What if we hired and placed teachers completely differently?
I have been thinking about this issue for a long time. The assigning of one person to one classroom, in isolation from all other teachers, has always seemed to me to be a profound error. It hampers ongoing professional development, it breeds egocentrism, and makes it far too hard to get appropriate consistency across teachers concerning instructional quality, assessment, and grading.
So, what if we hired 4 teachers for 3 classrooms? That would have enormous benefit:
- A teacher could always be free to help another teacher manage a project, provide feedback to a colleague, work with kids in a more personalized coaching way.
- A teacher could always be free to do ‘learning walks’ – to visit many other classes to find good practices that could be brought back to the other team members.
- Someone could always be free to attend planning meetings or scoring of student work sessions made up of representatives from each team
- Hiring could be more differentiated. One team member could be strong in a needed subject (e.g. science at the elementary level or literacy at the HS level) that is a typical weak spot in individual teachers. Or a team member with design skills could be the chief planner for the team. Or one teacher could be great at student-led inquiry work while another was a top-rate lecturer or coach, so they could hand off the teaching when a different style was used.
- Someone would always be free to visit other schools or do off-site professional development, with no loss of learning time for kids.
- 1 member of the team could watch time-intensive student presentations while the other teachers taught.
- Junior teachers could be mentored on a regular basis by senior team members.
- The team leader would be responsible for ensuring that best practices and consistency in assessment were taking place in all classes.
- There would be only occasional need to find and pay subs., thus ensuring that maximal learning time was rarely compromised; and offsetting the cost of the 4-to-3 system.
Anyone who has co-taught knows the power of it (I have done it a few times, both as a classroom teacher and in working with Jay and my colleagues in UbD training.) You learn from one another, you gain some perspective, and you learn to truly work as a team. (Far too many educators do not know how to work efficiently and effectively as a team to accomplish shared goals because they have so little practice in it.)
Here’s part two of the idea, borrowed from Alverno College. Each MS and HS teacher is hired to fulfill two roles: a subject area slot and a core competency slot. For example, Alverno requires all students to meet mastery learning requirements in 8 areas (e.g. Communication, Creative Thinking.) So a Professor has two distinct roles: Professor in a subject (e.g. Philosophy) and member of a Competency Committee (e.g. Communication). Thus, the Competency Committees are inherently cross-disciplinary in membership, where all members are in charge of designing lesson ideas and assessments for their Competency area.
Imagine, therefore, committees in K-12 schools designed to handle the key phrases of the Mission – critical thinking, problem-solving, global citizenship, etc. in which a teacher serves on one of the Mission-focused Committees. Now, the secondary school is far less fragmented and staff are far less isolated in their own subject area and discourse.
Of course, this can only work under a variety of conditions (e.g. a large enough staff with multiple grade-level or subject classes, start-up funding to offset initially increased costs, etc.), but I trust that it gives readers some ideas to play with in their own setting.
Readers, do you know of or have you been involved in more creative uses of staff than are typically found in schools?
33 Responses
In theory this sounds awesome; however, it seems like schools are struggling to fund FTEs already. In my school I can’t even get a teacher to observe another educator …. I’ll sub for them so they can see another staff member. I read an article just recently that highlighted that new staff should only have a 80% schedule so they can take one prep and observe great teachers in their building their first semester. What a great way to retain teachers. Love reading your books. I’m a fan.
The 80% practice was used at my old school 30 years ago for 1st year teachers – very effective. I’d be interested to know, though, what your sub budget is vis a vis 1 FTE.
I’ve been kicking around a similar idea where several “resident master teachers” work with several interns to set up a school that is sort of modeled after a teaching hospital. (I wouldn’t call it an apprenticeship because I worry about the way that would be perceived, but something along the lines of working under a “master” for 2 years or so).
So, for example, 4 HS English teachers would work with 5-8 interns for two years. The interns would rotate placements and eventually free up the residents to do the same. In my idea, the interns would start their rotation in year 4 of college, finish in year 5, and emerge with a masters degree.
What I like about your version of the idea are the two different roles the teacher plays as both class-room instructor and cross-curricular committee member. In a school that was entirely centered on this ideas, these cross-curricular competency committees could be comprised of both interns and residents (that was way to many alliterative “c’s”.)
In my department PLC, we’ve developed a system similar to the “learning walks” you mention above.
Each PLC member is free to observe the classes of other members at any time.
Though we are just beginning this practice, it has allowed me to observe great teaching methods of which I was not aware, and receive valuable feedback on my own methods.
Great idea … But the cost is too much to sell to tax payers
What if the ratio of kids to the team were higher? In other words, trade slightly larger classes for the 4:3 ratio. That, plus savings in subs might be enough. What’s your sub cost per year, Rob? What if it enabled the hiring of a somewhat inexperienced teacher to be mentored? Seems premature to throw cold water on the idea until all costs are looked at. WHAT IF…?
33% more personnel costs. It’ll never happen. 25 kids. One teacher. One room. Came down from Sinai with the Tablets of the Law.
But even worse? On darker days, I think the chances that it would be a large positive change actually works against the idea. There’s an entrenched and powerful political constituency for schools that don’t improve, that don’t grow and change. The greater the extent to which they conform in fact to politically convenient stereotypes, the easier they are to kill off/sell off.
What if the ratio of kids to the team were higher? In other words, trade slightly larger classes for the 4:3 ratio. That, plus savings in subs might be enough. i also think this overlooks potential savings in coaches and supervisors, especially in large systems. There are also co-teaching possibilities with saving in special ed. staffing. Give it a WHAT IF…? before tossing it aside – that’s the spirit of my What if? blog posts.
I appreciate you blog as it is a highlight of my week. Grant, you continue to inspire and make me think. Your support of my work with Dr. Guilott is appreciated and I look forward to the many more blog entries you post. We are opening new schools and this has been on the front burner. Staffing is what we all think about, stay up at night worrying about, and feel we often don’t get it right. It is who we have in our buildings that make the most impact. How we organize them is important. And equally if not more important is the culture we build around the work we engage in. In the public system, we have the added challenge of honoring our contractual obligations. That said, how we staff, as you have pointed out, can be advantageous. Structures aside, it is always the people who either make or break an initiative. In Dr. Guilott’s book, A Value Added Decision (one of the best little books you can read along side the UBD series:), learning walks are a powerful way of building a culture of learning about learning together. That book is my guiding light in the work I do with schools.
I digress. Here is a concept I have seen that offer promise with respect to staffing:
High Tech High staffs in a small school in a larger school context. Teachers are assigned to a cadre of students and they take care of those students. Wherever possible cross curricular opportunities and collaboration amongst those teachers is the norm. I heard it best when one of my colleagues said the other day that he wanted to build a ‘disposition to inquiry”. The whole notion of building a culture of a small school within a larger school is appealing to me. Here in Alberta, we have several schools that are using the concept of ‘podding’ (akin to the small school in a large school described above) to get away from the notion that teachers work in isolation. These teachers in the pods do not have assigned rooms. They work together and have office space, but no one ‘owns’ a room. They are shared. They are only attached to each other and are compelled to plan together, care for students together and build exciting and engaging learning opportunities. Students are a part of a pod. They have the same cadre of teachers for their whole high school experience. The disposition of that staff is that they care for students and do whatever they can to make their learning experience the best they can make it. They build cross curricular connections whenever possible. I have seen this concept at all levels–k-12.
The successful strategies, no matter how they are organized all have one thing in common. The culture built is one of collaboration, caring for students, creativity, a disposition to inquiry, backwards design and design thinking. Further, teachers have a growth mindset, look a possibilities and want to engage students, set the groundwork for learning, create opportunities to grow that learning and carefully scaffold to transfer.
Considering the system you are talking about right now! Would be very interested in your support and guidance as we redesign for learning.
Cool! Happy to chat. Have a look at the What’s My Job? Chapters in Schooling by Design for more ideas.
We are considering it from the perspective of increasing the opportunities for collaboration for the adults and the students. Combining a shift in the organization of the classroom with a variety of ways for students to interact with one another places the adult in a role of facilitator. Odds are engagement will increase for everyone. I also believe people may not recognize the extraordinary sub costs that may be alleviated as an unexpected bonus!
A great post Grant. I agree that teachers working in isolation perpetuates “siloing”. We have tried a similar way of providing for co-teaching (which I agree is a powerful way to provide for example: multiple view points, varying areas of expertise…) by having a learning support teacher assigned to two or three classrooms. This has enabled us to provide what I call a very “living systems” kind of learning community at the school (did my doctoral work on learning communities – see http://summit.sfu.ca/item/11268 if interested) where the learning of all (both students and staff) is central to all that is done at the school.
Thanks! I was actually partially inspired to do this post by another visit to the 2nd grade classroom I have been visiting all year where they have a fantastic completely integrated special needs and regular teacher working beautifully together with six fairly challenging spec. ed. kids in the room. I’ll check out your diss. – thanks for the link!
Have been twirling around a similar idea tailored to our needs and within our budget, an idea sparked by a three week experience I had substituting for a class period for one of our teachers.
My responsibilities no longer allow for full-time teaching, but there are seasons during the year when I am more available. By teaching a unit for one of the teachers, she is then free to observe other classes, to pursue professional learning, to spend time planning future units, etc.
There never seems to be much time for teachers to step back and reflect during the school year, with papers to grade, lessons to plan, meetings to attend and so forth. Having a break from a class for an extended period could re-energize teachers.
These teachers could swap sections with each other, also, for a period of time for students to reap the benefits of their strengths.
It just seems a way that we could inject new experiences for our students and staff without hiring a new person, while also providing opportunities for the professional learning our teachers need.
I’m sort of spoiled, all of our teachers (math, English, science, and social science) are in a single large room and students are on high school independent study. We meet one on one with students and help them where they’re at. I can’t tell you how beneficial it is for the staff and the students that come from a “sage on stage” environment to this. I learn a lot from my colleagues and our teaching becomes more uniform and creative at the same time. Opportunities arise all the time for cross curricular lessons/chats that have a natural context, something that just isn’t possible with separate rooms.
This is a fantastic idea.
The roadblock is teacher ‘cult of personality’ thinking as much as it is finances. Some teachers resist sharing control, a mentality shaped by isolation and fueled by fear and anxiety. But I really think that mentality could be broken with an idea like this and the right kind of leadership. And think of what it models for students: that teaching and learning are a team effort.
Great discussion! I truly believe that one reason schools remain the same, despite all of the reform and improvement work that goes on, is that teachers have no time to “work on the work” because they have students at their feet throughout most of the day. New learning and change cannot be facilitated in 50 minute planning periods.
What if we thought differently about the way our time structures were put in place. In most industries, there are different start times for different employees. We are still sending the kids home at 3:00 to milk the cows, and then sending them home each July and August to harvest the crops. If we tiered our start times, we could build in more staff collaboration, planning, assessing and curriculum work, without adding costs. This would allow for some of what Grant is suggesting, and it would give teachers time to refine their curriculum with a consistent feedback cycle.
Suppose we took an elementary building and all general classroom teachers begin their day at 8:30 with students, and they have those students until 1:30, with lunch as the only interruption during that time. (We have tremendously fragmented programs when students are pulled from instruction for services through the day.) Then at 1:30, those students shift to the “cultural and support” teachers, and they have Phys. Ed., Art, Interventions, Project Work…..until about 5:30 or so. (Times are arbitrary at this point.)
The general classroom teachers move to PLCs to work together with colleagues until 4:30, which gives them 3 hours each day to “work on the work” Some of it may be individual work, and much of it will be group work where teachers are learning together with the goal of improving and modernizing the work of the school. Learning from one another is one premise of the work.
At the same time, the “cultural and support teachers” have arrived at 10:30 and worked in the same way until 1:30, when the students then move to work with them. In this scenario, costs are not increased, except possibly those costs associated with keeping the building open later. Transportation cost doesn’t have to change, and families who are paying for child care may find their costs decrease.
There will be inherent problems with this change….one being the sacred sports schedule at the secondary level that seems to keep our start and end times from changing. This could perhaps be built into the schedule. The teachers union would have to be willing to think differently about contractual times, and they would have to be open to such a change. The length of the day could remain the same, but the start and end times would change. It would be logistically challenging to think through the details of such a change, but it would also solve many of the issues we face as schools. Discussing such a possibility would be a start!
I’m with you on thinking through people + time simultaneously. And speaking of Varsity sports: my daughter, who plays soccer for Stony Brook, has practice in the morning every day! Most classes are in the afternoon and evening – a common University schedule. Why can’t we make HS more college like? No college class meets every day for 50 minutes. Indeed, most prep school classes do NOT meet every day- either 3 or 4 times per week, which also frees up time. (Years ago, at Choate Rosemary Hall, teachers were off 1 day out of six – since they had Saturday classes – as a department, to do all the things needed.
These are important conversations. We strongly recommend that all school staff consider the essential question upon which we based Schooling by Design: if that’s the Mission & Belief system, and learning requires this kind of work, then what should the schedule and roles be?
I don’t know how the dollars and cents would add up, but I would be for this idea. It goes along with part of Daniel Willingham’s book where teachers need to get feedback other teachers in order to improve. Teaching in isolation can make it more difficult to improve,
Grant, seeing as you are so close, you should really pay a visit to Princeton Montessori school. There you will see collaboarative teaching in action, 3 or 4 teachers to each 3-yr program of multi-age students, and newly-qualified Montessori-certified teachers interning with veteran master teachers for a year. No teacher works alone. I would love to show you how it works. Email me if you’d like to do this.
Would love to. When i return to NJ in April, let’s arrange a visit.
Grant, here goes … you replied to a tweet of mine last week, and I thought I would explain what we did back in 2010-11 at Meyer Middle School in River Falls, WI, with our Peer Coaching. I proposed this as principal, and then I moved to Central Office. However, I found great support with our new principal (he was my assistant the previous year) and the peer coaches.
Bottom line, we COULD have, due to class size, hired another teacher in a grade level. However, I chose not to in implementing our peer coaching. I took some flak for it, but I would do it again in heartbeat. The difference between 23 and 28.5 in a class is nothing compared to what we got out of it.
Our administrative team and building leadership team thought we needed four things to put us “over the top”: assessment, character education, literacy coaching, and teaching in the block/Daggett Quadrant A-D.
I took the cost of a long-term sub for the year (40K), and we hired a person who could teach SS and LangArts. Three of the peer coaches (leaders) were LA teachers, and one was a SS teacher. The peer coaching people were selected because of their expertise, background, previous work with colleagues, and passion for the subject. The LT sub would teach for the Q1 teacher in her classroom, move to the Q2 teacher’s classroom next quarter and so on. You get the idea.
This had to go before the school board for approval. There were a couple naysayers who criticized this to school board members – either because they were not selected, or they thought this was not a good idea and class size should be reduced. It was approved.
Next, we gave our staff some short readings involving peer coaching, as well as having the peer coaches go through a bit more literature – an example is Doug Reeves’ work in Ed Leadership in Oct 2007. They discussed these in our meetings early in the year and tried to model what Reeves suggested.
Before the year started – in late August – we surveyed staff for their top three choices. This is included in the packet of materials I will link to you. The first choice meant that you were going to be targeted for some one-on-one work during your individual prep. Once a week, the peer coach was going to visit your team during team prep for general work with the focus for the quarter.
I worked with the principal and the four staff members to share results with the school board. This is also documented. How did it impact your instruction, student learning, your professional development? Share the log of your minutes and the product of your work. What did you learn as a coach? Through surveys, what did your colleagues think? Four times, this coach presented to the school board to keep them abreast of our progress.
We shot for a goal of each staff member getting 16 hours of individualized staff development on their first choice.
I had provided survey results, logs and products on this … as well as a final proposal to use an “intern” in the future in our district.
I hope this helps, and I really enjoy the blog. Here is my link.
https://drive.google.com/a/rfsd.k12.wi.us/file/d/0B_rYiqZyJYidb1dZd2NMWTM3dkpsZGJ4X0lZSFYtTm1kX2Jn/edit?usp=sharing
Mike – this is very helpful; thanks for taking the time to lay out what you did and how it worked. I am not arguing for larger classes, for sure. There are lots of interesting ways to skin this cat….
Hi Mike–Thanks for sharing all this. Might you be able to grant me access to view the documents to which you linked?
Our school has come one step closer to something like your proposal, Grant. We’ve integrated a teacher coach model. We have 3 teachers, myself included, who have 3 periods per week devoted to coaching responsibilities. The rest of our schedule is devoted to our teaching work (we still have the same amount of students and class sections, just fewer sessions with them).
We work one on one with teachers of all experience levels to identify and practice areas for improvement, lead our department meetings, and co-plan and facilitate whole staff professional development. While there are wrinkles to work out, including the ever-present lack of time to maximize effectiveness of each role, and the imbalance of work-compensation, this is a marked improvement to our previous model of paying outside sources to come in and support teachers.
Being in this multi-role position, I can fully appreciate the model you are proposing, Grant. Teachers do need support, and kids need their teachers to present consistent messages and aligned goals for their success. At my school, we’ve talked about the isolation you mention and its consequences on the kids–they can become confused about what is important, and about how the skills developed in one course can transfer to other courses and tasks. We are working to break through the barriers that were cemented in place for decades.
There are always complications, budgetary and otherwise, but we have to keep moving in the direction of improving the models we use to educate our kids. At my school, I am glad to say the whole staff is compliant with our changes, most of them even seem to embrace the changes. Still, the pace of change can feel glacier-slow at times and adopting new roles and systems is a great challenge to take on in the ever-demanding climate of classroom teaching.
If we keep asking the ‘what if…?” questions, we keep ourselves open to the possibilities. I am fortunate to be in a great school with a leader who does ask these questions and who keeps a steady momentum of gradual improvements to how our school works, how are staff collaborates, and how our students are supported.
You are lucky! What a great way to blend the needs together.
Grant, we had connected last Saturday, and you asked for what my school/district had done for a peer coaching model. I lost what I had just typed to you – so I’ll do it again. I will attach a link at the bottom, as well, to view the examples.
I was a middle school principal in River Falls, WI, and I found that because of small class sizes in our Grade 7, I COULD get another teacher. However, I chose not to do so. That would mean that our staff in that house would teach four classes of their typical content and they share literature. If we got the teacher, there would be that teacher who took all sections of literature. It was an easy call – I wanted professional development for our staff – not class sizes of 23 vs. 28.3.
I did get push back from some staff about it after I explained what I wanted to do. Our Team Leaders were informed, and I asked them what to do with this extra $$. I wanted a long-term sub to assist us in allowing release time (one quarter) for four staff members to help us with various aspects of staff development: our BLT agreed – assessment, character education, reading in the content area, and teaching in the block/Daggett Rigor Relevance Quad A-D.
Instead of benefiting the Grade 7 teachers, we would benefit ALL staff with at least 16 hours of tailored PD. I identified four teachers to do this – 3 LA staff and 1 SS staff. We looked to hire a LT sub who was certified in both subjects.
The board needed to approve it. A couple teachers had “gotten in their ear” because they wanted their class sizes down, they weren’t tapped on the shoulder, or they were just cranky. The board supported us.
We got ready to rock and roll, and then I moved to Central Office. My successor helped me with the plan, so we were good to go.
We got some literature out there – Reeves, in particular! My attachment shows a good article he wrote in 2007. Staff reviewed it and coaches lived it. We then offered staff to choose their favorites of the four. This is documented as well. Our goal was that if one subject was your first choice, you would get at least 16 hours of 1-on-1 time with the coach during your prep time OR EVEN BETTER – co-teaching!
The school year started, and I asked for the following to present at the board meetings – after each quarter was done: surveys to staff, log of activities, progress on 1:1 activities with staff, academic articles shared during team planning, etc.
During the quarter, team planning happened – and one time a week, the peer coach came in to assist regardless if that was your choice or not. They supplemented what people were already doing. People got over 800 hours of PD over the course of the year, building-wide. 16 hours – the minimum on their first choice..
Anyway, the year went very well – and if any of you have questions, please feel free to email me – I will provide the link below and give you permission to see various documents:
https://drive.google.com/a/rfsd.k12.wi.us/file/d/0B_rYiqZyJYidb1dZd2NMWTM3dkpsZGJ4X0lZSFYtTm1kX2Jn/edit?usp=sharing
Sorry this was lengthy – give a shout anytime. mhansjohnson@gmail.com
Reblogged this on edgeekgirls and commented:
Love this idea by Grant Wiggins an inspiring and innovative educator.
Thank you for this innovative idea.
The team teaching I’ve done in the past has been a terrific experience. My school is playing next year with having larger classes (55 students, say) with two teachers team-teaching that group. We are pretty excited about it and I hope I get to participate in something like it.
This is excellent information for a district, like mine, where enrollment is decreasing, two reductions in force have already taken place, and we are still overstaffed at the middle and high school levels. We have decided that our teachers are not going to be asked to endure another reduction in force, but we need to figure out where we can best assign staff according to their certification areas. We are overstaffed at our high school in ELA, math, and special education.
It seems to me that the “fourth teacher” for the three classrooms would need to have some very specific responsibilities developed into a job description. Likewise, an ongoing process should be in place to monitor their performance. Your nine-item list above is a great starting point! Thanks for this great share!
I really like the model that you suggest, but I wonder–as we always must–will there be the financial resources necessary to make this happen. I spent 10 years in the California public school system and would have loved to see such a policy, especially in classrooms averaging 34 students. For the past 3 years I have taught abroad, first at ACS Beirut and now at Saigon South International, and in both schools have found that I now have the time to collaborate with quality teachers on a daily basis and it has made a tremendous impact on my teaching.