Running head: COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION 1

Effective Communication and Collaboration

Faith E. Ferrulli

Regent University

In partial fulfillment of UED 496 Field Experience ePortfolio, Spring 2021

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Introduction

Communication and collaboration are the cornerstones of an effective classroom and

education as a whole. The development of both ideas encompasses the foundation of relational

components within the team, including parents and students. For this competency, the two

concepts merge to advance growth and learning opportunities for the students but will be

discussed separately. Having the skill to communicate in a way that furthers the benefits of

education for students and includes parental feedback is effective if the information is fluent and

understood by both parties involved. Collaboration between teachers in a team and with parents

allows for a more significant partnership that provides room for discussion and fresh ideas to

benefit the students. Both skill sets enhance the students' educational trajectory and the school in

such a way that the "partnerships provide the basis for a network facilitating teacher-to-teacher

and teacher-to-administrator communication and collaboration, which are crucial to school

improvement" (Rubinstein, 2014, p. 28). A continual flow of information and ideas is only

strengthened by proper and effective communication and collaboration.

Rationales of Selected Artifacts

Artifact One

Developing efficient and professional communication during my student teaching

internship has unfolded on various levels, including administration, fellow teachers, and parental

contact. The medium that I have found most effective concerning efficiency and professionalism

is ClassDojo. This software is available online and on an application for a cellular device. This

application emphasizes the importance of parental communication and the formulation of

relationships with students. I have implemented a biweekly newsletter that I created to update

families on what we are learning as a class along with any outstanding accomplishments we
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make as a whole team. This newsletter is sent out every two weeks in PDF form and a brief

message on ClassDojo so that all parents can access it. ClassDojo has a translation tool that has

proved to be highly effective when trying to reach out to parents who do not speak English or

prefer another language. I have had the opportunity to message parents individually to update

them on their students' progress or make them aware of things they should be completing while

at home. They can then respond in their native language, and I can use the translation tool to

decipher what they responded. This concept of building a relationship with the parents through

effective communication allows for the second portion of this competency to form;

collaboration.

Artifact Two

The artifact that I have used to demonstrate collaboration is the grade-level subject

meetings held every week. The meeting entails the breakdown of the lessons for the week and

cultivating ideas to further the students' understanding and capability in certain areas of the

subject. I am currently on the Language Arts team. As a team, we each take on a lesson from the

upcoming week to review and come back to the whole group with a summary and any brewing

ideas to enhance the lesson. Another team meeting focused on Achieve3000, a nonfiction

reading platform for students to use. It records their Lexile levels and develops manipulative data

for us to review and discuss. My cooperating teacher and I used the data we found to discuss

how to move forward so that the scores would increase, and then we came to a conclusive idea to

readdress the process of completing an Achieve article as a class. This idea unfolded in a short

whole group lesson. We were also able to use the said data to verify the small groups we had put

them in based on their Reading Inventory scores.

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Reflection on Theory and Practice

In a learning environment where there is successful communication between parents and

the teacher, there is a rise in student achievement (Cullaj, 2015, p. 22). When successful

communication happens, there is a newly founded connection to the home base of the students.

Communication with parents who do not speak English can be daunting and seem impossible,

especially in my circumstance of not knowing another language. However, with the proper

translation tools and attitude, there is an embrace of identity for the students and their families,

which in turn improves both sides of understanding of the particular child at hand due to the two

different knowledge perspectives of school and home behaviors (Guo, 2012, p. 134).

In the classroom management course at Regent University, we emphasized the

importance of effective communication with students and parents. Often, when a parent or

student is of a minority culture, there is a lack of parental involvement in the students' studies.

The concept that counteracts this is consistent and proper communication that generates a sense

of homophily. Homophily is the idea that "the more two people are like in background, attitudes,

perceptions, and values, the more effectively they will communicate with each other and the

more similar they will become" (Levin & Nolan, 2014, p. 177). Despite the language barrier, the

formation of relationships with the students' parents is made possible by ClassDojo.

Professional collaboration permits a space for ideas to grow and mature to result in more

enhanced instruction and student improvement. Schools that are higher performing tackle

collaboration with an emphasis on identifying students' needs and then crafting methods to

spearhead those needs throughout the rest of the school year – this method is known as "data-

driven decision-making" (Ronfeldt, Farmer, McQueen, & Grissom 2015, pp. 479-480). These

types of meetings occur on Mondays with the 3rd Grade Language Arts team. At times, data is
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dissected and addressed to efficiently move forward with tailoring lesson plans to meet their

needs. These weekly meetings are beneficial to the student achievement rate if conducted

properly, as studies have shown the more frequent collaboration meetings were held that

involved preparing the instruction with a team, the higher the student achievement rate (Ronfeldt

et al., 2015, p. 481).

Quantity of collaboration is one thing, but the quality is more important. Each minute of

our team collaborations is spent diving deeper into the lessons and data and discussing how we

can enrich what is being taught and scaffold where need be. Each classroom has different types

of students, which means varying learning styles. So, as we collaborate ideas, some concepts will

work in our classroom while others may not. By increasing the quality of collaboration, there is a

positive linear effect on the improvement of education (Ronfeldt et al., 2015, p. 508).

Collaboration has also been found with my team teacher as we switch classrooms halfway

through the day. Collaboration can look different from each set of teams, but the motivation for

them all is to enhance the instruction to meet the students' needs. After participating in a few

team collaborates, I look forward to communicating my ideas in the future and gaining new ideas

from other teachers.

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References

Cullaj, S. (2015). Building relationships with parents. Educational Horizons, 93(3), 22-23.

Retrieved February 15, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24635473.

Guo, Y. (2012). Diversity in public education: Acknowledging immigrant parent knowledge.

Canadian Journal of Education / Revue Canadienne De L'éducation, 35(2), 120-140.

Retrieved February 15, 2021, from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/canajeducrevucan.35.2.120.

Levin, J., & Nolan, J. F. (2014). Principles of classroom management: A professional decision-

making model. Boston: Pearson.

Ronfeldt, M., Farmer, S., McQueen, K., & Grissom, J. (2015). Teacher collaboration in

instructional teams and student achievement. American Educational Research Journal,

52(3), 475-514. Retrieved February 15, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24546739.

Rubinstein, S. A. (2014). Strengthening partnerships: How communication and collaboration

contribute to school improvement. American Educator, 37(4), 22-28.