Now that everyone is engaged in your classroom, how do we involve people outside of the classroom? Perhaps you need to communicate with parents about a difficult student? Maybe you’ve noticed something that the counselors need to be involved in? Is the matter important enough to take to the administration? Or maybe you just need to talk to colleagues. There are many channels of communication that need to be open at any given time, even if there are no pressing issues. Keeping in touch with people doesn’t always have to revolve around negative situations. Sometimes a positive note home can also be effective to communicate with parent when dealing with a difficult student.
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I recommend getting to know all of the teachers in your subject area. Find out if they are willing to talk about their course material, lesson plans, projects, resources, etc. Your fellow colleagues are often times the best resources to use, especially for beginning teachers.
Rule of thumb: Communicate with other teachers!! More often than not, your colleagues will share resources and ideas and offer tips to make your life easier. More importantly though, your colleagues are a great support system at work. Having positive relations and friendships with staff is so important especially when you feeling exhausted or overwhelmed by the workload.
Don’t forget about the staff outside of your subject area. If you have concerns or questions about a student, often it is helpful to find out what other teachers are experiencing with that individual. So seek out a counselor and find out the student’s timetable: start up a dialogue with some of his/her other teachers, and you might gain some valuable insight into this student’s personality/situation, and hopefully some tips on how to better work with this person. And if nothing else, you’ll get to know more of your colleagues!
I definitely agree. It was great to have Adrienne observe me and point out that one student I have is in one of her classes. She noted that in her class he doesn’t talk at all and in mine he is one of the reasons for disruption in the class. It was good for me to hear that so I can understand him a little bit better and help deal with the situation in my own class better too.
Communication is extremely important in all aspects of your teaching. Be sure to look at communication with other teachers like the posts have mentioned above, communicate with parents via email, phone call, or face-to-face meeting. Using admin, office staff, and the counselors can also give you extra bits of information (like John mentioned). Collecting this information through these various channels helps to make well-informed decisions. A school staff hopefully uses teamwork to make decisions in the best interest of the students and school community as a whole.
Couldn’t agree with you more Ryan. I had a difficult time with a student missing my class, falling asleep in class, etc. Through communication with not only my SA but with the counselors and other teachers I was able to better understand the student and come to a solution with the student without having to take a negative approach and bring in parents and harsh everyones mood. By communicating with multiple sources and collaborating I was able to stamp out a problem before it could grow wings and fly. (Metaphors are fun!)