Team-Teaching Dreams...

I miss having a buddy.

When you’re a student teacher, you’re only part teacher (as the very name implies). You have another half- a mentor teacher. The two of you are constantly together. While in the beginning it is certainly an adjustment getting used to being around another person so closely all day; once the comfort levels have been established you can operate as a highly efficient team.

Working with my mentor teacher during the fall semester made me a HUGE advocate of the ‘team-teaching’ style.

Team-teaching is literally what it says: teachers working as team. I have heard of some schools (usually wealthier ones who can afford two adults per room) implementing team-teaching but its definitely underutilized.

With two teachers, the vast workload is halved into something feasible to handle.

Teaching encompasses two basic things: Instruction/Assessment & Classroom Management. Those aspects are never split 50/50. Never. At least not in any classroom I’ve ever been in. If you’re lucky you can maintain levels of 40% instruction, 60% classroom management.

Classroom management is a large umbrella statement for a vast range of “keeping-the-kids-focused-learning-not-imploding” strategies and techniques. Anything from a simple tap on the shoulder to silence a chatty student, to organizing assignments and breaking up bigger discipline hassles: fights, insubordination, etc.

When classroom management is being enacted, 90% of the time instruction must cease. It could be only for 15 seconds telling a student to pay attention/sit down/stop talking but it disrupts the flow of the lesson. Multiply those 15 seconds by 20 times and you’ve lost a solid 5 minutes of class. As class is only 50 minutes long- that’s a substantial loss. The worst part is honestly that’s a conservative estimation of time spent on classroom management.

With team-teaching, instruction can flow uninhibited and separately from classroom management. One teacher is engaged in the lesson, while the other is walking the room, monitoring, taking students aside, keeping them on task. Disruptions can be targeted and dissipated quickly without pausing the lesson. Both teachers avoid becoming overwhelmed with the dual tasks of achieving student comprehension and maintaining a peaceful environment.

At my long-term sub job I’ve really for the first time felt the burden of being the sole adult in a room full of 12/13 year olds. My voice has to do two things at once: teach and discipline. I’ve found it difficult to switch rapidly back and forth between the two modes. By the end of a class I felt like I’ve run a marathon.

Team-teaching has more benefits outside of actual class time. Lessons don’t come pre-packaged and ready to go. They take an enormous amount of prep work. Physically creating the: powerpoint notes, handouts, rubrics, tests, homework- plus all the work of photocopying, laminating and grading is enough to bury a teacher. Two people obviously can get twice as much done twice as fast than one person working alone.

I wish my state had enough money to make team-teaching a state-wide policy. It would have so many benefits, one being doubling the amount of teaching jobs! I understand the intense potential for conflict between teachers- sharing authority can be difficult and personality issues could abound.

Perhaps I’m jaded in a good way because I had such a great experience during student teaching. Even with the possible problems, the team-teaching benefits so outweigh anything else- for both students and teachers.