Fostering Organizational Learning Through Vertical Teacher Teams in Urban Elementary Schools

Abstract

In urban schools that serve high numbers of students in poverty, setting high expectations and developing a cohesive and well-sequenced course of instruction are both crucial to students' success. Increasingly, schools are turning to instructionally-focused grade-level teams of teachers to concentrate on and coordinate efforts to improve classroom curriculum and instruction. However, although such horizontal, grade-level teams are common, few schools have vertical team structures that would allow teachers to collaborate between grade levels and contribute to school-wide improvement plans. Such vertical teams regularly convene elementary school administrators and teachers from all grades to discuss students' instructional needs and to plan strategies for addressing those needs in a coherent and coordinated way. Vertical teams have the potential to increase teachers' awareness of the interdependence of their work, to leverage human capital within under-resourced schools, and to engage teachers in developing school-wide improvement strategies.

In this study of vertical teams in two sizable elementary schools in a large urban district, I sought to learn how administrators established the purpose and membership of their vertical teams. I wanted to understand whether and how they were able to support communication and coordination of teachers towards fulfilling school improvement goals. Using observations of vertical team meetings and individual interviews with teachers and administrators, I found that even though these two teams were still early in their development, they lacked a clear purpose, a carefully selected membership, and the dedicated leadership needed to make these teams feel supportive and worthwhile for teachers and beneficial for the whole school. Districts and schools that wish to use vertical teams for organizational improvement should strongly consider developing administrators' capacity to define and lead these teams before dedicating the time and resources that vertical teams require.