Submission Details

Group: Wednesday 1.30pm Group B Tutorial Group

Video Submission: https://youtu.be/qTyn_uNgR1A

Assignment 2 – Critical Reflection

Effective teamwork and teacher leadership is a critical component to building functional schools
that create positive learning environments and raise student achievement (Goodman &
Zimmerman, 2000). The Australian Professional Standard for Teaching (APST) mention
professional engagement with colleges, parents/carers and the community as a requirement for
teachers (aitsl, 2017). This reflection will discuss the importance of teamwork and teacher
leadership in the education sector, the dynamics of professional teams, types of challenges faced
in these settings and finally explore, on a personal level, the development of the author's
professional identity.
Collaboration and leadership between teachers is fundamental in creating a functional school that
creates positive environments for both students and staff members. In the Australian context,
teachers are reported to have a high rate of attrition, with an estimated 30% to 50% of teachers
leaving in the first five years (McKinnon, 2016). Additionally, in one survey up to 46% of teachers
reported high levels of daily stress (Ansley, Meyers, McPhee & Varjas, 2018). Such statistics
highlight the need for effective leadership in schools, to improve general working conditions,
reduce levels of stress experienced, and increase graduate teacher retention rates. Characteristics
that describe functional leadership in schools include: focussing on a clear set of beliefs and
devising a plan to carry them out; having an established process to orient new board members;
ensuring differences are never personal and are about issues related to student wellbeing; and
effective use of media to communicate ethically with different bodies of the school (Education
Writers Association, 2003). Striving towards building such environments is central to the continual
improvement of the teaching community of practice.
A Belbin team inventory is one of the most extensively used design tool to build teams based on
role preferences (Meslec & Curşeu, 2015). Research in 1981 by R. Meredith Belbin proposed that
in groups tasks, teams with many high scoring individuals, called Apollo teams, or teams that
consisted of individuals who were too similar in personalities did not perform well (Belbin, 2011).
Belbin’s work highlighted the need of diversity to build effective teams and identified nine key
roles that successful teams need to fill: resource investigator, team worker, coordinator, plant,
monitor evaluator, specialist, shapes, implementer, and completer-finisher. Each team role
represents a common cluster of behaviors that individual tends to be naturally inclined to take, or
have a preference towards, when working in a team ("Team Roles", n.d.). In addition to a lack of
diverse personalities, Belbin (2011) also identifies morale and a lack of mental ability to be
characteristics of unsuccessful teams. This report undertakes a reflection-on-action, as outlined in
Schön (2010), considering events that took place in the development of ‘Assignment 2’, discussing
challenges faced, the importance of Belbin team roles and suggestions for future practice.
One the whole, the team worked well together, being professional and organized in their approach.
The group was very diverse in their personalities, with members from a broad range of Key
Learning Areas (KLAs) including mathematics, design and technology, English, drama, and
multimedia. The Belbin team roles undertaken by group members were similarly diverse, with
some team members who were highly creative and good at problem solving (plants), other team
members who were effective at coordinating between team members and delegating responsibility
(co-ordinators), team workers who were versatile and helped the team gel and complete finishers
who finalized the product. As such, the personal weaknesses of certain members were balanced
out by the strengths of other members, and the team worked well collectively (Belbin, 2011). One
area of improvement identified was to be more effective with the management of time. Whilst
weekly meetings through Zoom were held, the meetings did not have a chairperson or a set agenda
and hence discussions were sometimes derailed. In future practice, the author heavily recommends
a directed approach to group meetings with a clear agenda and chairperson to be effective in the
utilization of human resources. Another area requiring improvement was the finalization of the
product. Towards the end of the project, the completer-finisher spent a significant portion of time
to edit the documents submitted by the group into a coherent format. In future practice, it is
recommended to develop, as a group, a template for the tasks to be submitted to reduce the
workload of the complete finisher towards the end of the project. Such reflection and identification
of areas of improvement is critical to developing a functional and effective community of practice
amongst teachers.
On a personal level, the author also believes so that working relationships amongst teachers are
developed, supportive learning environment must be created. A supportive learning environment
refers to a workplace environment which is psychologically safe, that means building a local social
environment which is comfortable in which workers can ask questions, admit mistakes, propose
innovative ideas, take interpersonal risks (The Importance of Learning in Organizations, 2008).
The author notes how during his teaching experience, he has come across many instances where
individuals in the faculty were afraid of criticizing ideas as they did not want to offend other staff
members. Such interactions are detrimental to the community of practice for teachers are they
dissuade reflective practice, and hence limit further progression of ideas. Hence, it is important
that to build working professional relationships, teachers should firstly be tough-minded enough
to accept criticism of their ideas and secondly be open enough to challenge on another whilst
remaining respectful and professional (The Importance of Learning in Organizations, 2008).
As mentioned by the Australian Professional Standard for Teaching (APST), professional
engagement with colleges, parents/carers and the community is essential to the role of teachers in
Australia (aitsl, 2017). Belbin (2011) provides tools to analyze and build successful teams, and
applying a Belbin team inventory to the author's group for Assignment 2, it can be seen that the
diversity of personalities present was an important factor in the group's success (Meslec & Curşeu,
2015). Targeted areas of improvement for future practice include a more directed approach to
group meetings with a clear agenda and chairperson and designing templates for tasks early on to
reduce workload towards the end of the project. The author also believes that as professionals it is
important to build environments which are psychologically safe for staff members to be upfront
and open to discourse. Ergo, the development of a positive community of practice builds functional
schools that create positive learning environments for students and raise achievement

References
aitsl. (2017). Australian Professional Standards for Teachers [Ebook] (1st ed.). Retrieved from
http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/standards/list
Ansley, B., Meyers, J., McPhee, K., & Varjas, K. (2018). The hidden threat of teacher stress.
Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/the-hidden-threat-of-teacher-stress-92676
Belbin, R. (2011). Team roles at work. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Education Writers Association. (2003). Effective Superintendent, Effective Boards. Washington.
Retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/Documents/Effective-
Superintendents-Effective-Boards-Finding-the-Right-Fit.pdf
Goodman, R., & Zimmerman, W. (2000). Thinking Differently: Recommendations for 21St
Century School Board/uperintendent Leadership, Governance, and Teamwork for High Student
Achievement. Educational Research Service.
Harvard Business Review. (2008). The Importance of Learning in Organizations [Video].
McKinnon, M. (2016). Teachers are leaving the profession – here's how to make them stay.
Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/teachers-are-leaving-the-profession-heres-how-to-
make-them-stay-52697
Meslec, N., & Curşeu, P. (2015). Are balanced groups better? Belbin roles in collaborative learning
groups. Learning And Individual Differences, 39, 81-88. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2015.03.020
Schön, D. (2010). The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books.
Team Roles. Retrieved from http://www.belbin.com/about/belbin-team-roles/