Strand 3 TBTS: Communication and Collaboration

Communication and Collaboration: Thinking Behind the Strand

Meaningfully communicates and collaborates with students, families, and colleagues through a variety of interpersonal modes that support equity based teaching.

Communication and collaboration are key to successful teaching and learning. But sometimes, both communication and collaboration can be challenging, difficult, or uncomfortable. That said, teachers can’t avoid or neglect opportunities to share information that needs to be shared. Nor can they pass up chances to collaborate with others to strengthen their teaching and deepen their understanding of their students, school, families, and community.

Proactive and reciprocal communication

It can be easy to get into a pattern as a teacher where we spend most of our time in our classroom. There is so much to do and students and their learning seem to demand every minute of the day. Yet, we are all better when we collaborate with others and share our ideas. Our teaching improves because collaboration requires that we listen, consider, and factor in the perspectives and ideas of others.

Central to good communication is listening and responding to questions and concerns raised. This is time well-spent, as it helps to clarify assignments, expectations, and concerns; to better understand students; and to demonstrate respect for families and their children. “I’ve had many families tell me that they only hear from teachers when something bad happens” writes one middle school teacher. “I had one mom just gush about how much she appreciated hearing how well her son was doing in my class!” Too often, teachers wait to connect with their students’ families until a situation arises in the classroom that necessitates a call home. Studies show that making connections with families to communicate the events of the classroom, a student’s successes, or just to check in helps to build relationships with families and supports a positive classroom community. Those positive connections communicate to the family member that we welcome their help, their insights about their child, and that we are working as a team to support their child’s education.

Entering into collaborative work requires the same proactive, open mindset. Whether sharing space or sharing students, completing a committee task or participating in decisions about students’ placements, open and forthright communication with colleagues supports our own teaching and helps create a healthy and positive professional culture in our schools. Many teaching jobs require collaboration: through grade level teams or departments, on interdisciplinary units or to meet our students’ language or learning needs. Other times, opportunities present themselves to us that require collaboration: a visiting artist to collaborate on a teaching unit, parents who hope to volunteer in their child’s classroom, or an effort by the school to reimagine its structure. Collaboration is likely to go better when we approach such endeavors assuming positive intentions of all involved.

We also should be open to collaboration with our students. Especially in adolescence, young people have strong opinions about what they want to learn and how. The more we can view our teaching with a collaborative lens with our students, the more our students have opportunities to co-construct their own learning opportunities and greater opportunities to address equity in the classroom.

Modes of communication

Communication with students, families, colleagues, and the community takes multiple forms, due to the nature of the teacher’s audience or the developmental needs of the students. When students are younger, they’re less reliable to communicate what’s taking place in their classroom, what they’re learning, or what is expected of them. Elementary teachers rely on written communication, through newsletters sent home, but also through webpages, emails, and phone calls home, to make sure families are kept informed. When students are in middle childhood and middle school, they sometimes work toward thwarting communication between their teachers and families. Middle school teachers sometimes have to be particularly diligent about getting communications to families. During adolescence, teachers should include students among their audiences when planning for communications, and include ways of communicating that best meet their students’ needs.

Teachers who work with English language learners may need to tap colleagues and school or district translators for better communication with their students’ families.

Sometimes face-to-face communication is needed to best communicate with students and their families through conferences and home visits. When taken up with respect and care, these face-to-face approaches are powerful opportunities to learn about students’ home lives and communities.

Critically aware classroom presence

Another important awareness for us as teachers has to do with our teaching presence (as also discussed in the strand Role of Self). With regard to communication, how we communicate with our bodies, our tone of voice, our inflections, our use of humor, our movement in the room holds meaning for students and how they interpret our intentions. So much of what we do with our mere presence impacts the tone, character, and climate of our classrooms. We are models for behavior and arbiters of kindness and justice in how we talk to students, the ways we interact with them and facilitate their learning.

Digital footprints

As teachers, we must also be cognizant of how new and emerging technologies impact teaching and learning. Technology and social media play an important role in everyday life not only to convey information, but often also mediates the identities and activities of students. We should take the opportunity to keep apprised of the changing digital age and to adapt teaching and learning accordingly. Communicating through digital media offers a form of immediacy with students, families, and communities. But, we must also be mindful of our engagements on various digital platforms to ensure we are representing ourselves professionally and in ways that meaningfully respond to the needs of students, families, and communities.