Collaborative Teacher Training Project Ideas

If we want teachers to design learning that's real-world, meaningful and hands-on, we need to radically re-think Professional Development for teachers. Here are 3 ideas to shake-up your PD in August before school starts: #1: For real-world connection: Partner with 3-4 non-profit groups in your community. For a 1/2 day, send your teachers out. Have them volunteer with the groups. Learn what they're about and build relationships. For the 1/2 half, teachers create a presentation for their colleagues about how the organisation could be integrated into project-design, exhibition spaces or learning experiences for kids. Outcome: knowledge of local organizations combating local issues. Contact people within these organizations. Easier real-world integration learning. BONUS: Invite guests from other local community organizations during your ongoing PD over the year to give 1 hour presentations about their mission and what they do. #2: For subject-relevance: Partner with local companies that are integrating academic learning into what they do. Send your English teachers to a publishing company or the local newspaper. Send your science teachers to the bio-tech company in the next town. Send your math teachers to visit engineers. Use 1/2 the day to visit these places, talk about the real processes they use academic learning in. For the 1/2 have of the day, teachers work in their subject groups to dive deep into how their subjects can be connected to real careers in project design. Outcome: experience for how subject learning is used in content and processes outside of school. Relationships with professionals who can be experts for kids, projects that support kids to become writers, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, etc. #3: For MAKING: Use what teachers have planned for the first project of the year and spend 1/2 of the day having your teachers MAKE the product they want their students to make. Want kids to make a film? Go out and make a film. Portrait drawing? Draw it. Use 1/2 of the day de-constructing the making process. What steps are necessary? What supports are necessary for kids? Use this experience to help understand better planning for Project-Based Learning. Outcome: More scaffolding for kids in the making process. Creating frames to give freedom and allowing for more student-driven work that is high-quality and integrating a "learning by doing" experience in PBL. BONUS: Make this a regular part of project planning. From the wise words of Jeffrey Robin: Do the project yourself, first. Basically, get teachers OUT. Move PD from academic learning and into experiential learning. We cannot expect teaching for kids to change unless we change how teachers are learning. Need help? Reach out. info@imagineif.dk 📸 : 2023: Lynghede School partnering with Kongernes Jelling where teachers became students and used the museum to create a whole-staff theater performance in one day. #pbl #projectbasedlearning

Co-teaching or Team Teaching: #One Teach, One Observe 🔹 How to Implement: One teacher leads the instruction while the other observes specific student behaviors, participation, or learning outcomes. Pre-plan what to observe and how to use the data. 🔹 Example: In a Grade 5 science class, Teacher A teaches a lesson on ecosystems while Teacher B observes how ELL students engage with the vocabulary. After class, both reflect on supports needed. #One Teach, One Assist 🔹 How to Implement: One teacher instructs, while the other circulates to help individuals or small groups. Focus support on students with IEPs, ELLs, or those struggling with content. 🔹 Example: During a math lesson on fractions, one teacher delivers the concept while the other supports students who are behind or need translation into their native language. # Station Teaching 🔹 How to Implement: Divide the class into small groups and rotate them between different stations, each led by a teacher or working independently. Plan each station to target different aspects of the same topic. 🔹 Example: In a middle school English lesson on persuasive writing: Station 1: Brainstorming ideas (teacher-led) Station 2: Sentence starters and structure (teacher-led) Station 3: Peer editing (independent) #Parallel Teaching 🔹 How to Implement: Split the class into two groups; each teacher teaches the same material simultaneously. Great for large groups or when you want more participation. 🔹 Example: In a history class, each teacher teaches a group about the causes of World War I. Smaller groups allow more debate and questioning. #Alternative Teaching 🔹 How to Implement: One teacher works with a larger group while the other pulls a smaller group for remediation, enrichment, or assessment. Rotate students across weeks based on needs. 🔹 Example: During a reading comprehension unit, one teacher re-teaches inference skills to struggling readers while the other leads a discussion with the rest of the class on figurative language. #Team Teaching (Tag Team) 🔹 How to Implement: Both teachers actively instruct together, sharing the stage and exchanging ideas during the lesson. Requires high collaboration and mutual respect. 🔹 Example: In a Grade 9 integrated science and math project, both teachers model how to collect data during a science experiment and use statistics to analyze results. #Best Practices for Implementation ✅ Plan Together Regularly Use co-planning time to align objectives, strategies, roles, and assessments. ✅ Define Roles Clearly Decide who leads, who supports, and how transitions will be handled during lessons. ✅ Differentiate Instruction Use collaborative settings to better meet diverse learning needs. ✅ Reflect and Adjust After each lesson, debrief together on what worked and what didn’t. ✅ Maintain Consistent Communication Use tools like shared digital planners, Google Docs, or apps to stay aligned.

Connecting ATL Skills Across the Curriculum- ATL (Approaches to Learning) skills become most powerful when they are connected across subjects and scaffolded over time. Rather than treating them as isolated checklists, schools can deliberately integrate, model, and assess these skills in authentic contexts that cut across disciplines. Horizontal Integration of ATL Skills 1️⃣ Intentional Skill Alignment: Teachers collaborate to identify ATL skills that naturally align with unit goals and themes. Example: In Language and Literature, students practice communication by analyzing persuasive techniques, while in Individuals and Societies, they apply the same skill to debate ethical issues around climate change. 2️⃣ Shared Language and Reflection: Using consistent terminology and reflection prompts helps students recognize and transfer their skills across disciplines. Example: Both Mathematics and Visual Arts teachers use the phrase “strategies for problem-solving”—in math for tackling equations and in art for experimenting with perspective drawing—helping students see the transferability of approaches. 3️⃣ Collaborative Curriculum Design: Joint planning across grade levels and subjects creates a coherent progression of ATL skills. Example: A team of Science and Design teachers maps how research skills are introduced in Grade 6 with guided lab reports, then strengthened in Grade 7 through design investigations, and finally assessed independently in Grade 8 through open-ended projects. In essence, effective horizontal integration of ATL skills rely on thoughtful planning, collaboration among educators, and purposeful reflection opportunities. When approached this way, students experience ATL skills not as isolated requirements, but as evolving, transferable tools for success across school and beyond. #ATLSKILLS #HorizontalArticulation #MYP

I know schools are operating with less—less funding, less staffing, more stress. But the one thing you can control? How you develop your teachers. The hard part? Thinking creatively about that while juggling a million other things. So, let me share two practical and actionable ideas. When I was a high school principal, I didn’t have a curriculum team or a talent development department. But I still needed a team that could execute with clarity and consistency across classrooms. Because here’s the thing: once you’ve taught the basics—your vision, your systems, your expectations—the real work begins. That’s when you need your team to: ✅ Apply what they’ve learned ✅ Pick apart the nuance ✅ Think through what it looks like in practice And that’s exactly where most PD falls short. Here are two low-lift, high-impact strategies that helped us bridge the gap between theory and action in summer PD and beyond (and if you're not a school leader? These 100% translate, with a few alterations) ✅ Lesson Study + Problem-Solving Protocols- Don’t just ask teachers to “collaborate.” Give them routines that help them plan, look at student work, and tackle shared challenges together. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s collective learning. (see link below with a few) ✅ Case Study PDs- Your team won’t master your approach to transitions, discipline, or culture after one session. At the end of every PD, I started asking: “What do you anticipate being hard about doing this?” “Where do you still feel uncertain?” Then I used their responses to create case studies we could workshop together. Real dilemmas. Real conversations. Shared judgment. None of this required a budget. Just time, intention, and a commitment to learning in community. 💬 What’s one move that’s helped your team turn vision into practice?