Chapter Four Review

After reading chapter four of, "The Connected Educator", I have realized how important it is to build a collaboration with my future co-workers or even people in my field online.  Collaboration is sometimes a difficult thing to achieve in traditional environments.  While collaborating with others, it is important to focus on culture and the importance of shared ideals.  Culture has to deal with values, norms, and beliefs.  Sadly, most professional development opportunities fail to encourage collaborations.  Collaboration should be enforced in many career fields because of how easy it is to connect with others on the internet.  The book states, " Collaboration grows from relationships in which trust, collegiality, shared vision, and group development flourish."

The first way to create a positive collaboration is to put your relationships first.  Social interactions are key.  In social interactions you often begin with a greeting and some personal information about yourself.  These social interactions become the bases for getting to know each other and finding common perspectives and experiences.  Congeniality refers to the polite, friendly relationship we have with one another.  Being polite to people makes them feel comfortable around you.  They will want to talk to you more and collaborate on ideas.  Collegiality is a shared belief that none of us is as good as all of us, and we can all contribute to improved individual practice.  Be yourself and do not act like you are better than anyone else.  Every individual can learn more if they open up their mind.

The second way to create a positive collaboration is to establish trust.  Trust is where one individual is vulnerable to another because they have built the confidence that the other is reliable, honest, competent, and open.  Building trust does not have to only be defined as social interactions, you can also build trust with people online.  The willingness to be a transparent learner is also a trust-building factor.  If you say you are going to do something, stick with your word and complete it.  This will show your followers that you are a transparent leader and can be trusted.  It is easier to build trust in face to face interactions, but you can be transparent and sharing information about yourself allows people to trust you through a screen.

The third step to collaboration is very important in my eyes.  Once you have found trust with people, you need to create a shared vision.  The group as a whole needs to define what their vision is for their collaboration.  A shared vision that connects passion, day-to-day work, and school improvement is important in creating a collaboration.  The first step to create a shared vision is to ask your group simple questions: What are our guiding principles for how we should operate and work together? and What should school look like to support the needs of today's learners?

The final step is to know and understand the stages of collaboration.  The first stage is "forming".  Forming is where the individuals get to know one another and have meaningful interactions.  The second stage is "storming".  This is where collaboration can become tricky.  This is where the members of the group start to disagree and one individual needs to step up and guide their group in the right direction.  The third step is "norming".  This is where the members of the group will figure out who is to do what to meet deadlines.  The last stage is "performing".  This is where the group is achieving their goals.  This is when the collaboration takes place.

Collaboration is huge in the field of education.  Teachers have to work together in their grade level that they teach.  Usually their is one leader in the group and the others can chime in input when they feel it is needed.  Last year when I was completing my 90 hours, my co-teacher shared with me that their grade level leader was a new young teacher who was not eager to work and it created a bad dynamic for the group.  My co-teacher took it upon herself to start collaborating with other teachers in her grade level around the district to see what was or or was not working.  These collaborations are what she says leads to her success.  An educator is never done learning.  You have to keep up with the times and see what is fresh to benefit your student's needs.  Even as a student in the school of education, I have collaborated with many of my fellow students to see what lessons they are teaching, how are they disciplining their students, and other useful tips and tricks.  These collaborations can help me create new ideas and concepts for my students.  I never plan to stop collaborating with others, because I am never done learning.