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Episode Summary:

Ever wonder how to make your teaching or PD sessions more impactful? Teaming up with a colleague might be the answer!

Yvette Lehman will convince you that team teaching and co-presenting provide invaluable opportunities for real-time feedback, deeper student engagement, and dynamic facilitation. 

With two educators working together, you can read the room more effectively, adjust on the fly, and improve the learning experience for everyone involved.

Imagine being able to tackle tough questions confidently, pivot your lesson when needed, and enhance your facilitation skills with the help of a trusted colleague. 

The dual perspectives and collaborative reflection in team teaching lead to more responsive and effective teaching, whether in the classroom or during professional development sessions.

Ready to level up your facilitation skills? Partner with a colleague for your next class or PD session and see the powerful impact of collaboration in action!

Resources:

• Episode #304: Fix Your PD Sessions: Swap Confusion for Clarity | Mathematics Coaching and Training Series
• Episode #306: How to Stop Negativity from Derailing Math PD Sessions | Mathematics Coaching and Training Series
• Episode 310: The Most Important PD You’re Not Doing
• Key Considerations for Unlocking Impactful Professional Development For K-12 Math Educators [Change to blog post link]
• Assessment For Growth: A Blueprint Course For Standards Based Grading in Math Class
• Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

Attention District Math Leaders:

Not sure what matters most when designing math improvement plans? Take this assessment and get a free customized report: https://growyourmathprogram.com 

Ready to design your math improvement plan with guidance, support and using structure? Learn how to follow our 4 stage process. http://makemathmoments.com/discovery/ 

Looking to supplement your curriculum with problem based lessons and units? Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

Episode Summary:

In the classroom, one of the most impactful professional development structures is team teaching. Having a colleague by your side, sharing the experience, offers countless opportunities for growth and improvement. Team teaching provides a built-in chance to debrief, consult, and reflect, with the simple truth that two minds are often better than one.

The Art of Observation

In a team-teaching dynamic, while one person speaks, the other can observe the room—reading body language and gauging student engagement. This ability to “read the room” is invaluable in determining whether or not the lesson is truly resonating with students. With two teachers, responsiveness is doubled. Both educators can circulate, ask questions, and monitor student thinking, allowing for immediate adjustments and deeper engagement.

Moreover, everyone brings their own biases to the table. By teaming up with a colleague, you gain insights from another perspective, enriching the overall teaching experience. You’re not just managing a class; you’re learning from each other and honing your craft collaboratively.

A Team Approach to PD

The same benefits apply when co-presenting PD sessions. Sharing the stage with a trusted colleague offers a wealth of experience and insight. Ideally, this person understands your presentation style and, more importantly, complements it—making you PD even more engaging. With a co-presenter, you can step off the stage from time to time to simply observe, and you have someone to debrief with afterward, refining the session for future improvements.

Delivering PD sometimes requires us to pivot. The session might not go as planned, the timing could be off, or the content may not resonate with the audience as expected. In those moments, having a co-presenter allows you to make decisions on the fly, reducing stress and ensuring that the necessary adjustments are made in real time. You become more confident in going off-script when needed, and tackling tough questions becomes less daunting with a colleague by your side.

Finding the Right Co-Presenter

In an ideal world, this co-presenter would have math expertise. But that’s not always possible, nor is it necessary. You might have a colleague in a similar role who supports Language Arts, for instance. How can you team up with this person to improve your facilitation skills? How might their feedback help you fine-tune your pacing and delivery?

Ultimately, whether in the classroom or in a PD session, collaboration enhances the experience for both educators and participants. So, if you’re looking to take your facilitation skills to the next level, consider bringing someone along for the ride. You’ll likely find that together, you’re able to achieve far more than you could alone.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

In this video, we are unpacking another consideration for not only planning, but also delivering effective PD. I’m going to try to convince you that there is a huge benefit to co-presenting. As a classroom teacher, one of the most impactful experiences I had was being able to team teach. I was so fortunate to have a partner for three years and we actually co-facilitated our lessons.
There is so much value to that experience. Not only are you co-planning, but you also have a chance to debrief together. Every day you can look back on a shared experience and talk about what went really well and also the things that you would like to improve. When you’re the person in front of the room, then you’re the one who’s facilitating. You have another person there reading the audience.

They’re looking at an observing body language. They’re looking at levels of engagement, and they’re also able to discern the clarity of your messaging. And there’s no more powerful model for any of us than self-reflection and looking at our own practice and seeking opportunities for growth. So having that other person at your side, navigating what’s working and what isn’t is such an impactful move.

And I really would urge you to consider replicating that experience when you’re facilitating PD and co-presenting as often as possible. Really effective PD means that we’re able to be responsive in the moment, no different than in the classroom. We have to read the room. We have to gauge the audience. We have to think about is our pacing right? Are we spending too much time, not enough time on this topic? Was what I just said super clear?

So having that other person at your side to either rephrase your thinking, to clarify what may not have been clear from what you just stated, to make decisions in the moment and say, hey, I think we should move this up or we should slow this down or we should go back to this idea, is really going to result in a more impactful day for your participants. There is really just so much opportunity when you have somebody else encouraging you and helping you find ways to be better. And it’s really hard to do that when again, you haven’t shared the experience with them. So you may be super fortunate and you have a colleague who is engaged in this learning with you. They’re responsible for mathematics as well. And that opportunity naturally presents itself. But if in your district, you are the only one leading math work at the district level, for example, you could look to another colleague perhaps that’s supporting language arts.

It’s not necessary that that person has math expertise. What you’re trying to improve is actually your ability to facilitate, your ability to keep the audience engaged, your ability to be clear and really ensure that you are hitting the target and meeting the objectives of that meeting or that PD session. So consider reaching out, finding somebody. I know it’s certainly not possible that every single meeting or every PLC you have a partner with you.

but trying to leverage that opportunity whenever you can. And that could be a coach, that could be even a super eager teacher who’s looking for leadership opportunities. It might be an administrator or a colleague, somebody that’s in a similar role to you. But when do you get a chance to co-present? How are you leveraging that experience to actually improve your facilitation skills?

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