Collaboration
Margaret Drost
Collaboration
Collaboration is the idea of working with others to achieve a better understanding for the students. This can involve collaboration between students to discuss new ideas, partnership with other teachers to ensure extra help for the classroom and students, or even collaboration between teachers and families to help benefit the student in the IEP or general education process. Evidence after research brought up by TUM School of Education states, “Research has shown that professional collaborative activities might have a positive effect on student achievement”. Therefore, teachers working together to bring new ideas and activities to a classroom can benefit a child’s learning environment. They also mention that “many official policies and education reforms around the world plead for more collaborative practices among teachers”. Meaning that because of the study’s results, many schools around the world see the change in students’ educational assessments, in which they prefer to have more teachers collaborating in the future.
Different roles of other SPE professionals are in fact to help decipher between students with learning disabilities and students that are slower progressor's in general education. When a Special educator is in the picture, they are there to help set in place an IEP for students with learning disabilities along with help them in the IEP process as well. They accommodate to their needs whether it is extra time on assignments, helping them study, giving them extra lesson on different study areas, and all in all helping to find what works best for them in order to succeed.
After checking out, National Center for Learning Disabilities organization website, where they discuss different strategies that teachers collaborating can help with. I have a better understanding of how teachers, paraeducators and families can help better educate the students in their lives. Making sure that good communication is involved can avoid problems and confusion making things crystal clear when dealing with a child’s needs. Small informal meetings such as small conversations, check ins, and email communication between the families and educators can help create a comfort and security for the families about their children. Some specific examples of good strategies include Preparedness (set an agenda ahead of time and identify meetings goals), Active listening (allow others to fully finish their thoughts and allow follow up questions), Summarizing (approach colleagues with an inquiry mindset), Delivering (deliver ideas and solutions with evidence, integrating (use input and feedback to strengthen initial ideas), and lastly Empathizing (assume positive intent of others).
Working with a paraeducator in the classroom alongside the general educator classroom has its ups and downs according to multiple videos watched, but one video specifically discussed that their practice together is like a marriage. They must have good communication with each other in order to discuss students that need extra support, systems that work well with them and their students, and worksheets and studies they’re working on in class. Common challenges would be differences of opinion in which case they would need to come to a middle ground. Another complication would be deciding when a good time to intervene with IEP children would be. Making sure to not take children out of class to work with them on their intervention in the middle of a lecture because if so, the student may miss out on important information given by the general education teacher.
Assessments throughout the year can help make sure that the collaboration between the teachers are helping the students and not making matters worse for students with disabilities. Ensuring that you get feedback from students as well can help make sure that you are not missing any areas of need or interest and are giving them the full extent of collaboration. Inviting families of students to comment on their child’s well being in class can also be beneficial, because some students discuss their school activities and opinions more at home than they would at school to their teachers.
Sources:
https://www.ncld.org/reports-studies/forward-together-2021/collaboration/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2019.00085/full