Blog #4: Chapter 4

     

    Chapter four titled, Building a Collaborative Culture in the book, The Connected Educator, starts off by discussing the importance of collaboration. Think to yourself, what was a moment in time where I collaborated with a peer or peers, and did the collaboration help you meet your end goal of what you were all working towards? Collaboration can be so useful, especially in the field of education. To collaborate with others, you must be willing to center "the focus on culture and the importance of shared ideals." (Hall and Nussbaum-Beach, p.58). This means making compromises to something you would do personally to ensure that there is teamwork and acceptance among all members. 

    The chapter then discusses putting relationships first. In this subtitle, we learn that relationships matter. This part of the chapter emphasizes the fact that relationships need to be nurtured and maintained to be successful. Relationships in your personal life must be maintained just as much as the ones in your professional life. Have you ever had a very successful relationship with someone in a professional setting? How has it made your experience in your profession better? Making sure we establish trust is one of the key factors in upholding a positive and successful relationship. "Trust, empathy, and reciprocity bond members together in any community or social setting." (Hall and Nussbaum-Beach, p.60). We must also be aware of our actions online when it comes to virtual relationships. Trust means having shared values and repeated desired behaviors among individuals. So, what we do or say online may affect the trust we are trying to build. But not only must we build trust to have a good relationship with one another, but we must also foster collegiality. This is very difficult to achieve due to these types of relationships cause real change. "These relationships are characterized by conversations, practice, problems, and solutions" that can be held or discussed to help your place of work overall. (Hall and Nussbaum-Beach, p.63). Another one of the most important factors that go into creating a good relationship is creating a shared vision. Doing this allows members to be able to visualize goals for the future and always try to move forward. This calls for lots of discussion and planning among members in the collaborative relationship. When it comes to the collaborative relationship, there are many steps or stages to follow as well. In order, the steps are forming, storming, morning, and performing.

    Chapter four then moves on to discuss how we need to put people's needs at the forefront of relationships. Individual issues should come first and should be addressed immediately. Ensuring that members care about other members will only increase the level of the relationship. Not only should collaboration be done to maintain the relationships but it should also be modeled in practice. "Through technology, we gain a deeper understanding of the world and help prepare students for an unknown future." (Hall and Nussbaum-Beach, p. 68). As a future educator, it is important to make sure students start to get comfortable at an early age collaborating with students of a different culture in both the physical and virtual worlds. But before we can teach this to students, we must learn how to do this first ourselves as educators.

    When becoming a future teacher, collaboration among coworkers and even the students in the classes is a really important concept to think about. Collaboration and relationships are the main factors that can either make or break a teacher's success. Having relationships as a teacher can be a really amazing resource. I have seen it in my student teaching and even substitute teaching. Many teachers that teach grades k-6 really depend on those relationships with other teachers. Not only is collaboration important to maintain good relationships with other teachers, but collaboration can also promote inclusive learning environments for students. Student-teacher relationships are just as important as teacher-teacher relationships. Students should be able to walk into a classroom and feel welcomed and safe with their teacher. They should know that they can go to their teacher whenever they can and trust their teacher to give them the proper and equal education that they deserve. Therefore, trying to build trusting and positive relationships among everyone in the school system could be an amazing benefit to multiple people including the students. As a future teacher, I would definitely make sure I take the steps necessary to build those desirable relationships.

Nussbaum-Beach, S., & Hall, L. R. (2012). The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age. Solution Tree Press.