Standard 2.4: Collaborator
From the ISTE website (2024):
Educators dedicate time to collaborate with both colleagues and students to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems.
a. Collaborate with colleagues - Dedicate planning time to collaborate with colleagues to create authentic learning experiences that leverage technology.
b. Learn alongside students - Collaborate and co-learn with students to discover and use new digital resources, and diagnose and troubleshoot technology issues.
c. Use collaborative tools - Use collaborative tools to expand students' authentic, real-world learning experiences by engaging virtually with experts, teams and students, locally and globally.
d. Demonstrate cultural competency - Demonstrate cultural competency when communicating with students, parents and colleagues, and interact with them as co-collaborators in student learning.
Reflection:
This standard is about working with others to solve problems and improve teaching and learning. As a specials teacher in an elementary/middle school, I work closely with the academic subject teachers to complement the skills and knowledge they are working on. I also partner with the other specials teachers to develop collaborative projects.
Teaching becomes more effective when it is collaborative and interdisciplinary. Schools should facilitate common planning time across both grade levels and disciplines to encourage collaboration. On several occasions, I have learned about something the students were doing in another class, and it gave me an idea for a complementary project in my class.
Featured Artifact:
My artifact for this standard is a video that shows interactive holiday projects that my 7th grade students created last year, working both with me and the art teacher. Students developed a creative project within a cardboard box using a variety of art supplies. Then, they applied electronics and coding skills from my class to make the project light up and move. Watch the video.
Secondary Artifact:
Student Code of Conduct for Technology which I collaborated with other teachers and administrators to create for our students.
Sources:
American University School of Education. (2023, May 13). The importance of teacher collaboration. https://soeonline.american.edu/blog/teacher-collaboration-importance/
International Society for Technology in Education. (2024). ISTE standards: For educators. https://iste.org/standards/educators