Collaborator

ISTE-E Standard Text

Collaborator - Educators dedicate time to collaborate with both colleagues and students to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems. Educators:

      • Dedicate planning time to collaborate with colleagues to create authentic learning experiences that leverage technology.

          • Authentic learning experiences: Activities that are based on students' real-world experiences or current issues, use real data or work to solve real-world problems

      • Collaborate and co-learn with students to discover and use new digital resources and diagnose and troubleshoot technology issues.

          • Collaborate and co-learn: Reconfigure the teacher-student relationship to encourage modeling and facilitating student learning through relationships built on collaborating and learning together

          • Diagnose and troubleshoot technology issues: Able to draw on student and teacher knowledge to solve technology problems and model this practice for students, for example, restart a device, install software updates, transfer work from one device to another, troubleshoot when audio/video won't play and recognize functional similarities between different devices or software.

      • Use collaborative tools to expand students' authentic, real-world learning experiences by engaging virtually with experts, teams and students, locally and globally.

          • Collaborative tools: For example, cloud-based, shareable documents and calendars; social media; video and audio conferencing software; and e-mail.

          • Authentic, real-world learning experiences: For example, solving real-world local or global problems, career/workforce related projects and skill-building, design projects and processes.

      • Demonstrate cultural competency when communicating with students, parents and colleagues and interact with them as co-collaborators in student learning.

          • Cultural competency: Being able to interact appropriately and effectively with people from other cultures. Being mindful of others' experiences and aware of one's own identity and ideas about difference.

          • Interact as co-collaborators in student learning: In learning, cultural competency takes the experiences and identities of all parties as a sign of the uniqueness of each class and of each student. Thoughtfulness in designing learning experiences that consider cultural identities can enhance student learning and improve collaboration and communication with parents or guardians and other stakeholders.

Reflection

Educators should embrace opportunities that maximize learning. Part of that maximization comes from also understanding that students are not the only ones improving their skills. Collaboration between educators is an integral part of our careers and is required to ensure we are providing the best experience to our students. Each educator brings a unique background and perspective that can be valuable to the profession Seeking out others is not only beneficial, it is required to ensure that we are providing the best experience to our own students and encouraging the best practices to students we could not reach ourselves. We are all in the business of helping our students which is why our colleague's success contributes to our own success. This can be through different grade levels, collaborating and building off each other to ensure consistency in a student's experience or even encouragement and learning how to reach students that may excel in one subject and struggle in another. Technology is always evolving and understanding what tools they have used previously as well as which programs their future teachers will expect them to use can help with a wholesome education for students.

Another important collaboration is that between the student and the teacher. Although school is mandatory for all children between 6-16, effective learning and teaching is always a consensual relationship. Teachers must understand and work with students at the level they are. Classroom culture, the interaction between peers, and the student-teacher relationship are all integral parts of a student's education that requires input from both parties. At the beginning of each school year, most teachers start out by establishing the norms of the class. Although the adult in the room knows what the end result will be, in order for it to be effective, students still contribute and are coached into making responsible rules for themselves as well. This is one example of collaboration that is helpful for the classroom and is essential for a successful school year. Education always has multiple stakeholders and collaboration between all parties is the best way to ensure a positive experience.

Artifact 1

In the summer of 2019, I worked as an instructor at a debate camp. The lab that I was teaching was composed of three instructors, all simultaneously teaching a group of 10 students. In this group, we had to collaborate on all the lessons we gave. These lessons were generated from our past experiences as high school debaters as well as our expertise as adults in the collegiate/professional world. Our team utilized Slack app, which is a virtual workstation that allows users to communicate, collaborate on files, and create groups based on common goals. This app was integrated with the entire program staff which allowed us to work with other staff members on demand, even though we weren't part of the same teaching group. The app supported Google Drive and other common cloud-based resources.

Artifact 2

As a member of the Student Support Team in our school, I participate in bi-weekly meetings where we address multiple topics ranging from Attendance, School Climate, Nursing, Security issues, parent concerns, etc. We provide updates, turn-key information from the district that pertains to us and keep each other informed of any updates to policy. In these meetings we also come up with solutions to issues that affect the school as a whole.

Another component of the SST is that every other week, we have I&RS meetings to address individual students that are in need of specific interventions. In this meeting we collaborate with the Child Study Team, social worker, school counselor, and other interested parties to generate appropriate interventions and/or accommodations for these students. If an update is needed an a specific aspect of a student's academic, behavioral, or attendance record, it is communicated in this meeting and then we collaborate on a solution and put in place next steps.