InTASC Standard #10- Leadership and Collaboration
InTASC Standard #10 Leadership and Collaboration- The teacher seeks appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for student learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, and community members to ensure learner growth, and to advance the profession (InTASC, 2013).
Brief Description of Evidence:
In the Spring of 2020 in my EDUC 230 The Exceptional Child course, my group participated in three simulated case conferences. We were not the same role twice and had the chance to be a different role for each case conference. Some of the roles were: General Education teacher, Title I teacher, Title I instructional assistant, Special Education teacher, and Principal. In preparing for the conferences we were given different student’s information to choose from.
We chose a 9-year-old girl, Victoria, who lost her dad when she was a toddler. She had struggled in school since kindergarten and had been working with a paraprofessional 20 minutes a day in a 1-1 learning environment. Her mom, Amelia had also taken advantage of the BSU student tutors provided by the school. Victoria has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and taking Adderall three times a day. Victoria had a delay in her language art skills and because of that her anxiety had increased, she often resisted attending school.
Analysis of What I Learned:
When we were preparing for our case conferences, we established our leadership roles and took on the responsibility of student learning. I established my leadership roles as a General Education teacher, Title I teacher, Paraprofessional, and parent. We had a meeting with the family member(s) of our student to help with the progress of our student’s learning growth. When my group had the opportunity to decide if our student qualified for a 504 or an IEP Plan, I learned the difference between the two and when it is best to use one over the other. I then learned how to write an example of an IEP plan.
I was able to establish my appropriate role as a Title I teacher because I had previously worked as a Title I instructional assistant at an elementary school. I had hands-on experience observing the Title I teachers' lesson planning, leading instructional time with their groups, and being able to ask questions about implementing a lesson or get ideas on how to teach a lesson. When taking on the role of the general education teacher I talked to former colleagues on how to better participate in a case conference that would best help the student.
The child selected in the case conference, Victoria, was in the grade my daughter had previously been in. I was able to use her different learning activities from school as examples of Victoria’s work. In the case conferences, I came in contact with different parent types. In the first case conference, a group member played the role of the parent and was willing to listen to the advice and feedback given to her about her daughter. For the second and third case conference our instructor, Sarah, played the role of the parent, she was a storyteller, she was very detailed when she was over-sharing information. In the third conference, she was willing to listen to feedback that was offered by the educational staff.
How This Artifact Demonstrates my Competence on the InTASC Standard:
In working in a group for our simulated case conferences, I am able to demonstrate my competence in standard 10 because my group collaborated with the family member(s) and other educational staff of our student to come up with a plan to ensure learner growth. I took on the roles of the General Education teacher, Title I teacher, Paraprofessional, and parent. I took on the appropriate roles to collaborate with families, colleagues, and other school professionals such as the principal and the Special Education teacher. Having the opportunity to interact with different parent types such as easygoing, confrontational, and oversharing, gave me confidence that I would be able to conduct a successful, future case conference and was good practice for future families that I would potentially collaborate with. As a result of this experience, I am able to advance the teaching profession by having the knowledge of Special Education processes that will not only help my learners but also being able to share it with colleagues.
The Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck influenced my learning to advance in my professional knowledge. The difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset is the growth mindset is always improving and the fixed mindset is harder to grow (“So… Can you mold a student’s belief about potential success?” n.d.). Even though I had previous knowledge of a 504 plan and IEP, I did not allow my mindset to stay fixed on that knowledge. Instead, I opened up my mind to grow, learn, and improve my knowledge of the process of developing an IEP or 504 plan.
(n.d.). Retrieved March 2, 2020, from https://www.teachit.so/mindset.htm
