Standard Eight: Collaborative Relationships The competent teacher builds and maintains relationships to foster cognitive, linguistic, physical,

social, and emotional development. This teacher works as a team member with professional colleagues, students, parents or guardians, and community members. I chose this artifact to represent this standard because it illustrates my ability to build and foster relationships. This artifact is a good representation of the standard because I worked collaboratively with a fellow teacher to, not only create, but implement this lesson plan. This lesson was implemented in an 8th grade Social Science classroom and we were able to effectively co-teach the lesson to our students. I helped to foster cognitive and linguistic development as we were planning and practicing our lesson. We had to work together to come up with a direction we wanted our lesson to take. In addition, we had to come up with a strategy, as well as practice it, that would allow us to effectively co-teach the lesson. Being able to share the instructional time with another teacher takes coordination and planning so that each teacher is prepared and comfortable with each transition. In creating this lesson together, we also fostered social and emotional development. This was our first placement and teaching was still new to us. We helped calm each others nerves and relied a lot on each other to get through the lesson. This lesson really helped me to grow as a teacher because I was able to work with another educator to build upon my own skills. We collaborated on what aspects of this topic we wanted to cover, how in depth we should go, and which part each of us would teach. Being able to co-teach is a great skill to have as a teacher. I think it really allowed me to analyze my own teaching practices, as I was able to witness a colleagues different teaching style first-hand. A coteaching environment can also be very beneficial for pooling resources, materials, knowledge and skills so that there is an effective and strong educational environment for our students to succeed in. Overall, the co-teaching experience was a good learning experience even though it did offer some challenges. Letting go of control is something that I struggle with. This type of teaching environment really challenged me to step outside of my comfort zone and try a new strategy, which I think is also an important characteristic teachers should embody.