As educators, we hear the word collaborate over and over again. As a classroom teacher, my understanding of collaboration and how it pertained to me was that I would meet with my department every quarter. We would work on common assessments, plan out our pacing guides and compare our data. This is collaboration, but we could have been doing so much more!
This week our district brought in four Mooresville, North Carolina middle school teachers to host a technology camp for all of our staff. We are going 1:1 next month and these educators know exactly what we are going through and what we need at this stage of the game. I was so impressed with these educators. They brought real life, practical applications and shared them with our staff. They spent countless hours of their own time to upload tons of materials into our Blackboard Management System- not just for this camp, but for us to keep forever.
The presenters really hammered home the message of collaboration and what a powerful tool it is. Sometimes teachers have this idea that if they have a great idea, then it's "mine" and I don't want to share it. Mooresville school district puts collaboration on a whole other level. Their grade levels share materials on a consistent basis, their students collaborate daily in the classroom, their district collaborates with other districts that are making the transition that they made not too long ago. I've never seen such a willingness to share before in education as I have with this district. They truly want other schools to succeed and reach the levels that they have achieved with their students.
Shouldn't that be our goal? If something works, share that idea with someone else who might could use it as well. It is my hope that after this week our teachers are inspired to collaborate on a much deeper level and that at some point we can pay it forward and visit other districts to help them like Mooresville has helped us! It is truly an exciting time to be working in the Poplar Bluff R-1 District right now and I for one can't wait to see what the future holds!
