LEADERSHIP & 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.

I believe it is important for teachers to view leadership as a collaborative effort with other teachers in
order to promote professional development and growth and the improvement of educational services to
students. Teachers are now forging a number of new and unique leadership roles through their own
initiative by developing and implementing programs they personally believe will result in positive
change and promote learning among students. I believe it is also important for parents to participate
meaningfully in their childrens education, including those whose children receive special education
services. Research has demonstrated that parent/family involvements significantly contribute to
improved student outcomes. This evidence is consistent, positive, and convincing at St. Thomas school
and in the classroom I am currently student teaching because families have a major influence on their
childrens achievement in school and through life. My cooperating teacher has consistently demonstrated
effective collaboration with the parents by clearly communicating students learning abilities, struggles
and other exciting learning activities to the parents in the fourth grade website. She has also used email
distribution systems to update parents on what is happening in the school and also involve parents in the
learning activities of the students. Retired parents have volunteered several times to assist as sub teachers
when the class teachers were sick and could not come to school. My cooperating teacher has consistently
shared this knowledge of leadership skill with her students by assigning weekly leadership functions to
the students in the classroom. Every childs education takes place within a relationship of families and
professionals. As parents and schools learn the value and methods of effective collaboration, they can
create together an educational environment that supports the abilities of all children to succeed.
Evidence
My first piece of evidence was the newsletter I created to inform students and their families on what
would be happening in the fourth grade classroom and in the school at large. I was challenged to create
this newsletter the week my cooperating teacher was sick and absent from school. I found this interesting
and encouraging because it keeps families informed on what is going on in school and provide parents
with various extensions to enrich the learning of their child.

4th Grade Newsletter for the week of

February 5
Ask your child about

Upcoming
Tuesday Feb 9: SE region states
and capitals test and afternoon
Valentines/pizza party
Tuesday 4:30 8 pm: Optional
Parent Teacher Conferences
Wednesday: Ash Wednesday
Mass: 12:30
Friday Feb 12 & Monday Feb 15:
Mid-Winter Break; no school.
Mark these dates on your
calendar; information will be
coming home soon:
March 9th: Songfest
March 14: Reconciliation

Automata
Song Fest pen pals
Introduction to Market Day
Valentines plans
Sr. Kates power point
Winning a pizza party
Catholic Schools week
activities
Faith Rally
Living Rosary, etc.

Wow, this next month will be busy! Information that you need will be coming home for each of
the events.
In class we introduced Automata, which we will be building. These tie into our current book
The Invention of Hugo Cabret. This is an in class project; no homework involved.
We also introduced the upcoming Market Day. Specific due dates and information will be
coming home as we get to each new part. In class we discussed in depth, that this is designed
for students to design their own product, do a trial Mini Market, to see how it sells, then
redesign, re-market it if needed and then do a second Mini Market. It is a guided trial and error
experience where students see the design, marketing and advertising process intended to help
them become savvier about what they buy.
By Sr. Kate Okolocha.

Evidence #2
My second piece of evidence is a summary of the reading conference sessions I completed
during my course (EN 440 Literacy III). The literacy development knowledge helped me to
provide a data about my teaching and the students performance, which I shared with my tutee
parents during the parent/guardian conference. A copy of this student summary was also sent to
the parents at the end of the reading conference sessions. I found this interesting because it
helped us to know what the student had accomplished, and guided me towards setting new goals
for my students higher literacy development. It also updated parents on what happened during
the reading workshop sessions and provided them with various extensions to enrich the learning
needs of their child.

Miya Slagle

Sharing

List Student Strengths

Parent/Guardian Conference
(20-30 minutes)
Time

Details

Materials

Miya has great interest in

reading books, and has
improved in her reading.
She can retell most
stories without
questions or prompts
from the teacher. She
includes some important
details, and refers to
most characters by name
when retelling. She reads
with some expression
and smooth talking
voice. She identifies and
connects some key
events without
prompting from the
beginning, middle, and
end. She uses vocabulary
from the text, and gives a
relevant reason for
response (personal
connection) She also
makes a literal
connection that reflects a
basic understanding of a
story.

Caps For Sale, by

Esphyr Slobodkina.
I just forgot, by Mercer
Mayer.
Delivering your mail,
by Ann Owen.
Dinosaur planet, by
David Orme.

Goals for Tutoring

Assessment Data

Activities

To read smoothly at an
appropriate rate and
with good expression
paying attention to
punctuation and
phrasing. Think and talk
about what they read,
improve understanding
by predicting and
retelling with pictures.
The quick phonic
screener assessment
data given to me at the
start of the tutoring
showed the following
scores: 70% in
Consonant Diagraphs,
50% in silent E words,
70% in R controlled
vowels, and 88% in sight
words. She was reading
at level 12 when we
started. She is now
reading at level 14, and
will be reading at level
16 soonest.
The quick phonic
screener assessment I
gave Miya, she got the
following scores: 85% in
Consonant diagraph
words like (phat, whack,
thanked, wham etc.)
90% in Silent E words
like (mule, gate, mile,
etc.) 85% in R Controlled
words like (mart, Bert,
flirt, perk, etc.) She also
got 98% in the sight
words assessment like
(were, any, even, etc.)
Some of the activities we
worked on include:
Prediction, we learned
how readers get their
minds ready to read (say
the title out loud, name
what you notice about
what the book might be

about, etc.) Fluency, we

learned the strategies
readers use to figure our
tricky words in their
book (move your eyes
from text to picture,
study the picture very
closely, think about what
is going on in the story,
say the beginning letter
sound of the word, say
the end letter sound of
the word). We learned
strategies readers use to
read in a smooth regular
talking voice (Think
about the meaning of the
sentence or story in your
mind, go back and reread
the sentence from the
beginning thinking about
what will make sense,
read the words
together). We learned
how readers use
punctuation as a clue to
help them read the
words smoothly (A
period tells us to take a
quick break and then
keep going, readers
voice change when they
see a question mark,
readers voice sound
excited when they see an
exclamation point).
Comprehension, we
learned the strategies
readers use to retell a
book when they are done
with reading it (Use
characters name when
retelling a story, identify
where the action is
taking place in the story,
follow the events of the
story from the beginning
by using words such as;
first, next, then, finally.
Check the book when

Game
(played with student)
This is optional

you get stuck with

retelling). I modeled how
to apply each of these
strategies when reading
a book and also asked
students to practice
using the strategies
while I listened in. I
assigned a book to each
student to read first, and
then I listened in to how
they read and apply the
strategies when they
read the book the second
time and I offered
corrections when
necessary. Students were
also engaged in writing
sentences about what
happened at the
beginning, middle, and
end of the story book
they read. We talked
about it and I gave
suggestions to help them
improve their writing.
Sight Words pick and read
activity.