Tips for Departmentalized Teaching in Elementary School

Are you teaching in a departmentalized school? Is your grade level thinking of departmentalizing?  On this page, you’ll find resources for classroom management and organization for departmentalization. Read on to get practical tips from teachers who have taught in departmentalized classrooms at all different grade levels.

Pros and Cons of Departmentalized Teaching From Joann Wood

Departmentalizing? Definitely!

After years of being a self contained teacher and always struggling with time issues and getting it all done, I have been departmentalizing to varying degrees for 2 years and love it! As is the case with anything, there are pros and cons to departmentalizing – and it certainly doesn’t solve all your time management issues – sometimes it even seems like they get more complicated! Here are some of my “pros” first.

Pros

• You get to know your subjects very very well and are comfortable differentiating because of this expertise
• You get to know all the students in your grade level or team, not just “your class”
• You get a teammate, or two, or three, to bounce ideas around, help with conferences and parents, and just keep you sane!
• You get variety during your day to change things up
• You only have to grade one or two subject areas

Before we get into some of the “cons” I have run into, let me describe the departmentalized situations I have worked in. My first year in this situation I was on a 3 person team in 5th grade. I taught SS and Science, one person taught Math, and the other person taught ELA. We all had about 90 minutes each. I decided, after some schedule grappling, to teach 3 days of one subject per week and 2 of the other and then alternate. This got all my lessons covered with plenty of time for enrichment. The ELA teacher on our team had the most difficulty getting it all in 90 minutes – Reading, Writing, SSR time and grammar. It was a lot.

All three of us had equal ownership with the students, we all did conferences together and supported each other. The amount of graded papers was lopsided here, as I never had as much as the ELA teacher did. I would try to help when I could, but because it was her subject area, she felt strongly about grading them herself to see how they were doing. Late in the year, there was dissension on the team between 2 of us. This made for a very difficult end of the year, and is one of the cons in this situation. If you all don’t really see eye to eye or get along, it makes things very difficult.

The following year I was paired with one other teacher. I was the ELA/SS teacher, she taught Math and Science. This worked out great! We switched classes one time a day, shared conferences, shared responsibilities and were able to be flexible with each other. We took turns doing the newsletter, updating our website and it just worked seamlessly. We got along very well and became good friends outside the classroom as well, which really helps.

Cons

• A lot of time and planning involved in communication, procedures, schedules, conferences, etc.
• If you all share the students, you almost need a daily debriefing time to touch base
• Must adhere to schedules and depend on each other – high level of trust
• Less classroom community feeling when you share students – they’re not just “your kids” anymore
• Organization issues with the students – it is hard for them sometimes to keep up with materials

For me, those about sum it up. I have really loved departmentalizing instruction the past two years, even with team issues the first time around. It has allowed me to really hone my skills in areas I already felt comfortable with, and not stress about having to teach Math, which makes no sense to me at all!

This year, we are deciding on complete departmentalization right now. Four teachers, four subjects, kids switching all day. Whew! Our principal is worried about the items on the con list above – really communicating properly, managing our time well and really meshing personally. I will keep you all posted as things progress and let you know how it goes!

Check out my blog for more updates:

• Fifth is Fabulous!
• Joann Wood

Thank you, Joann, for offering to share your expertise in this area! I’m looking forward to following your adventures in departmentalization on your blog this year. –Angela

Questions about departmentalization in elementary schools

The following questions were submitted to me as part of the Ask Angela Anything blog post series. You can submit any teaching-related question anonymously to maintain your privacy and student confidentiality. I’m including the two questions below here on this page instead of in the column to make it easier for teachers in departmentalized schools to find answers all in one place.

My colleagues want to departmentalize our five 3rd grade classes. This would not be simply one class going to another room. It would involve homogeneous groupings and a mixing of classes. I have done this before and found it impossible for me to relate to 65+ students. The only advantage I have seen is less teacher preparation and feel that is the only reason some are pushing for it. (Our 4th and 5th grades do not departmentalize.) Our students come from unstable poverty homes. The adults they live with often change or there are several children in the home and many life problems to deal with that leaves their kids to raise themselves. I feel that they need the stability of one consistent adult on a daily basis at school.

How do I convince my fellow teachers that this is difficult for our population, especially ADD and immature children? Is there research that shows positive and negative results of departmentalization at the 3rd grade level that I could benefit from reading? Have you had success with this? This is June and they want to make these changes for August. If I have to departmentalize, how do I make the best of it? 
-Kathy

Hi, Kathy. This is a growing trend in elementary schools, and it can be a decisions that really benefits the kids if it’s well-planned. I agree that there is questionable benefit to the 3rd grade students if they departmentalize and the 4th and 5th graders do not, although I’m assuming that if things go well, the 4th grade would departmentalize next year, and then 5th the following year.

Since the team has mixed opinions on whether or not to departmentalize, you could discuss departmentalizing just for certain subjects, so that each class would have a homeroom in which they spend the majority of their time (and begin and end the day for consistency purposes.) I do see some advantage for departmentalizing for reading and math because students can get more instruction on their individual levels, but you have to be careful not to leave lower-achieving students surrounded only by other low-achievers, or else they have no peer models to learn from.

Personally, I like the idea of departmentalizing for social studies and science, as it’s rare to find an elementary teacher who enjoys and is good at teaching both. I pushed for this one year when I taught third (I was never a particularly strong science teacher) but it didn’t happen because of logistics. I wanted to trade classes for one period a day so I could teach social studies and my colleague could teach science. That to me would be the ideal situation for departmentalizing in 3rd.

Check out the recommended resources below to see how other schools have worked it and to find the research you’re looking for. If you end up having to departmentalize, embrace the concept and give it your all. Certainly there will be some advantages, and you can reassess the following year.