Collaborating with Teachers

As a new teacher, I believe collaborating with other teachers and leaning on veteran colleagues is crucial to surviving your first year as a teacher or your first year at a new school.

Be Curious About Your Environment

• Approach everything with humility.
• Absorb as much as possible about the school culture, especially the language they use for students schoolwide (follow the ABCs, follow the 4C’s).
• Get to know your neighboring teachers.
• Get to know your grade level team. Ask how they work together and understand their collaboration style. Are they open to meeting anytime? Do they prefer to plan on their own and only meet together to discuss assessments?

Ask a Lot of Questions

• Don’t be afraid of asking questions.
• You will have colleagues that welcome you warmly and extend a hand for any questions you may have.
• Learn about the routines for the first day of school, or the pathway to walk students to recess and lunch.
• Throughout the year, ask for various teachers’ perspectives about their approach to bathroom usage or their rules for online games.

Meet Together with Your Induction Mentor Weekly

• Prepare for these meetings. Write down questions about procedures and classroom management challenges.
• Share your successes and challenges when implementing curriculum from various subjects.
• Ask for specific resources to enhance teaching specific subjects.
• Bring examples of student work that include both successes and challenges for added support.
• Build a portfolio of student work with the mentor’s feedback.

Seek Support from the Principal

• Build a healthy rapport with the principal during staff meetings and individual check-ins.
• Seek guidance when peers and the induction mentor recommend that you reach out to the principal for added support.
• Support and implement the recommendations that the principal gives during classroom observations.

Share Resources and Ideas

• It is better to collaborate than to reinvent the wheel every single time.
• Collaborating with other teachers allows for novel activities to be created that meet the needs of specific classes.
• Take initiative with the team in sharing unit ideas and helping develop them into teachable modules. Examples might include locating digital resources, assembling templates, and creating art projects that teachers can use with students.

These are examples of successes in working together with colleagues to create a purposeful learning environment that inspires the students to reach their highest potential.