Running head: EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION 1

Effective Communication and Collaboration

Katherine McKerley

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED Field Experiment ePortfolio, Spring 2019

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION 2

Effective Communication and Collaboration

Effective communication and collaboration are essential to maintain a professional

relationship between a teacher, her coworkers, parents, and administration. As the head of their

classroom, the educator is responsible for establishing strong communication and collaboration

in the school system to create community and foster positive relationships. The NEA has put a

focus on the four ‘Cs’ and the importance of having each represented in a school grade level:

critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity” with each one being applied not

only for the teacher, but for the student to model afterwards as well (NEA). Practicing and

fostering these skills in our own workplace lends itself to teaching them to our students.

In this competency, two artifacts were selected that exemplify effective communication

and collaboration across both placements. The first a letter to the parents as way of starting

positive communication and the second, notes from a PLC unit planning day for fourth grade

teachers. Both demonstrate the value placed on communication and collaboration as the

foundation for positive relationships that will impact and improve students’ education.

Rationale for Selection of Artifacts

For the start of my second placement at Atlantic Shores Christian in second grade I began

my communication with the parents by introducing myself in a letter. This letter introduce

myself giving background information on myself and my time at Regent and my role in their

child’s classroom. I believe that it was important for the parents to know exactly who is working

with their students and first professional contact can go a long way to creating mutual

understanding and support. This letter also helped me gain more confidence in reaching out to

the parents to keep them updated on what was happening in the classroom. Our classroom used

class dojo and I was able to use it to communicate with parents in a more direct manner. A recent
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connect between a parent and myself was when I sent a picture of the student doing their work

on a dress up day. Communication with the students’ parents even in my short time in student

teaching shows my commitments to the students and the importance of including parents in on

their education. In my own classroom, I want to continue to build strong bonds with my students’

parents through weekly updates, classroom dojo, and face-to-face contact.

My second artifact are notes I took while at Old Donation from a weekly PLC. Because

of the extended day, teachers meet twice a week during PE to go over plans, data, and planning

for up and coming units. In this meeting of all of the fourth-grade teachers we approached the

topic of a new unit on Jamestown. This unit was previously a fifth-grade standard and was being

modified for our classrooms. In the meeting the unit was broken down into each week of study

and key importance was place on each teachers’ role in planning and preparation such as Ms.

Shuler’s role in planning the field trip to Jamestown. Because I introduced the topic in my

seventh week there, it was a huge blessing to be able to be part of the process of planning and

organizing the unit. Each teacher played to their strengths and was willing to contribute to the

overall success of the unit. These meetings have made me realize that by collaborating with

others large tasks can be broken down and done in less time but with higher level of detail and

creativity. As I move on to my own classroom and first teaching position I hope to carry forward

the lessons I have learned from student teaching on the importance of collaboration.

Refection on Theory and Practice

During my time at Regent University, my classes and teachers had prepared me to

professionally communicate and collaborate as an educator. Skills such as being a bold

communicator and good listener were cultivated during my classes as I collaborated with my

peers in projects, mock lessons, and discussions. Lauren Davis writes in Teacher Collaboration:
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How to Approach It In 2018, the benefits that come from collaborating and communicating with

other professionals especially a plc. She states that uniformity of “academic rigor, understanding

of student data, more creativity, and less teacher isolation” are all gained through working

together with clear goals in mind (Davis, 2018). With strengthened communication teachers can

process and evaluate student data and raise their understanding of how effective their instruction

and expectation were as a collective. Collaborating together, no teacher will have carried the

burden of lesson planning on their own and allocate more time to creating creative and well

thought out lessons.

An information page on team collaboration written on University of Kansas’ website

goes into greater detail on the importance of being successful in collaboration. It states that a

team “that has not come to agreement about how decisions will be made and how to resolve

conflicts will fail to achieve their intended goals” (KU, 2018). This is one the greatest hurdles of

working in groups where no boundaries or norms have been in place. To collaborate and

communicate effectively systems must be in place to facilitate decision-making and problem

solving. Both setting I have been in even with only two teachers there was a lead teacher that

took on a role and responsibilities to maintain order and streamline communication. Each teacher

had a responsibility to their classroom and parent, but the lead teacher represented the grade

levels interests to administration and acted like a liaison between the two. Fostering

understanding through communication with other teachers and staff leads to more opportunities

to effectively use time and resources to collaborate on creative planning. Strong bonds between

plc places more time in the teachers hands to effectively communicate with students and parents

and focus on the growth and learning of their class.

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References

Davis, L. (2018, February 7). Teacher Collaboration: How to Approach It In 2018. Retrieved

from https://www.schoology.com/blog/teacher-collaboration-how-approach-it-2018

Kansas University. Teams 2018. Retrieved from

http://www.specialconnections.ku.edu/~kucrl/cgi-bin/drupal/?q=collaboration/teams

NEA. An Educator's Guide to the "Four Cs". Retrieved from

http://www.nea.org/tools/52217.htm