Running head: COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION page 1

Communication and Collaboration

Christina Tucker

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2020

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Introduction

Communication and collaboration are important in all professional job environments.

Good communication with co-workers and administrators creates a positive school environment

where teachers feel respected and heard and administrators can give feedback effectively.

Collaboration helps teachers to communicate what has been going well for them so other

teachers can try to implement it in their own classrooms. It also allows teachers to communicate

what has not worked for them so other teachers can give suggestions for improvement or avoid

it.

Rationale for Selection of Artifacts

My first artifact is a picture of a sheet that I filled out during our Professional Learning

Community’s (PLC) learning walk during a planning day for Math 8. During this time, we

observed two different math teacher’s classrooms from different grade levels and wrote down

our observations. I was mostly looking for classroom management strategies used by each

teacher. At our next PLC meeting, we each shared one thing we observed from the learning walk

with an assistant principal. This kind of communication helps all teachers involved to have open

dialogue about classroom management and student engagement. Since we were observing

younger grades, we were able to see what the environments are for the students coming up into

8th grade in the next two years and what they are used to.

My second artifact is a picture of notes that I took during two PLC meetings and notes

that I wanted to talk to my cooperating teacher about during our planning time. At my first PLC

meeting, I had a lot of questions about the vocabulary that was being used, so I took a few notes
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on things to ask my cooperating teacher afterwards. I was able to observe how this district looks

at testing data and the way they discuss it. Later, when I took over teaching, I was able to be

involved in the discussion about why certain SOL strands had low averages and how it could be

improved. I was also given advice on how to manage disruptions from the students in class, like

the 3 before me strategy where students should try to find the answer to their question 3 other

ways before asking me.

Reflection on Theory and Practice

All of the PLC meetings that I attended helped me to grow as a teacher and to shrae my

ideas and what I was experiencing in my class. Different teachers have different talents and level

of experience, so meeting in groups and discussing best practices helps students in the long run

(Burden & Byrd, 2016, p. 86). Through these meetings, I was able to collaborate. I used

resources that were given to me like a suggestion to teach the negative exponents rule like two

floors of a house. I was also able to communicate what I saw happening in our classroom. In one

meeting, we looked at scores from a unit test and I was able to share why I felt like some

sections scored well and why some did not. Having a PLC also helps you to find a “role model

for teaching” (Webb & Metha, 2016, p. 34). I worked very well with my Cooperating teacher

and she was encouraging and someone I looked to for advice.

I was also able to observe about five parent teacher conferences. This experience helped

me to imagine what I would communicate with a parent. I watched multiple teachers with

different communication methods deliver information to parents. Bang (2018) commented that

“parents and teachers should work together in a reciprocal and equal relationship share their
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knowledge and interests, understand each other’s different perspectives, and acknowledge and

support each other’s roles in supporting children’s education” (p. 1788). Communicating with

parents/guardians is crucial to a child’s success.

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References

Bang, Y. (2018). Parents’ perspectives on how their behaviors impede parent-teacher

collaboration. Social Behavior and Personality, 46(11), 1787-1799.

doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.regent.edu:2048/10.2224/sbp.7270

Burden, P., & Byrd, D. (2016). Methods for effective teaching: meeting the needs of all students.

Boston, MA: Pearson.

Webb, L, & Metha, A. (2017). Foundations of American education. Boston, MA: Pearson.