Challenges
Challenges to Team Work
A systems approach may be valuable to school improvement but it requires teamwork. Each of the three advantages for a systems approach-- working toward a common goal, making a group decision, or examining the learning environment of the school -- involves working as a team. To foster a democracy requires working together. Though most people believe in the value of teamwork it does not happen as often as we would like. This page looks at three common challenges to working effectively in groups.
Changing expectations
One of the greatest challenges in any new situation is changing our own mindset about how something should work or should be. We have grown to expect that meetings, for example, will follow a set pattern and be made up of predictable interactions. In education there is a tendency for meetings to be about sharing or transmitting information - a one-way movement of ideas/thoughts. Most participants in such a meeting are passive and do not actively participate. In a meeting supported with systems thinking, it is important to get a variety of thoughts out on the table and to have the participants interact with each other. In such meetings, participants listen, respond to ideas, and develop a common understanding, focus, or goal. In this case all participants must be attending to the conversation, must offer their own thinking, and actively work toward an outcome. People must change expectations from being passive and "biding time" to that of active participation and taking responsibility for the success of the meeting.
The mindset of how you approach meetings changes, as does how you approach your work in general - a move from an individual approach, depending only on oneself, to one in which you consider others (their thoughts, their strengths, their assistance) and interact with them in doing one's job.
Making Time and Scheduling
Finding time in the busy schedules of the many people involved in schools is a great challenge to the group work necessary for a systems approach. Some of the time needed, such as for meetings is already present, but the meetings just change appearance. However, any type of work with groups of people take longer than one person doing it - though the product is usually improved. Time must be set aside, often through creative means, to allow people to work together towards both identifying the common goal and to put into place those activities and structures to help reach that goal. Some districts have worked with local community agencies (such as the YMCA to run programs in the schools one afternoon per month to free up educators to meet). PBA days can be used also, as educators interacting with each other and learning from each other is strong professional development (see the last section for characteristics of good professional development).
Developing New Skills
Along with changing one's expectations there is a need to develop new skills to work as part of a group: listening, talking, questioning, being patient, and gaining consensus. Adults in schools spend most of their day interacting as individuals - working one on one with a student, talking to a teacher in the hall, telling information to a group of students. Rarely are they given time to work and decide things together, particularly about teaching and learning. Therefore, their skills of working effectively in such a setting are generally weak. The challenge is to help people learn these interacting skills and to introduce them to the ways groups work. Topics such as: how effective groups work; effective communication; keeping on task; reaching an endpoint, and disagreeing without discomfort (or at least with minimal discomfort...) are useful for group members to know.
The good news is that all of these challenges can be met. It may take a bit of creativity, and certainly commitment to meeting the challenges, but it can be done.
Challenges You've Met
We have all been in situations of working as a member of a group, whether it is a formal group or an informal one such as a number of people all working with the same student. What were the challenges to the group being successful that you saw? Write down a couple and send them to us at IPSP. We can add additional resources to the website that may help. Or ask us to help you brainstorm possible ways to overcome your group's challenges.
Send e-mail to Brooke Baker(bnbaker@iupui.edu) or Mary Fisher (fisherm@iupui.edu)
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