1 Name: Vasileia DilaveriWhich of the four face-to-face institute or Elluminate session topics did you select to report on and why? I selected to report on Team teaching session, because it’s the only topic I haven’t attempted before but I had longed to. The institute encouraged me to set off and most of all, I believe Team teaching can create the supportive environment needed to implement other instructional, long-lasting changes to the educational process at school. At that point, I would like to thank you because you gave me the “push” to make what you are about to read, real. With whom did you pilot this new practice and at what grade level did you undertake your pilot? I piloted this new practice with my colleagues at school by forming a team, namely 6 teachers (grades 2 nd -6 th ), one music teacher, one English language teacher and the head master of our school. Name: Vasileia DilaveriWhich of the four face-to-face institute or Elluminate session topics did you select to report on and why? I selected to report on Team teaching session, because it’s the only topic I haven’t attempted before but I had longed to. The institute encouraged me to set off and most of all, I believe Team teaching can create the supportive environment needed to implement other instructional, long-lasting changes to the educational process at school. At that point, I would like to thank you because you gave me the “push” to make what you are about to read, real. With whom did you pilot this new practice and at what grade level did you undertake your pilot? I piloted this new practice with my colleagues at school by forming a team, namely 6 teachers (grades 2 nd -6 th ), one music teacher, one English language teacher and the head master of our school. A change has begun: Team teaching at the 4 th primary state school of Perama- Greece Team teaching at the 4 th primary state school of Perama- Greece

2 Connections with Colleagues Describe in a few brief phrases what connections you made with colleagues in experimenting with this new practice. My colleagues and I have started meeting regularly, every other Friday, at the end of the school day, for one hour at least in order to discuss instructional or students’ behavior problems. We take certain roles in turns during our meetings (facilitator, note taker, time keeper). We have been using a discussion protocol, taping our meetings and then typing minutes of the meeting in order to remember everything and do what has been agreed. We also complete evaluation sheets after every meeting. We have started supporting each other, understanding better our instructional choices and observing each other while teaching in order to share and improve our work. We have developed reflective thinking and we account to the rest of the team for things we have agreed to carry out. We seem to have come closer to each other than ever before.

3 Successes Name two or three 'successes' you experienced with this pilot. What changes did you notice? In the beginning my colleagues were skeptical about the things we could discuss and “solve” within the team. Now they want everything to be discussed and shared through team processes. An air of change has started blowing in our school. For instance We designed a long term “emotional intelligence” project which we were committed to carry out with our students and account to the rest of the team for our activities in every meeting. We also invited a psychologist to advise us. In general, we focused on quality teaching instead of just covering the syllabus and we tried to get an insight of what is happening in our classrooms. I believe we have started behaving as real professionals. Due to the announcement of the new strict changes by the Ministry of Education (cut down on salaries, increase of working hours, implementation of innovations, perhaps needed ones but difficult to be applied by disappointed staff) I feared that my colleagues would propose to stop the team work the following school year. However, they are determined to continue because, according to them, it is for the benefit of our pupils.

4 Challenges Name two or three challenges you experienced with the pilot. What got in the way of your success? The fist challenge was to persuade every one to accept the need of forming a team and participating in regular team meetings. My colleagues surprised me pleasantly by accepting, except one. He is a 1 st grade teacher who, as he said, did not opposed to the general idea but he didn’t want to sacrifice time or energy for it. Some time later he added that he is convinced that nothing could ever change through that kind of processes despite our good will. Another challenge was to help everyone feel comfortable and open themselves to the others. We seem to have made progress on that. Moreover, there is problem with the teaching time. In other words, we are wondering where we could find the time needed to implement changes which would help our children gain in autonomy and social skills as well as what teaching material should be omitted in order to save time. Thus, after discussion I think most of us have accepted that we should focus on long term benefits and balance them with the short term ones

5 Next Steps Name two or three next steps with this material. What will you try next? How will you build on your experiences with the institute? 1 st - Since this school year is almost finished, my colleagues and I will evaluate our experience as team members and we’ll set our team goals for the following year. 2 nd – We will expand our cooperative work in observing each other, supporting newcomers, designing new material for our classes, teaching together in the same classroom, planning and carrying out projects (in which at least two sessions or grades will participate), inviting experts to help us with particular problems and since our Ministry of Education has announced changes, we’ll try to implement them in the best possible way for the benefit of our pupils. 3 nd – As a master graduate, I plan to exploit my experience with this team by expanding the idea of teachers working together for instructional purposes to other schools (1or 2 more), try to set them work as a team and then carry out participating research for the changes and the benefits of teams both on teachers and on their pupils, which will be used in my doctoral thesis as a supporting argument for the need of forming teacher teams in every school!!!