Running head: EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION

Effective Communication and Collaboration

Regent University
Mike Lewis

In partial fulfillment of UED 496 Field Experience ePortfolio, Fall 2015

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Introduction
"Communication involves the negotiation of meaning between people" (Wiggins, 2005,
p. 138). Effective communication and collaboration is key to any career, especially when a
career involves people working together for a common purpose. In teaching, educators work
with parents and administrators, as well as various specialists and other teachers to plan,
collaborate, and give lessons. Specialists are anyone from math, reading, technology, and library
resource teachers to special education teachers and assistants to music, art, and guidance
teachers. All of these people need to be communicated with to accomplish effective instruction
for the students. Effective communication skills, problem solving, and group dynamics,
administrators and teachers can collaborate to make meetings productive (Partin, 2009, line
2519). Along with instructional needs, there are also, custodial, clinic, cafeteria, and office staff
to communicate and collaborate with on a regular basis.
Rationale
The two artifacts I have chosen for this competency are emails between myself and the
special education teacher working with my grade level and the reading resource specialist for the
school and the letter I sent home to the parents at the beginning of the year. I have many more
artifacts gathered from sitting in on planning meetings for various testing and collaborations
available upon request.
Email
I have included two emails in this artifact. The first is an email between myself and the
reading specialist, Mrs. Read. In the first collaboration meeting with her, myself, Ms. Coleman,
and Ms. Craig the other LA teacher in fourth grade, we talked about what we wanted to use for

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homework reading logs this year. I mentioned that I had found a really good resource on
Teachers pay Teachers (TpT). The email conversation is of myself and Mrs. Read following up
on the reading logs. I sent her the link that we planned to purchase for her to review, and Ms.
Coleman and I put our money together to buy it. The second email is between myself and Ms.
Casa, the special education teacher that works with fourth grade. We have made the routine of
sending her the finished lesson plans, and she has been making visual representations of the
vocabulary words in the reading lessons to accommodate the inclusion students. In this email, I
went ahead and made this accommodation myself when I made the Power Point for the lesson. I
let her know in this email that she did not have to make a Power Point for this lesson because I
already included it in my lesson. I also copied Ms. Coleman, my Cooperating teacher and Ms.
Craig, the other LA on the grade level.
Parent Letter
The parent letter was my initial communication with the parents of the students in the
class that went home with families that came out to the meet and greet before school started and
with the rest of the students the first day of school that did not come to the meet and greet. There
was a packet of information that went home about many things. In it were letters from both Ms.
Coleman and myself, as well as various papers to be signed and brought back. This is not the
only interaction I have had with parents. I regularly see parents as they come to have lunch with
their students. I was at the open house night at Windsor Oaks and met many of the parents there.
I also have been involved in two parent-teacher conferences.
Reflections
Communication is so important. When I was a youth pastor, I learned this skill of over
communicating. My first couple of years were rough because parents would constantly complain

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about not knowing what was going on even though I put information about what we were doing
in the weekly bulletin and the monthly newsletter. Then I learned the art of over communicating.
Communicating became something to be delegated with people who collaborated on an event.
Not only would information be put on weekly bulletins and monthly calendars, but information
was sent through email and talked about in meetings. Flyers were sent home, and students were
given responsibility for announcing what was going to other people. Social media was used and
our website was used. Every possible information tool was taken advantage of until the day
arrived when someone said that they had seen our information everywhere. They had even heard
a commercial on FM99. Then I knew that I had over communicated effectively to the point that
people were almost annoyed with how much they knew about what we were doing. Thats when
I really started to understand about collaborating. The more people were involved in the making
of whatever we were doing be it an event or some part of the ministry at the church, the more
they would talk about it to people and the communication became organic.
This is the same for communication and collaboration in schools. The more people are
involved in what is going on in the classroom, the more people will know about what is going on
because it will just naturally get out by word of mouth and the more enriched the learning will be
because more people will be involved in the lesson.
This is also true about the Gospel. Think about all of the people that God entrusted with
the message of the gospel. Long before Jesus even came, God told Adam and Eve that He would
send His son to fix the problem that they created. As years went by, He prepared a people that
would be protected for the purpose of giving birth to the flesh that the Son of God would wear.
Along the way law givers, prophets, judges, preachers, kings, and so many more would be part
of the message of God becoming man, all passing the stories down until it was written to be

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passed on further. Then, a poor family was entrusted with the care and raising of the fragile Boy
that would grow to save the world. Since then, the Sons followers wrote and spoke publically
about what He did which was written down and preserved and passed to us through early fathers,
saints, and brave men translating writings to common languages in the form of a 66 volume set
of books known as the Bible. Talk about over communicating!

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Reference
Partin, Ronald L. (2009-12-15). The Classroom Teacher's Survival Guide: Practical Strategies,
Management Techniques and Reproducibles for New and Experienced Teachers (J-B Ed:
Survival Guides). Wiley. Kindle Edition.
(TpT) Teaching Resources & Lesson Plans | Teachers Pay Teachers. (n.d.). Retrieved December
13, 2015, from https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/
Wiggins, Grant; McTighe, Jay (2005-03-22). Understanding by Design, Expanded 2nd Edition.
Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Kindle Edition.