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Effective Communication and Collaboration

Micah O’Hara

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 496 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2020

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Introduction

Effective communication and collaboration are essential to the success of students in their

learning experience. Students must learn to communicate proficiently and work with their

classmates productively. Teachers must foster effective communication and collaboration with

their students and the students’ guardians and parents as well. By including parents and

guardians in the learning process, teachers can provide support for the student’s learning at

home. Teachers can use technology to encourage communication and collaboration in the

classroom as well. Since students are natives of technology, they will be able to use digital

resources for their learning.

Rationale for Selection of Artifacts

To demonstrate my use of effective communication and collaboration, I chose to display

a posting from Google Classroom. The use of technology in the education world has

revolutionized the classroom. As a native of technology, I feel comfortable using different digital

tools to provide my students resources and feedback. The picture included with this rationale

shows a post on Google Classroom where I shared two links to my students. The links would be

utilized in class during the day. After the students read one of the articles, they had to comment

on the Google Classroom post three key takeaways from the article. This allowed me to then

evaluate their understanding of the content from the article. The students were also able to use

the initial post and the subsequent comments to see what their fellow classmates learned from the

article. Google Classroom is a highly effective resource for communication and collaboration in

the classroom.

The other artifact I chose to present is a note from one of the parent/teacher conferences I

observed during my third week of placement one. The parents had the opportunity to sign up for
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conferences with my cooperating teacher to discuss the behavior and learning of their kids. I was

able to observe the conferences Mrs. Rudy held following the dismissal of students at noon. She

had a total of six conferences with different sets of parents. This particular note displays

comments from a meeting with a dad concerning his son. The student had multiple missing

homework activities. Mrs. Rudy showed the dad some of the assignments which did not have

names on them which no one had claimed to see if the dad thought any of them might have been

the student’s work. The dad FaceTimed his son to show him the assignments. The students

denied any of the work was his own. The dad told Mrs. Rudy he would make sure the student got

the work done that night and turned it in tomorrow. They also discussed the behavior of the

student. Mrs. Rudy shared how she sees potential in the student but he is lacking motivation in

class to apply himself. The dad said he could tell that was playing a role and would talk to his

son at home about it. Other items were discussed as well with plans to make improvements to the

student’s behavior and success in the classroom. Parent/teacher conferences can be an effective

way to make plans with parents to motivate students and make sure that they are reaching their

highest potential in class.

Reflection on Theory and Practice

I learned about effective communication and collaboration in a variety of my education

classes at Regent. In Child and Adolescent Growth and Development, we learned ways to

encourage unmotivated students. The suggestions Mrs. Rudy shared with the dad in the

particular conference reflect many of these suggestions. “(1) Give the learner a choice between

two acceptable tasks, (2) incorporate the learner’s interest into the task, (3) seat the learner away

from objects or classmates that are distracting, (4) give instructions in short bouts rather than

lengthy lists, (5) praise good behavior and success, and (6) make sure the learner gets periodic
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exercise, which helps the brain focus” (Bergin and Bergin, 2018, p. 141). These six suggestions

could all be applied to the specific student we were meeting about. By working with the parents

(collaboration) and communicating with them about their student’s motivation in the classroom,

success can be achieved for the student. It is important to include parents or guardians in the

learning experience of their children.

Students also benefit from collaboration and communication. I learned in my Technology

for Educators class as well as Foundations in Education how integration of technology can boost

students’ performance in the classroom. One of the ways technology does this is by promoting

collaboration with classmates (Powell and Caseua, 2004, p. 209). Students can utilize Google

Classroom to work with their classmates and receive resources directly from their teachers. It is

helpful not having to print off all the articles for students but having them access the articles on

their own devices. Twenty-first century learners are those who utilize technology to work

together and communicate with each other to achieve their learning goals (Coyne, Potter, and

Hollas, 2013, p. 24).

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References

Bergin, C., & Bergin, D. (2018). Child and adolescent development in your classroom.

Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Coyne, J., Potter, J., & Hollas, T. (2013). Teacher-friendly technology applications for the

twenty-first century learner. SRATE Journal, 23(1), 24.

Powell, R. G., & Caseau, D. (2004). Classroom communication and diversity: Enhancing

instructional practice. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates.