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Anna Switzer
Regent University
COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION 2
Introduction
teachers, and other professionals to meet the needs of the many different students. When
teachers inform parents well, students benefit because they can be told similar things at home
and at school. Effective communication can give parents a way to stay involved in their child’s
education; this extra support can really help a student succeed. When teachers collaborate well
with each other, they do not have to work as much for the same quality content. Other teachers
can also bring new ideas that a different teacher would not consider.
My first artifact for this paper includes notes from a meeting with a parent. The meeting
with the parent was a special education committee meeting to evaluate if the eighth grade student
still needed special education accommodations in high school. My notes from the meeting
included what I planned on saying to the parent and the committee about the student and
important parts of and decisions made during the meeting. What I was able to communicate to
the parent and the committee helped them decide that the school should test the student again
because the student has shown signs that some of the results from the previous testing may be
outdated. The notes also show that the next time the committee will meet is in May after the
The second artifact is notes from a meeting during a teacher work day that included all
the math teachers. The lead math teacher led the meeting by discussing flexible grouping and
then gave each group of math teachers time to collaborate in their PLC groups. Having a more
experienced teacher lead a meeting helps other teachers because younger teachers such as myself
can have “a role model for teaching” (p. 34). This role model can help introduce new practices
COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION 3
and provide suggestions during difficult times. My notes from the meeting include important
parts of the presentation that the lead math teacher emphasized. These notes show the plan that
my teacher, my inclusion teacher, and I had for the next few weeks in how we would use flexible
grouping. We planned on reviewing with the class as a whole group with the bell ringer and then
splitting into groups where the inclusion teacher would have a group, I would have a group, and
a third group would do independent work. I also included a Frayer model as part of my notes
from the meeting which showed that a non-example of flexible grouping is splitting up students
into groups to do all the same work in stations. While teachers can use this method, the lead
math teacher was not emphasizing that kind of grouping. Instead, she wanted us to make the
teachers and specialists to give students the best possible education. Learning from other
experienced teachers is a great way to help students learn because “groups can help complement
the talents of each team member” (Burden & Byrd, 2016, p. 86). With the proper groups,
teachers can figure out better ideas to help large groups of students. Even though we had
previously heard about different kinds of flexible grouping, being reminded during the teacher
work day helps give us time to think about it and plan with the idea fresh in our minds. Without
these kinds of collaboration, teachers will forget to plan with different kinds of methods and will
not be able to teach as effectively. In the past week, my inclusion teachers and I were able to
implement the groups we planned to reteach a couple groups that did not previously understand a
difficult concept. The students who did understand were allowed to work on independent work
conferences are helpful for teachers to communicate with parents, they are also “an opportunity
for teachers to learn more about students from the parents’ perspective” (Hallahan, Kauffman, &
Pullen, 2019, p. 74). During the meeting, I learned that the parent thought the student had a
really difficult time focusing in class, but I was able to contradict that by saying the student is
usually active during class and finishes the work. My main contribution to the meeting was
communicating to the parent and the committee that the student is respectful, asks questions,
stays on-task during class, and seems to do well even though he does has some trouble with word
problems and multistep problems. Since the student had not been tested in quite a few years, the
committee and I, as the student’s math teacher, agreed that the student needed to be tested again
before the committee could make a decision about the student’s accommodations in high school.
COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION 5
References
Burden, P., & Byrd, D. (2016). Methods for effective teaching: meeting the needs of all students.
Hallahan, D., Kauffman, J., & Pullen, P. (2019). Exceptional learners: an introduction to special
Webb, L, & Metha, A. (2017). Foundations of American Education. Boston, MA: Pearson.