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Effective Communication and Collaboration

Haylee Caldwell

Regent University
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Introduction

In the classroom, it is highly important to have effective communication with students

and parents as well as collaboration with other professionals in the school. During my time at

Centerville Elementary School, I attended seven Professional Learning Community meetings,

which is a time every week set aside for teachers to plan collaboratively with the other teachers

on their grade level as well as the school specialists, and administration team. These weekly

meetings taught me the importance of collaborating with other professionals when designing

learning plans. Additionally, I communicated with the students daily verbally and gave feedback

on the students’ various tests that I graded. Because a lot of the communication I had with the

students was verbal the artifact I chose was a note on a student’s test. 

Artifact Rationale

For my first artifact to show my effective communication with the professionals at my

school, I chose some notes from a Professional Learning Community meeting. The notes I have

reflect the discussions we had collaboratively. Those who made up the discussions were five

Fourth Grade Teachers, the Math Specialist, Information Technology Specialist, Gifted

Specialist, Special Education Teacher, Principal and Assistant Principal. We began the meeting

by discussing things that were new to the school for technology and we all were able to look at

the planet Mars in virtual reality goggles which was a fun way to start the meeting as we

discussed the differing connections from virtual reality to the science curriculum as well as the

language arts curriculum. The majority of the meeting was spent doing ‘Kid Talk’ as they call it.

During Kid Talk, the group would review students’ whose names were on a list indicating if they

had interventions in place, need interventions, and if the interventions are succeeding. The

teachers would discuss each name and which section they should be in based on the student’s
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individual needs. Everyone at the meeting contributed to the decisions for any new or different

interventions for the students. Personally, the Kid Talk portion of the Professional Learning

Community meeting was very interesting and I was able to witness the process of teachers

collaborating to arrive at the best decisions, as well as participate in these decisions. 

For my second artifact, I chose a note on a test which I left for a student. I left this note

because the student got a question incorrect on a test which I graded. Because the student used

notebook paper for the test, I was able to look at their notes and see where they made a mistake

or got confused on the question they were answering. I was able to see that it seemed the student

wrote the wrong number for the computation they were doing on the notebook paper. After

examining the students’ notes I was able to tell the student where they went wrong and what they

would need to do to remedy the problem. The note is just one way that I communicated with my

students on a regular basis. I think it is very important as a teacher to communicate with students

regularly, especially by leaving feedback on tests. When leaving feedback on a test it makes it so

the student can see not only what they missed but understand what they did wrong. 

Reflection

Feedback to students is an extremely important part of assessment that has to be

considered and implemented by teachers. According to Gronlund and Waugh, assessment results

are, "used primarily for grading, there should be some feedback to students and the results should

be used for evaluating the effectiveness of the instruction. [CITATION Wau131 \p 9 \l 1033 ]." These

authors also make the point that effective instruction will have feedback to the learners on their

own progress and understanding of the content [CITATION Wau131 \p 9 \l 1033 ]. This emphasis on

communicating with the learners through specific feedback is why I chose the feedback on a

student's test because it is a very vital part of student learning. Lastly, I know that comments on
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tests are not the only feedback that learners need, they also need feedback during instructional

time. When discussing formative assessments and the following feedback to learners Wiggins

and McTighe say, “They are as essential to teaching as any reading, lecture, or discussion

because they let the learner as well as the teacher know what is and isn’t being understood in

time to make any needed adjustments[CITATION Wig \p 250 \l 1033 ].” Since, most of the formative

feedback I gave was verbal, I decided that the comment I made on the student's test was the best

form of evidence I could provide. 

The second artifact shows evidence of my collaboration with my fellow

professionals in our weekly planning meeting. When discussing teacher success, authors Levin

and Nolan suggest that teachers, "collaborate with others instead of being dependent on some

external authority to suggest the strategies [they implement] [CITATION Lev141 \p 193 \l

1033 ]."This is exactly what I was able to participate in as I attended the Professional Learning

Community meetings. The teachers, including myself worked together to make instructional

decisions through the weeks as we calibrated rubrics, planned interventions for specific students,

and furthered our learning as a group. Through my time at Centerville, I was able to see the

importance of collaboration. As a grade level, each teacher had their own strategies and ideas for

teaching the same content and we were able to bring it all together to collaborate on decisions

during our weekly Professional Learning Community meetings. 

 
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References

Levin, J., & Nolan, J. (2014). Principles of classroom mangement. New York, NY: Pearson.

Waugh, K., & Gronlund, N. (2013). Assessment of student achievement. New York, NY:

Pearson.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (n.d.). Understanding by design. Alexandria, Virginia: ASCD.