FREE Training: Collaborative Teaming

Slide 1: Collaborative Teaming

Hi, my name is Chelsea Deraway, as a visual description, I’m a woman in my late thirties with long fair colored hair. I’m an Augmentative Communication Consultant with the Vermont Interdisciplinary Team. Thank you for joining us for this training on Collaborative Teaming. This presentation is designed to provide a quick overview of the importance of collaborative practice, along with a few practical ideas you can bring back to your own teams.

Slide 2: Contributors

This training resource was created collaboratively by members of the Vermont Interdisciplinary Team, or Vermont I-Team, including communication consultants, family resource consultants, and transition consultants. Specifically, people on our team that provided feedback today are:

• Ashley Couture, Communication Consultant
• Chelsea Deraway, Communication Consultant
• Michele Streeter, Family Resource Consultant
• Valerie Richardson, Family Resource Consultant
• And Jayson Capobianco, Transition Consultant

Slide 3: Learning Objectives

This visual here highlights our three key learning objectives. By the end of today’s session, our goals are for participants to:

• Gain a better understanding of collaborative teaming
• Leave with at least one practical next step for improving team collaboration
• And receive additional tools and resources to support future teaming efforts

As you listen today, consider what already works well on your team and where there may be opportunities for more intentional collaboration.

Slide 4: The Core of Collaborative Teaming

This visual shows the core of collaboration – the culture, the practice and the routine.  When we talk about collaborative teaming, we mean more than simply attending the same meeting.  True collaboration involves:

• Shared understanding
• Shared responsibility
• Shared decision making
• And shared goals

In schools and educational settings, this often includes teachers, related service providers, administrators, paraprofessionals, students, and family members working together to support student success. Effective collaboration becomes part of a team’s culture and routine and its takes intention and practice.  It is not something that only happens during annual meetings or times of crisis.

Slide 5: So, let’s practice!

Meaningful change often starts small, this visual of four stars with ideas in them is taken from the worksheet we provided with this training, One Big Idea. The stars are blank on the worksheet, and we encourage you to record any “ah ha” moments you want to remember or action steps you want to take after this training.

Note that this worksheet is formatted for visual learners and intended to be printed before using. If that doesn’t work for you, feel free to record your “ah ha” moments during this training another way. Please pause and take a moment to locate the accompanying worksheet when you’re ready. We’ll continue together after that.

Slide 6: Background

Across systems and organizations, there has been growing recognition of a common challenge: teams often struggle to work together effectively. State entities have identified this as a systemic issue.

At the same time, the Vermont I-Team has directly observed teams struggling with:

• Communication barriers
• Role confusion
• Lack of shared understanding
• Difficulty coordinating supports
• And limited opportunities for collaborative problem solving

Often, people are working incredibly hard individually, but without structures that support shared understanding and coordinated decision making.

Knowledge barriers can also exist between disciplines. Without intentional collaboration, those differences can create disconnects.

Slide 7: Valuing Collaboration

A commitment to a deliberate, collaborative process reflects what we value as teams: the different perspective of everyone involved, and the meaningful inclusion of the student and families as true partners.

Slide 8: Importance of Collaboration for Success

In Special Education, collaboration is not just a “nice extra,” it’s a core driver of student success. Interdisciplinary practice is already central to how education happens in many settings, such as through co-teaching models.

Slide 9: Understanding

Shared understanding and Decision Making is a core component of effective collaboration. This means including students and families as active partners.  Families and students provide valuable insight that strengthens team decision making and helps ensure supports are meaningful and realistic. It leads to a more holistic, accurate understanding of the student and leads to shared expectations around a student’s program.

Slide 10: Quality

Collaborative practice leads to higher quality thinking because it includes a diversity of perspectives. Different team members notice different things.

For example:

• Teachers may observe classroom participation
• Speech-language pathologists may notice communication supports that help students express themselves.
• Occupational therapists may notice sensory or motor factors that influence access and participation.
• And families may recognize important routines, strengths, or needs across daily life.

When these perspectives are combined, teams develop a more complete and holistic understanding of the student.

This often leads to higher quality idea generation, more creative problem solving, and greater consistency across settings.

Slide 11: The OUTCOMES

These next two slides describe the perceived outcomes and benefits of strong collaborative teaming which leads to many positive outcomes.

These outcomes are stronger, more effective IEPs that are better aligned to classroom demands, more individualized and with clearer goals, accommodations and modifications

Another outcome is efficiency through division of labor

Slide 12: More BENEFITS

The benefits also include faster problem solving and reduced burnout.

Reduced burn out comes from distributing responsibilities and problem-solving support, reduced isolation and frustration and having an established process that makes collaboration easier for all.

Most importantly, collaboration helps build authentic relationships among team members, students, and families that support students.

Slide 13: Common Challenges and Why Team Meetings Get Stuck

Building on what interdisciplinary teaming is and why it matters, we can now consider how this shows up in practice. Meetings are one way interdisciplinary teams collaborate.

Sometimes these meetings get stuck because there are many ideas but few decisions. Roles aren’t always clear and without structure, discussion can drift without leading to decision or action in the time available.

This is where structures and shared practices can help teams organize their practices to develop routines and move to action with the family and student included as members of the team.

Slide 14: Practices That Help Teams

This graphic shows practices that teams can put in place to support participation, shared understanding, and ongoing collaboration.

Teams benefit from intentional participation from all team members, including the student and their families. Clear roles, and shared expectations support effective meetings. Overtime, these consistent opportunities for connection help teams stay organized, strengthen communication, and support shared decision making.

These practices may look different depending on the team’s context.

For example, teams may consider communication preferences, including language support when helpful, so all team members can participate and contribute. In another example, when a team member works across multiple buildings and may not be available in person during the meetings, teams may explore options such as video conferencing, sharing agendas in advance, or other flexible ways to support participation.

Slide 15: Resources to Support the Practice

Strong teaming starts with organization, grows through alignment, and continues with follow-through.

Earlier, we talked about how collaboration becomes part of a team’s practice and routine over time. Building those routines takes intention, consistency and a shared commitment.

So how can teams find what works best for them?

One way teams put these practices into action is through intentional meeting structures. The goal is not to find the perfect template. The goal is to find tools and practices that help create a shared approach to collaboration.

We’ll now explore two larger organizations that offer resource collections with a variety of tools to support different aspects of team collaboration. These resources can help make collaboration more concrete and support routines that can be maintained over time.  Rather than reviewing everything, we’ll focus on one meeting template example from each.

Slide 16: DataWise Resources

The DataWise team has put together a variety of helpful resources on their website, including articles, webinars, and books that support collaboration.

One example is the book Meeting Wise: Making the Most of Collaborative Time for Educators. From this book comes the Meeting Wise Agenda Template.

Meeting templates can help establish and co-create an environment for collaboration for all members of the team. An ideal collaborative approach has ongoing, regularly scheduled opportunities for connection

This template lists meeting roles, and not only topics but time spent on each topic. There are meetings roles such as a facilitator, note taker, and time keeper. There is a space to identify next steps and finally a place to reflect and align on what went well, pluses, and areas for improvement, deltas over time. Feel free to pause here to take a moment to explore these further if you’d like.

Slide 17: TIES Center

There are different ways that teams meet to support collaboration. The TIES Lesson for All: 5-15-45 Tool is a resource with ideas and templates to support setting up meetings for success and collaborative lesson planning.

The 15-Minute Lesson Planning Template is a tool that can be used to organize collaborative lesson planning with guiding questions on content, instruction and barriers in a 15-minute timeframe. There are success indicators which are points that help teams check for shared understanding, along with space for notes, and next steps where teams can outline who will be doing what and by when. We welcome you to pause here if you’d like to open and review this resource more closely.

Slide 18: Meeting Practice in Context

Now that we’ve reviewed some resources, let’s explore how this could show up in everyday practices.

Mateo is a fifth grader who is trialing an Augmentative Communication device at school, at home, and in the community. Science is his favorite class, and the team wants to discuss ways to remove barriers to learning the next lesson’s content, while also planning ahead for the upcoming basketball season. The team has lots of great ideas, but without clear roles, next steps, and a consistent way to meet, conversations don’t always turn into action.

After exploring resources and tools like the ones we reviewed, the team identified several strategies and practices that fit their needs and goals.

Slide 19: Action Plan

To support collaboration, Mateo’s team begins by having an initial meeting to create shared norms and clarify expectations, including what matters most to Mateo and his family.

Drawing from the resources they reviewed, the team explored different meeting structures and selected an ongoing agenda that could be updated as priorities changed over time. They also created a parking lot space on the agenda to capture important ideas that may come up during the meeting that needed more time and could be revisited later.

With this structure and alignment of practices in place, the team decided to meet again in two weeks, were aligned on priorities, identified roles, and who would complete next steps.

By using tools and practices that fit their needs, the student, family and school staff were able to stay organized, have meaningful conversations, and move ideas into action together. As the team continued to meet, the team found that the real value came from having a consistent way to communicate, make decisions, and follow through together.

Slide 20: Call to Action

As we wrap up today, we encourage you to reflect on one intentional next step you can take to strengthen collaboration within your own team.

It does not need to be a major change. Even small shifts in communication, planning, or inclusion can create meaningful impact over time.

This slide includes 3 examples of possible next steps, such as making a small shift in your practice after reviewing your BIG IDEA worksheet notes, selecting a resource to explore with your team, or identifying one team to schedule a meeting with.

Slide 21: Resources

This slide summarizes the 3 main resources we shared in this presentation.

First the BIG IDEA Worksheet.

Second, the DataWise online Resource Collection has many useful articles and resources. The Meeting Wise agenda template we use is in the Meeting Wise book.

And third, the TIES Center Lessons for All: The 5-15-45 Tool. Links to all of these are on our training website.

Slide 22: References

Here are references for tools and resources shared in this presentation to support shared systems for collaboration over time. (References are available on website.)

Slide 23: Thank you!!!

Thank you for your time, participation, and the work you do every day. We leave you with a cartoon from Micheal Giangreco.

This cartoon shows two people in the foreground with binoculars (like bird watchers) looking at a group of people in the background. One of the two people says, “Look over there! A well-functioning team!” The second person says, “Isn’t it beautiful?” The tag line under the cartoon reads, “Herb and Sally add the elusive collaborative team to their life list of rare and endangered species.”

Along with this cartoon, we hope you leave with a stronger understanding of the benefits of collaborative teaming, some helpful tools and resources, and one next step or idea you can take back to your team.

Slide 24: Agency of Education

This training was created in partnership with the Vermont Agency of Education.

Slide 25: Vermont I-Team

The Vermont I-Team is focused on interdisciplinary support for inclusion. We encourage you to reach out if you have questions, would like more information, or are interested in collaborating with us. We’d be happy to explore ways to support your team and strengthen collaborative practices. Please go to our website (go.uvm.edu/i-team) to find out more.

Slide 26: Center On Disability & Community Inclusion

The Vermont I-Team is a project of the Center on Disability and Community Inclusion, in the College of Education and Social Services, at the University of Vermont.

Our Center has been promoting inclusion for 50 years. For more information about our Center, please visit our website (go.uvm.edu/cdci).

Collaborative Teaming Transcript (.docx)

Collaborative Teaming Training Slides (.pdf)

Note: Slides do not include all content, so recommend also reading transcript or following along with video.