In many educational settings, especially special education, teams of educators work together to provide academic, emotional, and developmental support to students. Teams that work together cohesively can be very effective in helping students reach positive outcomes and meet their goals.
If you’re working on building your educational team, try utilizing a few tools and resources to make team meetings efficient and productive!
- Team Meeting Worksheet: this worksheet outlines important information for a meeting, such as which members of the team are present, everyone’s role for the meeting, and the outcomes and corresponding action items discussed in the meeting.
- Team Agenda: the team agenda form serves as a guideline for teams to work through various topics of discussion when talking about a particular student. For example, teams can note positive results and successes for the student, as well as outline challenges and determine appropriate interventions and strategies to adapt to the challenges. The follow-up section encourages further discussion of new interventions and strategies the team has implemented.
- Team Debriefing: when a behavior incident has occurred, it’s important that all members of the student’s educational team are aware and on the same page about what may have triggered the event, what interventions were attempted and which were successful, and to outline and discuss what could be done differently if the incident should occur again.
Resources for Education Team Building
Part of building a solid, cohesive educational team is ensuring that all members are informed and on-board with the plan and any potential strategies that can be used to support the student. Try using these team building resources for your next team meeting!
The special education resources on this page were authored by Watson Institute’s special education consultant, Andee Morris, M.Ed.
Team meetings help special education staff to work more effectively as a cohesive team. Having a format to follow can promote a productive outcome for team members, especially enabling positive outcomes for their students.
Team Meeting Worksheet: assigns roles to individual team members. The form provides a section for task planning and the ‘responsible team member’ for the task along with a target date of completion.
Team Agenda: this form guides teams to identify positive results in a student’s settings. It helps teams identify challenges for a student and interventions. The form guides the team to the student’s existing IEP. It also provides sections for discussing and brainstorming programmatic challenges and solutions. A follow-up section is also included.
Team Debriefing: this form is for teams to use following a behavior episode that was highly interfering within the school setting. Teams can discuss the triggering event, if a need was unmet, and if the occurrence could have been prevented. Interventions can be discussed with the use of the Positive Behavior Support Plan if part of the IEP.
If you have questions or concerns about the Watson Institute’s use of this information, please contact us.