What Sparked my Interest in Teacher Based Teams

My initial interest in Teacher Based Teams (a.k.a. Professional Learning Communities) was spurred when reading the book, Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: A Guide to the First Year (Graham, P. & Ferriter, W., 2010). This book is a great resource for schools whose teachers work in isolation but are ready or are interesting in moving to a collaborative approach. Readers will be able to answer the question, "Why should we have a Teacher Based Team?" It is a practical guide to what can be expected during the first year.
As a teacher, I loved working collaboratively with my partner teacher. We worked together to plan units and talked about how things were going in an informal way. To me, this made sense. I knew I didn't have all the answers, but I knew I had a better shot at getting it right if I worked with another teacher. When I read Graham and Ferriter's book (2010), I saw that whole schools were working collaboratively to improve student learning. I wanted to learn more, and I wanted my school to begin to explore what this idea could do for us.
While reading Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: A Guide to the First Year, I was the principal at New Knoxville Local Schools. Teachers at New Knoxville began a process of working together through book studies and discussions about what works best for students. During this experience, we worked on helping groups mesh and helping develop group communication. A standout in this experience was our work with protocols. These protocols gave group leaders ideas on how to tackle data, plan, document, and facilitate a group.  ***A great website to look to for group protocols is www.schoolreforminitiative.org
During my tenure at New Knoxville, Teacher Based Teams had not begun reviewing student data. I hoped at my new position in Urbana City Schools teachers would be ready to dive into this forum. I was right.
Read the next blog to see how Urbana East Elementary began its process of diving into Teacher Based Teams.

References

Graham, P. & Ferriter, W. M. (2010). Building a professional learning community at work: A guide to the first year.  Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Website: www.schoolreforminitiative.org