Teacher collaboration improves student performance, reduces teacher burnout, and spreads effective instructional strategies across the school. However, creating teacher collaboration is one of the most difficult challenges a principal (or team leader) can face. That’s because meaningful collaboration can’t be mandated. It’s only effective if driven by the individuals’ desire to work together.
To complicate the situation, many teachers … especially those who have been allowed to silo their classrooms for years … will never give more than lip-service to collaboration no matter what you do. Although they may seem to collaborate when forced, they will only extend the bare minimum effort necessary to meet the requirement. These are the teachers who are immediately defensive when any change is suggested because they believe they’re already “doing just fine.” Plus, they’re often very proprietary about their lessons and materials and rarely willing to share. Their attitude is, “I developed this, so it’s mine. Why should I share all my hard work with other teachers. They need to do their own work!”
With all that in mind, the most effective approach for overcoming this reluctance to collaboration is to focus on the personal advantages a teacher can gain from meaningful collaboration. Once you clarify what those advantages are (and explore those together), it has the potential to change a group’s attitude towards working as a team. The Dish Soap & Collaboration article posted elsewhere in this Blog has some great suggestions for setting the stage. And using “collaboration” in the Blog’s search bar will bring up several more posts on this topic.
As with any instructional problem, the principal or asst. superintendent may need to get involved at some point. To encourage positive results, they may need to revert to techniques that are usually reserved for novice teachers (without that being apparent, of course). When addressing a reluctance to collaborate with individual teachers, returning to the basics of effective feedback is essential! Howard Yank shared some great tips for effective feedback in Edutopia (2026). Some of the key concepts he outlines may prove helpful to you and your administrators as you move forward.
Finally, don’t expect things to change overnight. Teaching styles have enormous amounts of inertia, and it may take months for things to turn around. Look for baby steps, not huge strides. And be sure to praise whatever progress is made as it occurs. Positive feedback not only works on students, but also on teachers, too!