6600: Communication and Collaboration

When working with any group of people, many factors coincide to create a healthy work environment or an unhealthy one.  As teachers, we are given the task of working together, but also with the goal in mind of educating students.  It seems that this responsibility is larger than the responsibility of a corporation, as we affect the lives and education of hundreds of young people every day.

In the discussion board this week, as well as in the article How Conversations Can Change Educators’ and Students’ Lives by Susan Scott, several points were raised about the necessity of collaborative work environments.  Scott (2009) presents the idea of the ‘fierce’ conversation.  As Scott puts it, “a fierce conversation is one in which we come out from behind ourselves into the conversation and make it real” (2009, p. 53).  This is the type of conversation that classmate Karen Soine mentioned in her post titled Do We Know HOW to Talk About Student Learning? It is a conversation that is not easy and ‘surface’ level, but one that requires the members of the conversation to push beyond the comfort of “the students got it”, to delve into “why did the students get it?” and “how do I know the students got it?”

After an experience I had this week reflecting on my own teaching, I was thinking that this conversation could be collaborative with students as well.  Scott discusses the qualities that a good teacher has and quotes Malcom Gladwell stating “there is a back-and-forth exchange to get a deeper understanding” (Gladwell, 2008).  During a lesson on Friday, I had told my students that they would need to be prepared with a possible problem they may encounter during the next project.  However, during the discussion portion, I let them off the hook, with only a few people contributing.  I felt a bit uncomfortable with the lack of ‘volunteers’ so I dropped it and had them move on to the next portion of the activity.  I overlooked the opportunity to engage my students in that back-and-forth exchange which would have deepened their understanding of the content.

I recognize that the focus of this course is on communication and collaboration between colleagues, but I can’t help but spread these ideas to collaboration within the classroom.  While it is my goal to engage in ‘fierce’ conversations with my colleagues and administrators, I would also like to extend this idea to my students.  Forcing myself to be meta-cognitive has engaged and informed my instructional practice.  It is my responsibility to foster that back-and-forth and not overlook those opportunities for my students.

References

Scott, S. (2009). How conversations can change educators’ and students’ lives. National Staff Development Council, 30(3), 53-54.

Soine, K. (2009). Do we know how to talk about student learning? EDC 6600 Discussion Board Post, Mod. 1, Autumn 2009.