PTS Name: Developing as a Professional Educator
Element: Working with communities to improve professional practice
Indicators
As teachers develop, they may ask, “How do I…” or “Why do I…”:
- Value and respect my student’s community and appreciate its role in student learning?
- Increase my understanding of the cultures and dynamics of my students’ communities?
- Promote collaboration between school and community?
- Identify and use school, district, and local community social service resources to benefit students and their families?
- Seek out and use resources from the local community and businesses to support student learning?
- Provide my students with community-based experiences that support their learning?
- Interact with students in activities outside the classroom?
Descriptions
Examples may include, but are not limited to:
- Learning about students’ neighborhoods by attending community events (e.g., concerts, exhibits, lectures) and/or by patronizing local businesses (e.g., shops, restaurants)
- Helping students organize service activities within their communities (e.g., nursing home visits, litter pick-up campaigns, homework helper programs)
- Building community-based activities into lesson units (e.g., recording oral histories of neighbors/residents, writing editorials for the local newspaper, testing pH levels of nearby ponds/lakes)
- Asking neighborhood businesses to support your classroom by donating resources/supplies, offering talks about careers or goals, hosting fieldtrips, etc.
- Inviting people outside students’ families (e.g., coaches, clergy, community leaders, after school job supervisors) to contribute to student personal growth and academic development
Problems of Practice
Challenges with this element frequently include:
- Assuming that learning about students’ cultures and communities is irrelevant to one’s teaching
- Failing to seize opportunities to interact with students and families outside the classroom
- Forgetting to identify the influential people outside students’ families and/or not seeking ways to involve them in students’ academic growth
- Overlooking potential resources in the community surrounding the school