The Importance of Being a Team

Since our blog is all about Teaching with the Dream Team, we decided it would be appropriate for our first blog post we should discuss how important it is to be a team. 

You’ve heard it before: TEAM...Together Everyone Achieves More. But when it comes to teaching, being a team is more than just a cute phrase, it’s critical. Ask anyone who has been a teacher and my guess is they would say it is easier to to teach and plan when they have a group of people they rely on and trust to help them with ideas, planning, and carrying out activities. Teaching alone is doable. It is just more work and definitely not as much fun.

One of the key words in being a team is trust. How do you build relationships of trust? It takes a little bit of work to start building relationships on your team but it is well worth it in the end.

Here are some ways that we build relationships from the beginning of the year with the teachers that will be on our team:

1-Team Meeting. Meet together in the summer. Make sure the new people on your team know the basics of the grade level such as curriculum, team expectations, calendaring and scheduling items that affect the entire grade level, individual team jobs and assignments, etc. We have a standard agenda that we follow that will be attached below.

2-Team Activity. This summer we had a team barbeque before school started. It is a fun way to spend time socializing and getting to know one another better on a personal level. We have also done team lunches at favorite restaurants, and even team bike rides. Although they may seem just like fun get togethers, these activities are important team builders. We are closer because we know one another on a personal level!

3-Team Gifts. At the beginning of every year, I like to put together some sort of little gift for each of my team members. It doesn’t have to be big and expensive. Just something wishing them a great school year and telling them how excited you are to work with them. Setting a positive feeling/tone from the beginning of the year is important!

Here are some gifts I have given:

--Book (School themed)

--Glue sticks and sticky notes

--New whiteboard markers or sharpies

--School Survival kit in a pencil box

--Erasers

--Caramel Apples

You can find a lot more of these ideas on Pinterest. Search for teacher appreciation gifts and adjust them so they work for team members.

4-Birthdays. Find out when the birthdays of each member of your team are. Write them down in your planbook and decide on a way to celebrate. On our team we buy lunch for the birthday person and give them a gift from all of us. 

Here is our beginning of year team meeting agenda.

Our hope is that you will build your own "Dream Team" this year by developing friendships that will serve you and your students well and last a lifetime. We don't regret building our team friendships and we know you won't either! Happy new school year to you from all of us at "Teaching With the Dream Team".