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    Strong Teams, Strong Schools

    Teacher-to-teacher collaboration creates synergy that benefits students

    By Learning Forward
    Categories: Collaboration
    April 2013
    Schools rise and fall based on the quality of the teamwork that occurs within their walls. Well-functioning leadership and teaching teams are essential to the continuous improvement of teaching and learning. That is particularly true when schools have clearly articulated, stretching aspirations for the learning of all their students. Effective teams strengthen leadership, improve teaching and learning, nurture relationships, increase job satisfaction, and provide a means for mentoring and supporting new teachers and administrators. Schools will improve for the benefit of every student only when every leader and every teacher is a member of one or more strong teams that create synergy in problem solving, provide emotional and practical support, distribute leadership to better tap the talents of members of the school community, and promote

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    Authors

    Dennis Sparks

    Dennis Sparks (thinkingpartner@gmail.com) serves as a thinking partner to educators and learning teams and is the emeritus executive director of NSDC (now Learning Forward). This article was previously published as a blog post at https://dennissparks.wordpress.com, where Sparks writes regularly about transforming teaching, learning, and relationships.

    If you want to go quickly, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.

    African proverb
    You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.

    Phillips Brooks

    Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions of a Team

    • Inattention to results.
    • Avoidance of accountability.
    • Lack of commitment.
    • Fear of conflict.
    • Absence of trust.

    Source: Lencioni, 2002.

    Key Characteristics of Effective Teams

    Starting out

    Acquiring information and beginning to use ideas.

    Developing

    Experimenting with strategies and building on initial commitment.

    Deepening

    Well on the way, having achieved a degree of mastery and feeling the benefits.

    Sustaining

    Introducing new developments and re-evaluating quality have become a way of life.

    References

    Lencioni, P. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

    Sparks, D. (2007). Leading for results: Transforming teaching, learning, and relationships in schools (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.


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    Learning Forward is the only professional association devoted exclusively to those who work in educator professional development. We help our members plan, implement, and measure high-quality professional learning so they can achieve success with their systems, schools, and students.


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