Stephanie Stumvoll
Collaborative Ability Reflection
To accomplish the collaborative ability necessary to be an educator, a classmate and I
worked together to teach our peers the English System for mathematics. Collaboration is the
ability to work with others effectively to accomplish a goal. I achieved this through the planning,
implementation, and reflection on the lesson we created. My partner and I met to discuss
objectives for our lesson, worked together to make the lesson with visuals and interactive
components, and created a review to assess the learners and our teaching effectiveness.
Through the creation and completion of the math lesson, I learned that collaborating with
a peer can be a difficult task. We had to work together to combine our ideas to make the best
lesson possible. Compromise was vital to the success of the lesson and the ability to collaborate.
Each of us had to compromise and combine our ideas to work successfully. Some ideas that I
thought were good and would benefit the lesson had to be omitted to make room for ideas that
my partner had. The key to our success in compromising is that we focused on the end goal of
creating a great lesson with differentiated instruction that would benefit the students.
I feel that doing a collaborative project is essential for our pre-service teaching
experience. Many schools are moving toward a more collaborative approach to education with
Professional Learning Communities, grade-based teaching teams, and co-teaching. As a future
teacher, I need to be able to work effectively with others. When you collaborate, many ideas get
brought up and this allows you to compromise and decide which ideas will work the best. This
project was great preparation for collaboration that will happen in my elementary teaching
career. Because of the skills I gained in creating this lesson and other collaborative projects in
my courses, I feel that I can collaborate effectively in my professional career.