November is a time when we think about connection and community. What makes a strong school community where teachers ask one another for help, are open about problems in teaching, and dedicated to deep collaboration?  

Our newsletter this month focuses on how schools can achieve this type of teacher collaboration and what leaders need to do in a school to ensure that the pieces are in place to support it. 

Open Courses: We have both an open virtual Analyzing Teaching For Student Results and an in-person Studying Skillful Teaching course beginning in January. Register today to secure your spot!

One of the silver linings teachers reported coming from the pandemic was forming a deeper connection with colleagues. Teachers came together virtually to share tips, plan lessons, relate challenges, and just check in. Now that we are back in-person, it is important to continue this collaboration, but the same questions that existed pre-pandemic still remains: How do teacher teams use their time to build their collective expertise in the practices that matter most for improving student achievement and how do we maximize the chances that a fine professional development experience translates into practice?

All the right factors were in place at Fletcher Maynard Academy in Cambridge, MA last year, and this month’s video interview with school coaches Kelly Rowan and Patricia Duggan tells the story. Guided by RBT Consultant Reena Freedman, the course instructor, and led by then Principal Maisha Rounds and the leadership team, this school achieved stunning results in student gains in both math and literacy by focusing on deep collaboration of teams in a new way.

Reena, Tricia, and Kelly will be presenting at the upcoming Learning Forward conference on Monday, December 5, 2022. 

RBT would like to recognize and share the outstanding work of teachers across the country who are working hard to put into practice the skills from The Skillful Teacher in order to provide their students with better teaching every day. 

If you want to showcase your skillful teaching or that of a colleague, submit a video for a chance to win a visit with Jon Saphier.

This is an excerpt from Jon Saphier's forthcoming book on High Expertise Teaching and how to get more of it in more places, more of the time. Due out in 2023. Learn More

How would we design the operation of Common Planning Time Teams if we wanted that process to facilitate increasing teachers' knowledge and skill at High-Expectations Teaching? 

If we want to improve student achievement, critical acts are error analysis and then planning for re-teaching the content in a different way and with interpersonal norms of determination and vulnerability. Group error analysis and planning for re-teaching by teachers who teach the same content is a high-leverage activity to spend time on during team meetings. Without the principal making these practices a priority, they may not happen. But the principal alone cannot ensure this productive use of team time. The principal needs to make this job part of the shared vision of Common Planning Time that all the leaders in the building understand and participate in strengthening. 

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