Happy Friday! What a fun week it’s been! Today is the fifth and final idea request for the week. If you’d like your ideas from this week to be considered for publication, make sure you leave your comment no later than Sunday, October 3. (See “One Week Only!” for details. And don’t forget that each of your ideas we accept earns you a $20 gift certificate to TheMailbox.com!)
Today’s topic is teamwork, which I think is hugely appropriate! We’re hoping you’ll share your ideas for working successfully with your school colleagues. I’d also like to recognize and thank each of you for being such a valued member of The Mailbox team. Think about this: would there be any publications from The Mailbox without teachers? No, sirree! Without the ideas and teamwork of teachers, there wouldn’t be anything to print on the pages! So keep the great ideas coming! The Mailbox staff—and teachers the world over—thank you for your teamwork!
Okay, now, get your fingers poised to tap out your best ideas. Remember, you could be just one idea away from your next purchase from The Mailbox!
Have a great weekend!
Diane
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Friday’s Idea Request How do you build good communication with your colleagues? What tips do you have for promoting teamwork with your assistant or across your grade level? How do you make sure members of your school’s support staff feel like part of your team? |
We want your ideas for other topics too! See Monday’s request, Tuesday’s request, Wednesday’s request, and Thursday’s request.
I run a preschool/daycare and we have morning staff and afternoon staff so each of my teachers keep a “communication notebook” in their room. They write comments about the day, any concerns about children, requests, information from the parents or information that should go to the parents, etc. This keeps both shifts “in the know”, updates any substitutes and I stay in the loop because the book gets dropped off at my desk each evening. I can reply or give suggestions/instructions and I hand it back the next morning. It also allows for us to have written documentation when a concern or question arises.
I take everything that is offered to me, I don’t use all of it, but I take all of it. This helps to not hurt people’s feelings and most of the time I can modify what they gave me so that I want to use it. And I also offer a copy of everything that I use.
We have started a new reading series at school, which has automatically caused grade levels to work together better. However, we found that when we start sharing ideas of materials we could use for workshop that we didn’t have time to put these ideas into action. So, after our grade level thought it might be a good idea, I put together a flyer and we are having a Pajama Jammy Jam (aka a Make it and Take it Night). We will use this time after school to share ideas, make centers, get comfy, laugh and (following slumber party rules) eat junk food.
Everyone is excited and those who can’t go are disappointed. So I see more of these nights in our future.
My Assistant and I walk after work twice a week and go to lunch once a month together. We bounce ideas off of each other regarding themes and classroom ideas. I am very open to her ideas even though I do not use them all. We are a team and we are friends because we both make the effort to make our classroom a great place for the kids and make our work enivironment a fun place.
I taught a long overdo workshop on teamwork. Below is some of the topics and issues we discussed.
Building and Supporting Teamwork
Most Child Care Staff Work With At Least One Other Person.
Even in family day care (in-home care) settings work with at least one other person from time-to-time that is used as their back-up person or a substitute for a day. It is necessary for all child care providers to be able to work with others as a team for child care environments to operate effectively.
Effective Teams:
When child care providers/educators attend staff functions as a team we are being respectful and supportive of each other. Positive staff relationships and cooperation are crucial in creating an environment where children feel safe, secure and happy. Teamwork is also essential for building positive relationships with families.
The potential for conflict is high where a common purpose cannot be agreed upon and where polite debate does not take place to make mutual decisions. Child care educators working as a team do not have to think the same way. However, they do need to respect each other’s values, skills and experiences. Respect for diverse viewpoints and backgrounds enrich the team by bringing together different perspectives and ideas.
Why Is Teamwork Important?
A stable team is important for creating a quality child care program and to ensure positive outcomes for children’s development. Team stability is essential to the development of strong attachments and relationships between children and child care educators. Effective teamwork contributes to stability in child care service j by improving self-esteem, job satisfaction and morale of child care staff and can reduce stress and burnout. It is also crucial to achieving goals and accomplishing tasks.
What Makes A Successful Team?
Successful child care teams realize that group goals and directions are more important than individual aims. The potential for conflict arises when different philosophies, values and ideas within a group are not listened to and respected. The ability of a group of people to listen to different view points, to resolve differences and to reach common solutions to problems allows a successful team to emerge.
Reflecting Upon The Following Questions May Assist Teams To Work Successfully Together:
>> Are group goals seen as more important than individual interest?
>> Do we have support systems such as buddies,
mentors and a conflict resolution process?
>> Are we committed to sharing responsibHow Can We
Build A Successful Team?
Most child care services are limited in the time they can dedicate to team building exercises. Establishing trusting relationships and good communication with colleagues can be challenging when the primary role of staff is to care for and educate children. Building a successful team requires an ongoing commitment to working towards common goals. It also requires child care staff to have a positive attitude towards change and openness to new ways of working.
It can be useful for staff to engage
in team building exercises that are focused on implementing change and quality improvements.
ilities?
>> Do we seek to find common ideas and values?
>> Are we dedicated to solving problems?
>> Do we communicate openly and honestly?
How Can We Build A Successful Team?
Most child care services are limited in the time they can dedicate to team building exercises. Establishing trusting relationships and good communication with colleagues can be challenging when the primary role of staff is to care for and educate children. Building a successful team requires an ongoing commitment to working towards common goals. It also requires child care staff to have a positive attitude towards change and openness to new ways of working.
It can be useful for staff to engage
in team building exercises that are focused on implementing change and quality improvements.
Effective communication is a key element of successful teamwork. To communicate well within a team, individuals need to:
• Engage in active listening
• Seek to understand each other’s feelings and
points of view
• Share information
• Respect and appreciate the values, knowledge
and skills of others
• Solve problems together
• Resolve conflict positively
How can the team resolve conflicts and solve problems?
The potential for conflict can arise within a team when there a varying points of view and philosophies. However this conflict can be overcome when individuals try to identify the strengths in the various ideas and use these to reach agreements. It is useful to view conflict as an opportunity to openly debate issues and to generate new ideas and solutions.
Tips for resolving conflict:
• Identify common goals
• Search for agreement
• Consider the range of solutions and possibilities
• Question our beliefs
• Commit to resolving issues and problems as a group
Conflict resolution and problem solving requires child care educators to look critically at practices and to avoid assigning blame. Being open, honest and offering suggestions for improvement will also create a positive environment for resolving conflict and solving problems.
Steps For Resolving Conflicts And Problem Solving:
1. Clarify the problem. What is the real issue?
2. What does each person think about the issue?
3. Gather necessary facts and information
4. Develop a number of alternatives.
5. Create solutions by considering all
alternatives.
6. Plan to evaluate the adopted solution.
7. If the first solution does not work, return
to the first step and begin the process again.
Strategies For Building And Supporting Teams
Child care Administrators and Team Leaders can build effective teams by:
• Providing clear orientation and introduction processes for new child care staff.
• Clearly defining job descriptions, responsibilities and expectations.
• Regularly arranging team building exercises such as social events, team meetings and professional development opportunities.
• Encouraging staff to contribute to meetings.
• Providing opportunities for shared decision making.
• Developing clear conflict resolution procedures.
• Encouraging staff to work together on projects such as policy development and improvements to the environment.
• Encouraging staff to share skills and knowledge gained from professional development activities.
We lesson plan together and share ideas. Our assistants do the same on art projects. We also have other teachers who share information as well.
I make an effort to initiate the sharing, and that has helped foster more sharing. I share ideas with my grade level teammates via email, and copy a handout to leave in their mailbox. When planning a special activity, I invite them to join our class. This year we are keeping our weekly folders in a common storage area so that we can all share everything. It has been quite helpful to pool our resources and strengthens our whole team.
I completely agree with Danielle. She summed up exactly what I wanted to say.
the first thing that i share is your books and websites….also since i teach at a nursery school,i will try to help colleagues by listening to their idea and helping them add to it. also will say what has worked or not worked for me.
My first grade teammates and I work together well because we know that we all have the same responsibilites so why not divide the one that we can do as a team so that we all have less to do! There are 3 of us and we all have our “gifts” and “challenges” just like our students so we use those for the good of our grade level!
For example:
1 team member writes the weekly plans for everyone
1 team member gets the homework together for everyone
1 team member gets the new sight words together for everyone.
We also divide up the homework later in the year so we can differientiate homework… 1 person gets the high homework together for everyone, 1 person gets the middle homework, and 1 person gets the low.
We always share ideas and since everyone is doing an equal share, then no hurt feelings!! We all love our jobs and we get to love them more when we are not stressed out about the million things we have to do other than teaching our wonderful students!! 🙂
Communication!! We use lots and lots of communication. We will email each other, talk on the phone, write notes, even send reminders on Facebook. We also will often surprise each other with little tokens of appreciation such as a candy bar or item for our classroom. We also share everything! I have an open policy… if you need something just come look for it.
Our grade level team communicates every day while we’re on duty at recess. We also have scheduled, before-school, grade level meetings where we bring homemade goodies and always end by talking about happy thoughts.
We try to ease each other’s loads by each of us taking on a necessary task – one person does the differentiated spelling & vocab lists for that week’s reading story, another person copies all of the math papers we need for the week, another person schedules all field trips or coordinates special events for our team, etc. This makes our workload lighter and we really feel like a team.
We also celebrate each of our personal triumps and support each other when one of us has a personal sorrow or is just going through a rough time.
We always remember to include our support staff as much as possible in our celebrations or when we bring in treats.
This really helps us feel like a family at school. It makes it easy to lean on and support each other.
The simplest way to make members of your staff feel part of your team is to actively involve them in all processes of decision making. Sometimes you try their ideas and see how it works. The magic is that whenever you use their ideas and they work, they contribute mire because they get to have a sense of importance in your school.