The leadership and collaboration INTASC standard ensure teachers seek out leadership roles and opportunities within their school. Teachers should take personal responsibility for their students’ learning by working along side families, professionals, colleagues, and community members to ensure learner growth and advancement in their profession. Some of the ways I portrayed this standard as a student teacher was by working in partnership with my colleagues, collaborating with school specialists, and taking part in school wide initiatives.
I portrayed the leadership and collaboration standard by communicating with my colleagues. This included participating in daily fifth grade team meetings with the other two fifth grade teachers and weekly fifth grade team meetings with the other fifth grade teachers, principal, and vice principal. These meetings were to discuss challenges, ideas, parent concerns, current content and homework assignments. These meetings ensured that all teachers stayed on the same page and could answer each child’s question consistently.
To maintain classroom consistency, it was important to collaborate with other specialists. Collaboration included working alongside special education teachers, the school counselor, and the school librarian who was also responsible for fifth grade math remediation this year. We discussed the needs of each child and the steps we could individually take to ensure all children were given what they needed to be successful.
Also, as a student teacher, I attempted to take part in school wide initiatives to the best of my ability. This included assisting the school counselor with her implementation of the “Expect Respect” school wide initiative. Part of this initiative required teachers to go through a training on how to empower students to stand up to their peers when they see bullying or disrespectful behavior happening. Teachers were asked to remind students to use the stop signal before asking for teacher interference.