TWS# 10 Communication and Collaboration

Provide a plan for communicating regularly with parents/guardians: During the school year, it is very important to stay in touch with the parents of the students in your class. They need to know how their child is doing and if there are ways in which they should be helping their student. The first piece of communication with my students parents was a parent letter that was sent home during the first week of school along with the video permission form. In the letter I introduced myself to the parents and left an email address for them to contact me with. Another way that I communicated with parents throughout the semester was through the homework/behavioral sheet. This sheet stayed in the students homework folders and listed each weeks homework, important dates and reminders, and also their childs behavior level of each day (green, yellow, or red) along with an explanation of the behavior mark given. Parents were expected to review this sheet each night with their child and place a signature in each days row. The final way that I communicated with parents was through parent conferences. I was able to sit through parent conferences of my students, which taught me a lot. Not only did I see how much parents wanted to be involved in their childs life and to learn ways in which they could help their child, but I also learned how to prepare for these conferences. Mrs. Ellis showed me how she prepares for each conference and how to stay organized by having each students paperwork in a separate folder ready to be accessed right before the conference. I enjoyed seeing the smiles on the parents faces when they

heard that their child was doing a great job in class or that he or she has shown lots of improvement.

Provide a plan for effective communication or collaboration with colleagues. Throughout the semester, the first grade teachers attended PLT meetings where they, along with the Principal and reading recovery teacher, discussed ways in which to better help students with reading. They came up with numerous ways in which to change schedules around to provide more help to students with low reading scores and also with higher reading scores. They felt that it was not fair to not help the higher leveled students as well as the lower leveled students. Their main goal was to get every student to improve on their reading levels and to get to or past the recommended level of a 6. I enjoyed attending these meetings and hearing what ideas the other teachers had to help this situation. Another way in which I communicated with colleagues was through planning lessons. I helped plan lessons with the other teachers, including the community helpers day, a timeline project, and a verbs, adjectives, and nouns lesson activity. I think it is very important and helpful to work with the other teachers in your school. Team teaching makes planning easier and helps you become closer to those you work with. I also learned a lot about planning lessons from the other teachers I worked with! Another way in which I collaborated with other teachers is by working in the after school program. Mrs. Ellis called me at the beginning of the semester

and asked me to help in this program with her. I helped second through fifth graders with their homework from 2:30 until 4:30, Monday through Friday. I assisted the others teachers in this program by giving ideas and helping run errands. Even though it was tough, I enjoyed this experience because I got to work with students from all ages everyday and also because I got to spend time with the other teachers whom I normally would not have seen during my student teaching experience.

Provide a plan of ways to incorporate the community resources into your teaching. At this age, I didnt feel like my students would sit and listen to a speaker from the community. My class learns best by getting up and doing something. That is why I chose to have a Community Helpers day where my students could dress up as their favorite community helper that we had been learning about the week before. We read books, watched videos online, and even made our own community helpers books about different community helpers and how they help the community. On the day that my students dressed up, the entire first grade marched around the school and showed off their outfits. They were so excited and when we returned back to the room, they each shared who they were dressed as and how they help the community. I think it was a really neat activity for my students and I love how the whole first grade ended up participating in this fun day!

Since we were studying community helpers during fire prevention month, it would be effective to have the fire station come to the school and talk to students about fire safety through a puppet show, or some other way in which the students would stay interested. The students could then tour a fire truck and learn ways in which to stay safe in case of a fire or ways to prevent one from happening. This is a very serious and important thing for students to learn about and I think having the fire station come to the school, would also make it exciting and then students would be engaged. Another way in which we communicated with the community was by having the Greenwood High football team, band, and cheerleaders come to the school for Pinecrest day. The band played some songs and got the students excited, the cheerleaders did some cheers and even chose some of the female students to do a cheer with them. The football players did the fight song and high fived the students. After the pep rally, the high school students came around to the different classrooms and spoke with the students. Some of the band students even brought their instruments with them and let the students see them. They signed autographs and the students enjoyed light snacks. Finally, during my earth materials unit, it would be neat to have a geologist come to the school and talk to the students about his/her job. They could then see different kinds of rocks that the geologist might bring and classify them in different ways. This would be engaging for my students because they would learn the importance of the geologists job and would also get hands on learning at the same time.

Provide a plan for extra-curricular involvement that will positively enhance your teaching. During the semester, Pinecrest had several activities outside of the normal school day for students and their parents. I think it is important for teachers to get involved in these activities and to spend time with their students outside of school because it lets their students know that they really do care about them and that they want to spend time getting to know them. I always got really excited when I saw my teachers out in public and I think my students this semester were excited when they saw me outside of school. This semester I volunteered at the Pinecrest carnival, I attended and worked the math night held at Food Lion, and I attended the PTO open house night. I enjoyed attending these events and it felt good to be involved not only in the school, but also in my students lives.