Wisconsin Educator Standards: 10) Collaboration

Standard #10:  The teacher fosters relationships with school colleagues, parents, and agencies in the larger community to support students' learning and well being.

I understand students' right and responsibilities, and I respect their privacy.  I utilize my colleges and community resources to foster student learning.  I establish respectful and productive relationships with all of my students, parents and guardians.

Artifact one is a letter to the families of Mrs. Gaber's second grade class.  It is a letter I wrote to introduce myself to the families and the students, and to explain what my role would be in their classroom.  It was sent home the week before I began student teaching.

This letter directly fostered a positive relationship between the parents of Mrs. Gaber's class and me.  

Artifact eleven is a collection of my work from "The Trans- Amazon Expedition" with the Wilderness Classroom Organization.  I participated in the third stage of this expedition where, along with five other expedition members, I paddled a canoe on the Amazon River from Manaus to Belem (approximately 1,000 miles).  We were in internet contact with over 10,000 elementary and middle school students along the way.   We created a virtual field trip for students by posting journal entries, photographs, podcasts, interviews, short movies, and surveys and questionnaires for students.  In addition to our web site, there was a curriculum, written to Illinois state standards, to help teachers incorporate the WCO into their daily classroom activities.  

Many relationships with good communication were needed for this to be a successful expedition.  We had to communicate well among the expedition member to know who what going to work on each part of the day's update.  We communicated with schools and teachers so they would know when events such as live chats and school assemblies were happening.  Finally, most importantly, we had to communicate with the students following out expedition and make sure they got the best possible information from Brazil.