Welcome to the course! Assignments, which can be found below, should be individually e-mailed as Word documents or PDFs to andrewfrisch1107@gmail.com. Please do NOT share as Google Docs! Ten assignments are to be completed for the course. Assignments 1, 9 & 10 and 12 are mandatory, and you can select the other six assignments.
Assignment # 1: Course Introduction
Welcome to the "Strategies for Effective Teacher Collaboration" online course! I’m looking forward to reading your assignments and hoping that this will be a positive and productive experience for you.
Please write a brief letter of introduction, including the following:
What school district and school you teach in;
Grade and subject area;
How long you've been teaching;
What you like most about your job;
What most interests you about the course topic?
(Note: If you have taken previous online courses with me, please feel free to use the same letter of introduction.)
Assignment # 2: Your Definition of Collaboration
Please write a few paragraphs on what collaboration with your colleagues has been like in the past. Please address, at minimum, the following:
What do you consider to be effective collaboration?
In what ways do you collaborate with your colleagues?
What, in your mind, are the pros and cons of teacher collaboration?
Assignment # 3: The Benefits of Teacher Collaboration
Please read the following article: https://districtadministration.com/the-benefits-of-teacher-collaboration/. Summarize and reflect on the article, and share some of your viewpoints that resulted from reading the article.
Assignment # 4: Belief Systems
Please read the following article: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/educational-beliefs-collide-teachers-elena-aguilar. Summarize and reflect on your own practice in regards to this.
After it lists the descriptions of the belief systems, under the heading "You, Your Principal, and Your Colleagues", the article asks a series of questions. Please answer those as well. Here they are:
"After reading these descriptions, go back and rank them according to your personal priorities and belief systems. Now imagine doing this activity with a group of colleagues. What do you think the results might be at your school? What stance do you think your principal holds? What do you suspect is the impact of working with people who hold different stances?"
Assignment # 5: Video about Collaboration
Please view the following video: https://youtu.be/BG7kMkNrzwY. Please reflect on the video. Noteworthy is that the video takes place internationally. What experience/what have you heard about education internationally in regards to education?
Update (Summer 2023): The website now requires one free view then a subscription. I think this is a great video, but if you're uncomfortable with signing up, feel free to find a different video on the topic.
Assignment # 6: Inclusion and Co-Teaching
Please read through the following article: https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-choose-co-teaching-model
Please give a comprehensive summary and reflection on this article. Inclusion is definitely part of the educational game, so in addition to the tasks outlined above, reflect on inclusion in your district and how you would like to see it improve. Is there anything you can do now to improve your own inclusion classes or help maximize learning for general and special education students in your classes?
Assignment # 7: Collaboration in Remote Learning
Covid-19 has certainly affected education in every possible way. We are somewhat removed from it now, but please reflect on your experience and answer the following prompts.
In what ways did you collaborate with your colleagues during Covid-19? What worked and what didn't?
What have you (and/or your school) kept and what has been abandoned?
Assignment # 8: Independent Research
Please use an Internet search to find an article related to teacher collaboration. Summarize and reflect on the article. Also, please apply it to your own situation and how you might use some of the ideas presented. Also, please copy and paste the link to the article.
Assignments # 9 and 10: Putting it into Practice (MANDATORY)
At this point, you’ve read and viewed strategies about collaboration between teachers. Now I’d like you to put it to use! I’d like you to collaborate with one or more colleagues on a teaching a lesson, creating an assessment or anything related to your teaching (or, reflect on something you have already done that has been collaborative in nature). Outline your strategy for working with your colleague(s), describe the process, and explain any high and low points of the process. I’d really like you to reflect deeply on this task and explain what you would do the same and what you would do differently in the future. Did this process align with your original definition of collaboration? There really is quite a lot you can write about here, so I’d like the assignment to be at least two pages (double-spaced, 12 point font). Hence, this is why it counts double! Good luck and have fun with this one!
Assignment # 11: Technology and Collaboration
How do you currently use technology to collaborate with your colleagues? Once you’ve reflected on that, I’d like you to use an Internet search to see if there are any applications/websites out there that help to foster and expedite collaboration between colleagues – some examples are Dropbox and Google Drive. Write about how these tools can help you collaborate with your colleagues.
Assignment # 12: Course Evaluation
Thanks so much for being a part of this online course! It’s been a pleasure being your instructor.
For your final assignment, please write a brief evaluation of the course.
In your evaluation, please indicate your overall satisfaction with the course. Also, it would be helpful to hear which assignments you liked best and which you found particularly interesting, informative or relevant. Please let me know which topics you most enjoyed learning about.
All comments are welcome and, again, thanks for spending this time at a CORE Professional Development online course!