Schools have been dealing with a number of unique challenges over the last few years. Labor shortages. Low morale. Declining student enrollment. Meanwhile, they’re trying to re-engage students and get them back on track academically.
If I told you there was one education reform that had the potential to address all these problems at once, you might think I was crazy. But shifting away from the one-classroom, one-teacher model in favor of a team-based approach, with different roles and responsibilities for various team members, has all these benefits and more.
How can schools realize this potential? To find out, I spoke with leaders of three team-based teaching models — Kristan Van Hook from the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), Bryan Hassel from Opportunity Culture and Brent Maddin from Arizona State University’s Next Education Workforce. Collectively, they have helped hundreds of schools transition away from one-classroom, one-teacher staffing plans.
Under the traditional approach, teachers are solely and fully responsible for what goes on in their classroom. As an example, if a school has 100 fifth graders, they are divided into four classes of 25 kids, each with its own teacher. But as Maddin points out, from a student’s perspective, this division inevitably creates something of a lottery. If one of those teachers is a beginner and one of them is a highly regarded veteran, well, take a number.
This model can also be isolating from the teacher’s perspective. There’s no time to huddle with colleagues, and most schools have only one or two instructional coaches for the entire staff. Districts do employ nearly a million paraprofessionals to assist teachers and smooth over the cracks somewhat, but the system still puts one teacher in charge of one class of kids, and the job doesn’t change much from year to year. Regardless of whether they’re a rookie or a veteran, the teacher will be in charge of the same number of kids. If they want to earn more money, they need to earn a master’s degree or step out of the classroom and into a leadership role.
A team-based approach is different. Instead of each teacher being responsible for one class of kids for the full day, teams composed of teachers, paraprofessionals and instructional coaches share responsibilities for a larger group of students.
