Developing a Team

Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing, where are we at in the process of student teaching? I took some time this week to reflect on our studies this past fall. We learned about Bruce Tuckman's model and discussed how the model would look in our future classrooms. We discussed how these are the stages to making an effective team, my team may seem a little different than maybe a sports team, never the less my students, my cooperating teachers, university supervisors, and myself make a great team. As my time at Central Columbia is coming to a close here in a just a few short weeks I found it only fitting to take a look back at how far we have come over the last 13 weeks. 

Forming:

While we started forming long before the first day of student teaching, the majority of events took place during my first few weeks of student teaching. The first few weeks were pretty laid back, all of my students were polite and well behaved, still trying to figure out how to act around me. As the leader in the classroom I set some clear expectations, procedures, and consequences for the weeks ahead. We spent several weeks feeling out the waters as we all got to know each other a little better and worked towards getting settled in for the ride ahead. 

                                                            Storming:

Our storming phase never really came on too strong, however it was definitely and a vital step in the model. Students were pushed outside of their comfort zone as they were all of a sudden given a new teacher with different teaching styles and expected to continue on as normal. As expected their were times that students pushed back, and that was okay. To me it was a sign that we were growing together and gave me the opportunity to show that I was there to learn with them. 

Norming:

As the storming stage blew over we settled into the norming phase. We stayed in the norming phase for several weeks coating along, getting things done. I found several of my strengths as a teacher during this time. I learned more about each one of my students and found ways to incorporate their interests into our daily classroom activities. However, there may have been a time or two that we revisited the storming stage, bouncing back stronger as a team each time. 

Performing:

This past week has been a week of performing. We have continued to develop as a team working towards the common goal of learning. We shared many successes as a team from everyone doing well on their tests and projects, to competing in career development events. We have worked strong as a team and have been taking time to truly focus on what goals we have for ourselves. 

It has been exciting to witness each stage of Tuckman's Model. While I have been on many teams before I never took the time to focus on what was truly happening to make the team function. We have just a few weeks left to continue to perform to the best of our ability before reaching the phase of adjuring.