InTASC Standard:  

Standard #10: 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 Semester of 2023, in my EDUC 230 The Exceptional Child class, I participated in simulated scenario conferences. In groups of 4, we picked between different scenarios. My group chose a girl named Victoria, who struggled with anxiety, reading comprehension, ADD, and depression. We worked together to develop techniques that would help Victoria in class. We assigned each of the four members of our group to play a different role in our simulated conference. We then talked with the mother, teacher, principal, and paraprofessional about techniques to help Victoria and set up another meeting after the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) evaluation. In the second conference, we discussed the IEP evaluation results and how well Victoria was doing with the techniques we had been working on, such as weekly mental health check-ins, sticker charts, and reading exercises. 

 

Analysis of What I Learned:

Through my time in The Exceptional Child class, I learned how to make accommodations and modifications for exceptional children in my classroom. I also learned how vital inclusion in the school can be for students with extraordinary needs. I learned how to put together and execute a parent-teacher conference and an IEP conference. I learned how important it is to use Joyce Epstein’s theory of parental involvement to ensure we collaborate correctly with the parents and school administration (Framework of Six, 2019). This is important with IEPs/Conferences because the student is not being set up for success without collaborating with the parents and the school administration. They may receive education outside your classroom that will counteract what you are doing inside the school. I learned that to work with the parents and my colleagues, you must come into the conferences with an open mind and listen to what they say.

 

How This Artifact Demonstrates my Competence on the InTASC Standard:

This artifact demonstrates my competence on the InTASC standard #10 through collaboration with my peers to obtain leadership roles like teacher, principal, and paraprofessional. I used those leadership roles to meet with parents to acknowledge how vital our techniques and IEP would be so we could take responsibility for the student’s learning. A theorist that I believe was important to these scenarios is Joyce Epstein and her framework of 6 types of involvement. Joyce emphasizes that “each type of involvement is a two-way partnership—and ideally a partnership that is co-developed by educators and families working together—not a one-way opportunity that has been unilaterally determined by a school” (Framework of Six Types of Involvement &Ndash; Organizing Engagement, 2019). I collaborated with the learner by finding achievable goals she could complete by the end of the year. I worked with her family to ensure that the breathing techniques and exercises I came up with could also be done at home. I provided learner growth by meeting with colleagues, the principal, and the parent to check in and see how much the student grew through her work with the SPED teacher and if anything needed to be added or changed. In the future, I would reach out to community members to be able to give the family outside resources they could use. I can use this to advance my profession by asking the parents if they are okay with our approach and if they have any questions about the IEP. I can also use this for future IEP and parent-teaching conferences.