Teaming and sharing workflow allow teachers to leverage each other’s strengths, reduce redundancy, and build a supportive community, all of which contribute to lower stress levels. Teaming can increase a sense autonomy by providing teachers with a collaborative environment that supports shared decision-making, allows for flexibility in implementation, and fosters professional growth.
Find Dr. Chris Jensen’s book, “Triage Your School: A Physician’s Guide to Preventing Burnout” here.
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Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00.210] – Steve [Intro]
Hello, and welcome to the Teacher Edition of Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud. Teaching is a complex and rewarding journey, and I’m always eager to explore the many ways teachers engage students in their learning. This podcast is dedicated to supporting you, the teacher, as you inspire and guide your students. Thanks for joining me. I’m excited you’re here.
[00:00:29.780] – Steve
Teachers teaming and sharing workflow. In his book, “Triage your School: A Physician’s Guide to Preventing Burnout,” Dr. Chris Jensen provides specific actions educators can take to address the elements of chronic stress. Combining his years as a doctor in an emergency room with his years teaching high school science, Dr. Jensen has a unique understanding. He states, “Like healthcare, triage prioritizes educators’ actions and provides a healthier perspective towards overflowing work demands. One that removes guilt and emotion from incomplete tasks.” In a podcast that I recorded with Chris, he shares that all that self-care does is to put a bandage on your day. It doesn’t erase any of the driving forces that are causing the stress. Here’s a short list of driving forces that he identified in the book as causing Stress and burnout. How many of these are present for you?
[00:01:49.270] – Steve
The volume of work, loss of control, feelings of isolation, inability to escape work, fear of disappointing others. I think that all of those can be addressed in some ways with teamwork. If self-care is good but insufficient, then we need to explore ways to decrease the driving forces of workplace stress. Some of the strategies that health care providers have found effective can be implemented by educators. Consider With Dr. Jensen’s findings, having worked in both fields. Both teachers and health care providers are dealing with someone who is inherently vulnerable that’s dependent upon their skills, where our goal is to make them better than we found them, where we use a certain algorithmic approach to knowing what they need, where we look for assessments to show that they are improving. There’s a lot of caretaking. Having done both jobs, I lived that phenomenon. One of the strategies that Jensen explores is leveraging shared workflow. My career long focus on teaching as a team sport led me to explore this chapter of his book with special interest. From my days as a classroom teacher, I had always believed that given the choice of 20 students on my own or 45 students with a teammate, I’d always pick the larger group with a teammate.
[00:03:33.010] – Steve
As I read Jensen’s chapter on leveraging shared workflow, that thinking was reinforced. Jensen provides this example from doctors rotating responsibilities in an outpatient clinic. Physician A will be the late physician taking care of unexpected sick patients. That’s a hard week for them. They’re going to be there late, but then the next week, they rotate to administrative meetings and lab reports. That’s easy. There aren’t that many meetings and lab reports. They can fly through them quickly. They’re out typically 2-3 hours before they usually would be. They rotate through the responsibilities and share the responsibilities equitably across their group. They know they have some late weeks, some short weeks, some middle weeks. And suddenly, instead of never ending monotony and not knowing what you can do after work, you have a more predictable pattern of workflow that gives you stability, that gives you confidence, that gives you happiness on your quick weeks when you know that you’re out the door and you can go to your kid’s soccer game and so forth. On the longer weeks, you’re not bitter because you know that something good is coming. Jensen illustrated how a high school math department developed a schedule for an after-school math support lab.
[00:05:05.390] – Steve
Teachers rotated the assignment of being available in the lab, which was in a fixed room, providing consistent student support with teachers’ controlled schedules of their time. In school, we tend to do parallel work. While there tends not to be a requirement on teachers to work this way, many educators stay with “this is how we’ve always done it” structures. Because I entered teaching and spent my early career teaching, both with a classroom partner and broader unit, grade, and even cross-school teams, I tend to automatically think how a problem might be addressed as a team. I find that many teachers have not had real team experiences to build upon. Some teachers think that teaming would increase demands on them rather than alleviate stressors. As I chatted with Chris on the podcast, two words came to my mind, autonomy and teaming. Some teacher teams may need coaching support to recognize the potential of using teaming to increase their autonomy. How do you see teaming and shared workflow addressing some of the school place stressors on teachers? Here’s my thinking: I always found a sense of autonomy when teaming with colleagues to design a plan for tackling a task or student need rather than assuming I was on my own.
[00:06:46.800] – Steve
As an example, when students needed individual assessments, some teammates would take the task of instructing larger groups of students as other teachers conducted individual assessments. This was much less stressful than trying to accomplish it on our own. I never understood principals assigning teachers to extra duties with no teacher input. Give a team of teachers a list of coverages needed to be fulfilled and let them plan the best way for them. I was always more comfortable on before-school duties than after-school duties, while some of my colleagues had the reverse preference. Teeming reduces isolation, and students, I believe, are better served when a team of teachers tackle students’ needs. And lastly, the celebration of success and shared commitment to perseverance decrease the stress of struggles we face as the caretakers of our students. Teaming provides those opportunities for celebration and shared commitment. Teeming and sharing workflow allow teachers to leverage each other’s strengths, reduce redundancy, and build a supportive community, all of which contribute to lower stress levels. Teeming can increase a sense of autonomy by providing teachers with a collaborative environment that supports shared decision making, that allows for flexibility in implementation, and it fosters professional growth.
[00:08:33.580] – Steve
When teachers feel they have a voice and choice within a supportive team structure, their sense of autonomy can actually be enhanced, not diminished. Consider sharing this podcast with a group of teachers in your grade level or department. Take some time to brainstorm ways that you might job share some responsibilities through teaming. Implement one or two of those ideas for a few weeks and then meet to assess the benefits and concerns that emerge. It may take some time for trust to grow among the team. Taking a chance, being vulnerable is part of trust-forming. I believe the possible benefits are worth any risk. I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences connected to teaming. Maybe you and some of your teammates might join me on a podcast to share your experiences. Connect with me at barkleypd.com. Thanks for listening.
[00:09:42.340] – Steve [Outro]
Thanks for listening, folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn at Steve Barkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.
