Learning from Each Other

I enjoyed reading this paper from the World Bank:

Great teachers : how to raise student learning in Latin America and...

and I had the opportunity to hear the authors speak. One of the key findings is the variations in the quality of teachers within schools. Even in low-performing schools, there are wonderful teachers, and in high-performing schools, there are teachers who need help and support. Dr. Bruns recommends that schools find a way to take advantage of this knowledge and have teachers work together on the curriculum, observe each other, and help each other in order to improve quality teaching throughout the school. Does your school facilitate peer-to-peer learning and collaboration among teachers? If so, how? If not, might it be possible? What would need to change?

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Pier on March 3, 2015 at 12:15pm

In my high school teaching days, the English and social studies departments tried to develop a joint unit on slavery in the United States. It proved difficult, since the curricula had been created separately and we did not have joint planning time to revise the curricula. In the end, both departments had a unit on slavery, but they were not as well integrated as we hoped.

Permalink Reply by jacinta on March 3, 2015 at 1:20pm

That is a great idea but in practice it is only successful when professionalism is present.

Permalink Reply by Gale Mohammed-Oxley on March 27, 2015 at 2:34pm

Daniel,

The problem creative teachers face is the limited space to create when given specific guides and curricular to follow. I had this problem in my earlier teaching days at the primary level. At the secondary level I got a bit more room and now at the tertiary level there is a bit of room if I take it as long as i do not go too far.

Gale
Daniel Pier said:

In my high school teaching days, the English and social studies departments tried to develop a joint unit on slavery in the United States. It proved difficult, since the curricula had been created separately and we did not have joint planning time to revise the curricula. In the end, both departments had a unit on slavery, but they were not as well integrated as we hoped.