Team+4+-+Finding+Time

=**A Recipe for Finding Time to Meet with Your Collaborating Teacher**=

Prep time: Up to 3 weeks
Total time: One school year

Here are the key ingredients:

 * 1 part patience
 * 1 part enthusiasm
 * 1 part flexibility
 * Administrator (supportive preferred)
 * Willing participant (with close physical proximity preferred)
 * Calendar
 * Collaboration log
 * Equipment

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 * 3.** **Sift through staff to find 1-2 willing participants.** Get somebody that wants to be a collaborating teacher. They have to be interested and motivated to meet. Don’t let them be assigned by a principal. Use fresh ingredients only! Avoid processed ingredients. Limit the number of collaborating teachers. If you do have more than one collaborating teacher, meet with them at the same time. Form a team. Physical proximity to your collaborating teacher helps. =====

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** 4. Preheat your schedule. ** Start from the beginning. Choose meeting times for the whole year and put the meetings on the year-long calendar. Adjust as necessary. Use the fact that the “cookbook” (the training goddesses), told you to set norms and meeting times from the beginning. You’re just following a directive. Sprinkle liberally with informal meetings. Meet while waiting in line for the bathroom or at the copy machine. =====

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** 5. Grease the pan. ** Give them an incentive. If you have it, offer equipment for the teachers to use. Make it available and visible so people want to use it and learn to use it effectively. Offer to keep all the records for Career Ladder ICP points. =====