While many schools in California are regrouping for smaller class sizes, at Discovery Charter School in Chula Vista, Lisa Lines is enjoying a notable exception. "I know all 60 children in my room better than I ever knew my children in smaller classrooms," claims Lines. Her multiage classroom of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders (about 20 of each) includes five special education students, two children with severe disabilities—and a team teaching partner, Deborah Spellman.
"Every child receives personal help from one of us in our areas of strength," Lines points out. "Math is Debbie's strong point, and I'm strong in history and social studies. All the kids have two people to help them."
"Team teaching gives you more time for students," agrees Spellman. "More time for observation, for personalized attention, for discipline. And immediate attention is a key to good discipline." She tells of an experience she had with Danny, a bright but socially weak student who was having problems at home. Over the weekend, Danny's stepfather had locked him in the bathroom for an extended period of time. "Danny was having such a hard time," Spellman noticed, "but because of our team teaching situation, I was able to give him 10 minutes of personal attention. Just a little time, but it made such a big difference. Danny had a great week. There are so many demands in classrooms. When you're teaching alone, you can't always stop the lesson for just one child."
Aside from the obvious advantages of individualized attention, other, less apparent benefits are found in team teaching: children see the teachers modeling a cooperative adult relationship. "In team teaching," Spellman says, "you practice a process for problem solving and decision making. When children see models of cooperation, it becomes an authentic thing for them." In their social skills, Lines agrees, "children absorb this modeling like a sponge."
Constant Feedback
For all the personal attention that students enjoy with two teachers, they probably don't realize how much extra preparation time it means for their teachers. Lines and Spellman find that they must spend a good deal of extra time on cooperatively planned lessons. "We have lots of discussions about our kids and our lessons," Lines says. "It takes more time, but you have more energy for it. You don't burn out."
"Our team teaching is kind of like a marriage," adds Spellman. "We bounce ideas off each other. We help each other evaluate our teaching. We each get feedback from another professional, and can constantly evaluate and re-evaluate what we're doing."
"It's empowering for both of you," Lines continues. "You build each other up. And your classroom is constantly changing. Teaching alone, you might get into a rut, always keeping things the same, doing things the same way."
Lines and Spellman are now in their third year teaching together at Discovery. "We're now way better than we were our first year," admits Lines. "You have to work at it." Their principal, Fred Elliott, asserts that good team teaching requires administrative sensitivity because it can only be nurtured, never forced. "It doesn't happen overnight," he says. Elliott recommends a five-year plan wherein you set the stage and climate for teaming. The partnership of Lines and Spellman grew out of their shared interest in multiage classrooms, and their similar teaching philosophies. Parents can choose for their children to be in this classroom, and though it is not for all students, a waiting list has formed.
Aside from these considerations, every child enrolled at Discovery learns a foreign language, "a necessity for our vision of schooling," explains Elliott. All teachers are teamed—each team has one teacher who is bilingual (English/Spanish). The school's 840 students are approximately one-third each Hispanic, Asian, and Caucasian. A portion of the federal grant money that the school receives is used to provide Spanish language instruction to teachers.
Elliott sees an administrative advantage in teaming. "When trying to institute change," he points out, "teams are more receptive to change than individuals. When you're in a team situation, you can be more secure, as well as more accountable."
A Dynamic Duo
In Casper, Wyo., Cyndy Novotny and Sherry Fickes teach as a team at the Woods Learning Center, a public school of choice. Now in its seventh year, this K-8 alternative to traditional schooling has no principal. Teachers take on the administrative responsibilities.
Between them, Novotny and Fickes teach 34 5th and 6th graders. "It's wonderful," declares Novotny. "We tend to play off of each other in terms of expertise."
"And team teaching keeps you on your toes," says Fickes, "because you don't want to let down the other adult. You're always trying to put forth your best effort."
Together, Novotny and Fickes wrote the proposal for their own two-year curriculum. Though they claim to be entirely different in personality, they have become an unexpectedly successful duo. "We are really totally different in what we do," says Fickes. "Cyndy is left-brained, and I'm right-brained. She's strong on organization, and I'm creative. We are opposite in human dynamics, but we succeed because of our common philosophical groundings."
Fickes recalls that prior to teaching with Novotny, she was in a team teaching situation where "I felt like I was dying on the vine. Without trust, a mutually shared philosophy, and compatibility, team teaching won't work."
"You can't just throw any two teachers together," Novotny insists, "or you're asking for trouble." From experience, she knows that team teaching requires a lot of give and take, and that you cannot have a power struggle in a team situation. "You have to be willing to say, `This is our classroom.'"
Fickes notes that another school in her district tried to implement the team teaching plan that she and Novotny had crafted, "but it was not a successful venture." She says that schools can move toward team teaching, but that it can take several years, beginning with team planning.
Not every teacher would want the task that Fickes and Novotny have set for themselves. They concede that days lasting from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. are not uncommon. "But it makes our profession much more fulfilling," Novotny affirms. "And we know our students really well."
Although teachers at Woods Learning Center follow the district curriculum, they do not use textbooks or grades. Instead, they keep detailed notebooks on student conferences and interventions. "Because we team teach, we have time for lots of feedback with students," explains Fickes. "This is so much better than grades. Parents talk to me all the time—a parent might see me at the shopping mall, for example, and ask me about her child. Because of how we're doing our class, I can speak to the parent in detailed particulars about the child's progress, strengths, and weaknesses."
Lest their program sound completely exhausting, it should be noted that the extended school day at Woods Learning Center permits teachers to dismiss at 12:15 on Fridays for administrative meetings and planning time. "Being a school of choice," Novotny points out, "we have to keep our clientele. But it feels empowering to do what we know works."
Administrative Support
"Although we are now seeing a trend for teaming in business and society in general, many teachers feel unprepared to try it," states Doris Bergen, chair of the department of educational psychology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. "Teacher preparation programs don't usually focus on teaming or team teaching. So until they've tried it, most teachers prefer to teach alone."
Bergen notes that for a positive team teaching experience, a teacher would have to let go of "teaching the same thing you've taught every year in the same way." And teachers who want complete control won't like it either, she says.
In some situations, teachers may feel required to participate in teaming, "but it may not be a felt need," Bergen explains. "Teachers need a sense of why this is helpful to children." She says that teachers are most likely to change for one reason: they are convinced the change will help children learn better. "If this can be demonstrated, teachers are more likely to try it."
For principals interested in implementing team teaching, Bergen recommends that they be participants in it. As a first step, principals should facilitate in-depth discussions with staff members to define what they mean by team teaching—because teaming can refer to many kinds of configurations. "It usually starts with team planning," Bergen notes, "and principals must create the time for planning by arranging schedules. And to create a climate of support for teaming, it needs to be a low-risk endeavor without any competitive feelings." Bergen recommends visiting classrooms where teaming is working. "People need to see what it looks like."
She also observes that incentives might be a good idea. "Teachers use a lot of their own money. We find that winners of teaching awards typically spend about $300 of their own money in a given year," Bergen says. "So there needs to be some kind of incentive for team teaching—things that affect children's learning such as field trips or money for materials."
Student Needs, Teacher Needs
"Teaching is too hard to do alone," states Marleen Pugach, professor of teacher education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "In the structure of our profession, isolation has been an occupational hazard. But knowing that you're not alone is critical. It absorbs some of the stresses."
Pugach admits that for some, teaching alone may be a more comfortable way to do it, but "with two teachers, you get that extra benefit because of the synergy. It's like having two and a half teachers instead of just two. And it provides a built-in opportunity for reflection and professional growth."
As part of the redesign of its teacher education programs in early childhood, primary/middle, and special education, faculty in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee are working to prepare their graduates for teaching environments that increasingly require teaming—especially between general education and special education teachers. The new program, Collaborative Teacher Education for Urban Communities, emphasizes team projects as the students prepare to become teachers in urban schools, and models collaboration and team teaching on the part of the faculty.
Pugach is especially pleased with this new development. "We are trying to model what we teach. And we want our new teachers to learn that working well with other professionals is just as important as working well with children, and that this is another way to create more powerful learning environments for children." She notes that the program includes an emphasis on collaboration throughout preservice students' experiences, both as a theme threaded throughout the professional sequence, and as a designated course taken during the final, intensive field experience semester.
As the examples of Spellman, Lines, Novotny, and Fickes demonstrate, the collaboration and coordination required in effective team teaching means more work per teacher, not less. However, in terms of achievement and classroom social climate, these teachers agree that teaming is as rewarding for them as it is for their students. "I don't think I could ever go back to teaching alone, "says Spellman. "Yes, team teaching does take more time, commitment, expectations, and accountability, but I wouldn't trade it for the world."
