Last year I attended a workshop on collaboration. The presenter talked about her experiences with collaborating with teachers, but didn't say how she got the teachers to collaborate with her. During a discussion session in small groups she came over to my group and sat down. I asked her how she got teachers to collaborate with her and she reluctantly answered that she and her colleague (2 media specialists at that school) talked to the assistant principals that did the teacher evaluations. They asked the administrators to ask teachers two questions during pre-observation conference: 1) What resources outside your textbook have you used in your lessons?; and 2) How many times have you worked with the media specialists on your lessons? She said when the administrators started asking those 2 questions the teachers figured they better start consulting with and using the media specialists in planning and presenting lessons.
My question is how can we influence administrators to ask these questions. Shouldn't this be a part of their training in graduate school? It seems a graduate course should contain relations with teachers, relations with non-instructional support staff, relations with guidance counselors and relations with media specialists.
Who has influence over administrators? How can this issue be brought to the forefront?
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