Chapter 4-Collaboration

I am fortunate to work in a grade level and school where collaboration is important and is constantly being done. The best example of collaboration I have is my 3rd grade team. We spend about 3 hours each Wednesday afternoon planning for the following week. We also spend many days during our school planning talking and discussing ways to improve our lessons. When we plan, we bring new ideas and thoughts about what we are teaching. We work together and hold each other accountable. We are not competitive with each other and love to share new ideas. We work together to ensure our students are receiving the best education they can get. We work hard to communicate well with each other and make sure everyone feels like an "expert" during our planning.

There are several issues of collaboration that I feel could be improved in my school. First, I teach two students from a special education classroom each day and work with their teachers on a weekly basis. I would like to have better communication between the teachers to make sure I am doing everything I can to make sure their learning experience better. Also, we do not have any communication with the grade levels below and above us. I feel it would be beneficial to collaborate with these teachers to hear comments about what we need to do in our grade level.

There are several things I can do to improve collaboration in my school. First, I could meet with the special education teachers each week and discuss strategies to use in my classroom to help my students. My grade level can also work on areas of improvement in our classrooms and plan a reteaching time for our students. In the past, my grade level has switched teachers to reteach information and the students also enjoy learning from a different teacher. Finally, I will continue collaborating with my parents to make sure we discuss ways to improve their child's learning in my classroom.