Lets talk Collaboration
Hello everyone. Once again, I’m back to talk about/reflect on something in education. This time its collaboration. This semester in practicum we had so many opportunities to build and use this skill. But, I think I will stick to just a couple of times we either had to use the skills we already have or got a chance to grow as a collaborator.
The first opportunity that comes to mind is all the time I spent in the field with my mentor. From the moment I set foot in Mrs. H’s room, I was expected to work with her to build my skills and get my toes wet as someone on the path to being an educator. But, to also work together and collaborate with her and the occasional ed techs to help students achieve the learning goals set out by Mrs. H. This is something that could not have happened without the ability to collaborate. Any time you add more educators or teachers into the mix in a room if you can't get everyone on the same page students can’t succeed. A really shining example of this was when I was gearing up for being observed by my field director Professor K. (side note I will never use a full name on this blog unless it is a pseudonym or I have their express permission) Professor K comes in to view all practicum students and whilst doing so we are expected to be the sole person delivering the lesson with only mild support from our mentor teacher. This is nerve-wracking. However, I managed to pass my observation with flying colors and the students loved the lesson. The reason I did so well, I attribute to the collaboration and work that was done beforehand with Mrs. H. We both had to sit down during a prep period and look at where the students really are, what am I confident in content-wise to teach by myself, and what is appropriate for the class that I will be teaching. Without working together in a professional manner these questions would not have been able to be answered nor would the lesson ever have been effective.
The second experience I had in practicum that I think of that really involved collaboration came from the latter half of the semester when everything went online. During the second half, there was a project where two other practicum students and I had to read, think critically, and create a discussion about a chapter in a book called “spirit whispers.” Now anytime you talk about group work you are essentially talking about collaboration. In order for us to properly pull out the core ideas, reflect, and not overlap each other we had to work together. The reason this was extra challenging, however, is the fact that this was at the very beginning of us doing classes online so we had no way to be in person. so we had to get creative. We used our class page, and Facebook messenger to work together, process ideas and ultimately turn out what I would consider a relatively good conversation about the particular chapter in the book.
The last thing that happened that I want to touch on is the Facebook group chat that the spring 2020 practicum group had. Not because a group chat is inherently a collaborative thing (believe me I’m in plenty that are anything but) but, that anytime one of us faced a hardship or a challenge we all kind of came together as a collective to form a solution
To me, that's what collaboration is in its rawest and purest form. It’s people coming together and working toward a goal as equals. Whether that goal is as small as working together to get assignments in or as large as trying to find a solution to effective online learning.