Why Do Parents Sometimes Perceive Of The Other Team Members?

I am going to be looking at and discussing how to improve on my own and team practice. Within this, I will be discussing why it is important to continue with my professional development and why team work is important in schools. I will also be describing why it is important to be respectful of the skills and expertise that others can bring to the team.

1.Briefly explain why it is important that the team work together when supporting children and young people’s play.

When Initially planning a parent/ carers teacher conference concerning a child’s performance in the classroom. It is essential to be prepared and show sensitivity towards parents and children. As a kindergarten teacher and mother of 1, I understand the anxiety parents feel in regards to their children and their achievements. We as educators need to address professional standard 3.7 Engage parents/carers in the educative process this can be achieved by describing a broad range of strategies for involving parents/carers in the educative process (AITSL, 2010).

‘’Working together in partnership allows a parent to see exactly what goes on in the classroom and how the staff cope with a large number of children. There is mutual appreciation and understanding of each other’s role.’’ C.Hobart and J.Frankel A practical guide to working with parents 2003

In the environment today, it is not unusual to see people working in teams to accomplish certain goals and tasks. During our youth, parents and teachers encourage us through various methods to work as part of a team. Whether a sports team, classroom team, or after school activities, parents and teachers and other authority figures start the introduction of working in teams and teaching the value of being able to work together to accomplish a common goal. As people progress through the various stages of their lives, everyone continues to strive to communicate. Communication is a part of everyday life. It may be overlooked in some areas, but when dealing with a team environment, communication is vital. One

In many aspects of life, it is essential that you work with other individuals as a team. You can work in a team whether it is school, work, or your personal life. This year I started working for Inner City Education Foundation public charter schools, specifically ICEF Inglewood Elementary Academy. The school has approximately 40 staff members that were all placed together by the director of the school. There are multiple classifications at my job such as instructional assistants, teachers, office staff, intervention specialists, operations, and janitors, but we all operate as one unit. Through the five stages of team development, our team developed and continues to develop into a successful team.

Collaboration between teachers is a key component to professional development that will lead to higher student achievement. There is a need for schools to set up time for teachers to be able to collaborate together. This allows for teachers to help each other, matchup content, teach each other new and best practices, troubleshoot student issues just to name a few of the areas that collaboration time can help foster within a school. The key is to build time for teachers to be able to collaborate during the school day or week. This collaboration time needs to be between grade levels, departments, and cross curricular when needed. For many schools this is an afterthought to the school schedule or a fleeting thought after the master schedule is completed. A principal needs to keep an open mind to any strategy that will enable the teachers to be able to collaborate for the good of the students and the school.

Although it is important for families to be involved with their child’s school, school personnel should also strive to create a positive interaction with families of students. Carl Dunst (2002) states that school and parent collaboration is necessary, and if schools take on a more family-centered approach, it will help create a supportive environment and help to strengthen a family’s capacity to enhance and promote a child’s development and learning.

Having played a variety of team sports throughout my life, I saw a lot of parallels throughout the class work on team building between positive teamwork and success. Reading Five Dysfunctions of a Team and then applying what we learned from the reading into several team building exercise gave me a unique perspective on how to create and identify key team building skills.

During my second preclinical experience at Westview Hills Middle School, I learned the importance of cooperation and collaboration among teachers at a school. I was able to observe team and department meetings during this experience. It became clear that it is important for teachers to work together in order to provide a positive atmosphere at a school and in a specific department. Although it became obvious that personalities and teaching styles were different throughout the school, the teachers still acted professionally and used each other as resources in

I have observed many attempts at collaborative settings but have seen very few effective ones. At my school, we currently have opportunities to collaborate. However, the opportunity to do it effectively is not frequent. There is rarely any co-planning making it difficult to see examples of properly shared roles and responsibilities that should take place in collaborative settings. What I have observed is one teacher, the content teacher, preparing everything pertaining to the lesson, delivery and assessment, and the co-teacher either the other content teacher, ESL teacher or Special Education teacher sitting back or working with one student. There exist no regular meeting for long term planning and very little daily interaction for the purpose

Constructive working relationships between teachers and parents can enhance adults knowledge and understanding of children and children’s learning opportunities, and so contribute to children’s learning and wellbeing at home and in the setting. Children who see their parents working closely together with their teachers “gain a sense of continuity and of being cared for” and experience a “trusting

Collaboration is important in providing support strategies for all students in a school setting, not just the students that need specific learning plans. By collaborating with others such as parents or guardians, medical practitioners or other specialist services we can ensure that we are gathering enough information to be able to support these students in our classrooms and ensure that we are including these students. Collaboration can be as simple as maintaining open communication between the parties included, making sure to have all the facts that are pertinent to your ability to teach the student so that they can get the most out of the lesson. This strategy is known as differentiation and as Linda Graham states “Differentiation is a long word that sounds complicated but it just means teachers plan for the children who are actually in their class, instead of designing lessons for their idea of the “average” child.” (Graham, 2016). I also think that is important to collaborate with the student during this process also, if an Individual Learning Plan (ILP) is needed to support the student then I would include that student as well as the parent or guardians in the implementation process of the ILP. It is important during collaboration to make sure that we are not creating a

Fundamentally the role of the classroom teacher is to implement strategies to support, engage and extend the learning of all individuals. In order for this to occur we need to also consider how we involve, collaborate and communicate with parents, fellow colleagues and specialised teachers. Ashman and Elkins (2008) state that teachers need to make themselves aware of the support systems they can access or create to support the needs of all students. This in turn will ultimately enhance teaching potential allowing teachers to fully maximise learning for all. I personally believe that collaboration is not only essential to the professional growth of teachers (Cramer & Stivers, 2007), but a vital key when acting in the best interest of the students and their families.

All four processes- collaboration, consultation, teamwork, and co-teaching, as they occur in the school context, involve interaction among school personnel, families, and students working together to achieve common goals. (Dettmer, Dyck, Thurston, 2005, p. 7)