Tomorrow I'm leading an English / Language Arts vertical team meeting at our school. It's the second of these meetings this year, and I'm looking forward to it because it's always cool to get to find common ground among other teachers, share strategies, and work to line things up properly for our kids.
I'm worried, though. While I'm certain that the teachers both at my school and our feeder schools care a ton about our kids, and everyone seemed open and involved at the last meeting, I feel like we've made little progress in continuing our discussion since. Face-to-face meetings are tough to schedule and expensive, so I created a Ning to allow us to share resources and carry on the conversation, and there's been some great participation from within our building. However, the teaming has felt far more horizontal than vertical, and that's not going to get the job done.
What can I do to get all parties fully involved and make our vertical teaming successful? I would appreciate any advice or resource suggestions.
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We're working on vertical teams in our school, too. We've had one meeting, which was productive. Of course, I know all of the teachers very well. We've been working on pacing guides for about three years now. That's one way to see if everyone is working vertically. Pick a thme for your next meeting with food, of course. Perhaps everyone could present a short lesson based on the theme. Vertical teams are really challenging.
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