that did Tuesday “working lunches” together where our team lead would go over important notes while we ate together, but planning time was sacred.
Do fun things together. (A bonus Tip!)
This is my final piece, and it seems silly but I promise it’s not. The way to have stronger team dynamics is to constantly be communicating. The way to make everyone feel comfortable with communicating with each other is to build trust. The best way to build trust? Be friends. Plan a progressive dinner. A book club. A monthly coffee date. A happy hour. Some way to get out of the school building and get to know each other as real humans. When you feel like you know each other as real humans, the trust is built. You get to know each other in a different light. You learn about each other’s families and hobbies and interests outside of school. You know the things that they may be sensitive about, or insecurities they have in their classrooms. Then, when the conversation comes up where you’re not really feeling the activity that your team is super jazzed about…you can say it! It can be light-hearted and funny and easy, because you guys are friends. I promise it’s worth it.
