I looked out at the trainee teachers and NQTs and asked them the following question: “During your placement or in your first year of teaching, do you create your own lessons or collaboratively plan?”
The answer shocked me. Only one in four new teachers were involved in collaborative planning.
Why are teachers new to the profession finding themselves planning lessons independently of their colleagues?
Collaborative planning
The Teacher Development Trust defines collaborative lesson planning as “the joint efforts of teachers to plan their lessons in scheduled meetings”.
Using collaborative lesson planning can have the following benefits:
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Identify common misconceptions and discuss lesson designs that look to address these before they become embedded.
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Provide a platform to share new teaching and learning ideas and assess their impact on student outcomes.
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Create opportunities for cross-curricular learning, especially at a time when many of the new specifications have a greater emphasis on literacy and numeracy skills.
All senior leaders should provide opportunities for all teachers to collaboratively plan and here are my suggestions for how this could be implemented in schools:
1. Encourage a collaborative culture
Create opportunities and encourage teachers to visit each other’s classroom through an ‘open-door policy’ to allow the sharing of good practice.
2. Misconception maps
Create misconceptions maps to identify specific areas of the subject that students find difficult. Use the experience of other colleagues to share strategies to support dispelling the common misconceptions.
3. Scripting your explanation
Plan your explanation design for the week ahead and practise delivering your pitch to colleagues, allowing feedback from your colleagues to improve explanation delivery.
Michael Chiles is head of geography at Ormiston Bolingbroke Academy and a senior examiner. He tweets @m_chiles
