This week we are writing a blog post on the topic of Collaboration. My understanding of the word collaboration is, a place of work where people come, and work together for the same reason or goal that they are working towards to benefit a purpose. In other words, this is when a place of business or a school wants to come together and work on a project that will benefit everyone around them. As always there are several skills that are needed when collaborating. The most important skill for this task is to make sure everyone is on the same page. The best way to do this is to gather some ideas about the topic you are working on and make sure everyone agrees with what is being said.

A few examples of collaboration would be working on shared documents, video calls, working on a community project, etc. Collaboration can be used in many ways such as in school. For example, teachers and parents can work together to help support their student’s learning in better ways. The teachers can create group chats for the students’ parents on apps such as Microsoft Education and this way the teachers can communicate with the parents and see what the best way for their children to learn is. This is also a great idea of collaboration because the teachers can keep the parents updated at all times. I think it’s a great idea for the parents to feel wanted and involved at all times. I am taking two classes this semester that include collaboration. Every week in my group I am assigned a few questions I have to answer with my group members and then post our answers in a group discussion for everyone else to see. We pick a day and a time every week to meet on Zoom as well, that way we can speak to each other face to face. After we post our answers, we can interact with people from other groups and see if they have the same ideas we do. This is a great way to explore new ideas and look at the topic from different perspectives.

by Shelby Garrison, Garris37 my first blog post September 19, 2021

As stated in the article about Global Education, the teaching profession is definitely not for everyone, and easily burn people out. It is important to teachers, especially the new teachers, that they have tools to help them succeed and thrive. What better asset than the one from fellow colleges that have been in the profession for awhile. The article had so much advice veteran teachers had for new teachers!

Something to keep in mind when you begin your career

• Find your people
• Pace yourself
• Keep your expectations realistic
• Keep your balance
• Believe in yourself

One of my favorite words of advice from this article was that in this job there will always be something else to do, it’s a go, go, go job. But the most important thing to focus on is that your students need and rely on you and it is important to show them that they matter to you. Your attention to them is more important than solely focussing on the never ended to-do list.

Tips to help new teachers balance

• Focus on priorities and teaching MUST haves
• It is easier to focus on the students if you organize all of the “extra” stuff teachers have to do
• Make lessons learning experiences rather than just lessons
• Collaborate with your coworkers
• Listen and grow from feedback from others

What does this mean for us new teachers in currently in 2021? As we all know this pandemic has been a learning curve, especially on teachers. As difficult as it is for us to navigate through this online learning we need to keep in mind it’s also hard on the students! We need to make it a priority to have those connections with our students and help them navigate through this hard time.

Things to keep in mind through this time

• Focus on relationships
• Be agile and flexible
• Ask for help
• Expect the unexpected

As I went through and read the seventeen goals that there are for the Sustainable Development Goals, the goal that had my interest the most is the fourth goal, which is Quality Education. As a future teacher, I want to make sure my students are feeling well, and ready to learn and engage in class. When a student is ready to learn and engage in a new lesson that is a good sign that they are eating well and confident about what is happening next. The most important part about Quality Education is reaching the goal. To start, it is important to know if your students are eating properly at home before coming to school. If your students are not eating right, or not eating at all they may have a hard time concentrating in school. It is a nice gesture as a teacher to always have a few snacks in class for students to pick on. 

According to the website, Medium.com with the article titled, “The Only 3 Things, You Need To Provide Quality Education.” there are only three important goals when it comes to delivering Quality Education. The first goal to be reached according to the article is, to study the material the students are learning in class outside of class at their own pace. Students should find a quiet place to study and review the work outside of class. Sometimes throughout the school day, students could get a lot of information thrown at them at once. Which leads to students not comprehending their work or forgetting what they learned at the end of the day. That is why it is so important for students to go over what they learned in class at home at their own pace. The article states that “Engaging with your curiosity and creativity is crucial for quality learning.” I could not agree with this statement enough. Students must find a fun and creative way to learn and understand their work. This way when the students look back at their work they will have a better chance of remembering it since it was turned into something fun. 

The second goal that needs to be reached to deliver Quality Education is, practicing with group learning. I think the best way for students to engage with each other in school is by creating assignments that have to do with group learning. This way students can get to know each other, and see what ideas everyone else has. When students get the opportunity to engage in group discussions it helps the students to think better on their own. According to the article, it states that “You see viewpoints you would not have thought about and can have multiple points of reference to retain more information. Verbalizing things you’ve previously learned also helps you create stronger connections in your brain.” I think this is an excellent point because when students get together in a group they can see the assignment from other students’ perspectives, and have them add more details to their assignment they would have never thought of on their own. The students could also learn the lesson better through each other. There may be some students struggling to understand what the teacher is explaining, but then once their classmates explain the lesson to them, the students understand the lesson properly. Some of these students can learn their information better by hearing it out loud from their classmates. This way they can retain the information differently than before. The whole point of this goal is to get the lesson that is being taught across to the students and making sure they understand and remember the information moving forward. 

The last goal that needs to be reached to deliver Quality Education is, doing one-on-one mentorship. Having a mentor or someone to look up to as you are doing your work can help you succeed. Having a mentor by your side can help you get rid of all the distractions around you by having you create a study pattern that works best for yourself. For this goal, it is important to help your students find skills that work best for them, and help your students when it comes to seeing how well they did with the lesson. When students have a mentor or tutor to turn to they start to feel confident with their work because they have someone alongside them boosting their confidence. A mentor does not always have to be an adult. As a teacher, you can group students together in the same classroom to work together and help each other if some students are struggling. This way the teacher can come around to each group and see how the students are doing in the group, and as individuals.

I have found an article that caught my interest on Twitter, by using the hashtag, #edchat. This article comes from the account @Elmagazine. This article is titled “Small Shifts in Teacher Talk Make a Big Difference.” This article caught my attention just by the title of it. When you are a teacher and you are trying to teach a new lesson to students it truly does help to make little changes for the students to be more excited about what they are learning. The article, it talks about how teachers plan out lessons in their head and have everything written down, but when it comes to actually teach the lesson in class things might not have seemed as exciting as you thought. I also think a good point that is talked about in the article is how you communicate with your students. Making little shifts in the way you deliver a message to your students make a big difference. As stated in the article, instead of saying to your students, “I have an exciting math activity planned for you today!” You can say, “You’re going to get to participate in an exciting math activity today.” When you think about it making minor changes in what you say to your students can make a huge change. By changing what you say as a teacher it can help the students to be more interested in the lesson and excited to learn. In the article, there Is a chart with several examples of what words you can change around for your students and look at things from their perspective. I think these examples are very useful and can help make a change in the classroom. Overall, I thought this article was very interesting and educational.