A Boston area school is going to experience a new approach to filling vacant teaching positions, a team approach.  According to the New York Times, a team of teachers from an organization called Teach Plus will be filling a large number of vacancies in a high-risk, high-turnover school.  Though the article doesn't give a lot of details on the extent of the team mentality, I tend to think that as a method of delivery, the team approach is successful.

My experience to team teaching was limited to a few years in a rural North Carolina school system.  And although the team mentality had not fully caught on with the teachers, the validity and strength that it brought to student achievement was notable.  During that time, the school administration desired that teachers of the same students adapt their curriculum to reinforce what was being taught in all the disciplines.  For example, when students were studying ancient Eygpt in history, English classes were reading fiction stories set in the same time and geographical location, and science classes were studying mechanisms developed and used to build the pyramids.  As an elective teacher it was my duty to incorporate the major theme within my class, too.

Students showed a better understanding of the big picture with this type of approach.  They began to see the overlap and connection between the disciplines.  For the teachers, it required really knowing the material that needed to be covered in a year so that topics could be organized appropriately.  It also required a lot of planning and forethought, flexibility and communication.  In the long run, I think it was worth it.  This was a comprehensive team approach, and it worked.