Assignment 2 - Critical Reflection

CONTEMPORARY TEACHER LEADERSHIP – ASSIGNMENT 2 CRITICAL REFLECTION
Group work is an aspect that all teachers must use to be an effective teacher. In
this assessment, we were given the opportunity to work together as a group to
develop a program to help build students’ resilience. Throughout the
development of this program, our group had to work together to ensure we
produced a quality intervention that teachers could use to assist student
learning. In this critical reflection, I will discuss the ways our group worked
together, what worked well, and how the process could be improved to ensure
greater success is achieved.
One of the most important aspects for quality group work is collaboration.
Collaboration involves the actions of working with two or more people to
achieve a common goal (Barfield, 2016). Collaboration involves thinking and
working together, and the product is based on the effects of the group, hence all
members are equally responsible for the outcome (Barfield, 2016). Collaboration
also allows more individuals to communicate and encourages introspection of
behaviour, as it being different people with different strengths and weaknesses
together (Barfield, 2016). Groups that have successful collaboration, are shown
to have greater resources, recognition, and rewards (Barfield, 2016).
Subsequently, if a group has poor collaboration, the end result may be not
reaching the common goal, unrecognised, loss of credibility, and unhelpful to a
community within the collaboration (Barfield, 2016). Therefore, successful
collaborations should be utilised to increase the opportunity for greater goal
achievements.
Within this assignment, our group used collaboration to work towards the
common goal of achieving a highly effective assignment. To ensure effective
collaboration was maintained, we used many forms of communication. To ensure
all members were included and heard we organised times where we could meet
and discuss, these were mainly conducted through Zoom meetings. Zoom is a
video communication tool which allows remote video and audio conferencing
(Zoom, 2018). Zoom allowed us to discuss with one another, without having to
physically travel to one designated location. It additionally allowed us to have
more meetings as it was easy and convenient to use. Within these time periods
on Zoom, I realised we all had different ideas which worked well together. This
allowed our group to work effectively as we all contributed in different ways to
help one another achieve.
Being a successful teacher does not always involve physically teaching in a

classroom, it involves the ability for teachers to work as a team. Teams involves a
group of people interacting in work-related means (Rosendaal & Bijlsma-
Frankema, 2015). Working as a team has been recognised to improve school and
teacher effectiveness (Killion, 2015). Teamwork allows teachers to have the
opportunity to work together to share ideas, and plan and support one another
(Rosendaal & Bijlsma-Frankema, 2015). There are five main parts of team work.
These include forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. The
forming stage involves creating roles for members and the purpose of the team
(Engelbrecht et al., 2014). The storming stage involves problem solving, and is
usually where conflict occurs (Engelbrecht et al., 2014). The norming stage
involves establishing the agenda and clarifying the task (Engelbrecht et al.,
2014). The performing stage involves the implementation and evaluation of the
task (Engelbrecht et al., 2014). Finally, the adjourning stage involves the
celebration of the task being completed (Engelbrecht et al., 2014). All these steps
are essential in creating effective group work. Hence, it is important to
implement these skills from the commencement of your teaching career.
Within the assignment, teamwork was attained to effectively create a program. It

gave an insight into what it is like as a teacher to work alongside other teachers
in a team setting. It allowed us to recognise how different team members could
support others, how we can plan together and the ability to share ideas. It also,
however, highlighted that the group needed to transition through the different
stages of teamwork. As a group we began by forming our group and discussing
our common goal. We then began to brainstorm ideas for the study together,
where some challenges occurred. We then problem-solved and worked
effectively to create our intervention and carried it out. Because of the
assignment, I have realised one of the greatest resources which teachers should
utilise is other teachers.
However, teamwork and collaboration do not always work effectively. A

challenge we faced as a group was many members of the group were on
professional placement while attempting to complete the assignment. As this
took up a large amount of time, it became hard to meet as a full group at all
times. Consequently, in some team meetings, not all members could attend. This
therefore caused frustration with some group members as they were not always
kept up to date with the information being discussed. As a group, we decided to
ensure we kept a record of the collaboration which took place within team
meeting. This was successfully achieved through using Google document and
through online chats forums, consequently allowing us to constantly contribute
to the assignment, giving information which, everyone could access and edit
instantly, no matter what prior engagements they possessed. Nevertheless, as a
group we worked through the challenges we faced to achieve the common goal.
As part of the group presentation we created a project-based learning program.

Subsequently this involved that as a group we incorporated a 12-week
intervention program that aims to enhance resilience through social and
emotional learning for at risk students. We wanted to develop this program as
students who have poor social and emotional functioning struggle with
engagement, achievement, and retention. As a team, we worked collaboratively
to achieve this proposal. This can be seen evidently in our video showcase.
However, this showcase only shows a proposal of our developments, not the
implementation of them. Without the program being implemented, it is hard to
judge how effective the program will be as there are no results obtained. In order
to discover how effective, the program will be, implementing it into a school will
be greatly beneficial (Durlak, 2008).
In conclusion, we can see that working with other members of the teaching
community is a vital skill to possess as a teacher. As a pre-service teacher, I need
to be able to work in a team and collaborate effectively to achieve the common
goals and objectives, although this does come with its challenges which will need
to be overcome. As a pre-service teacher, I will take what I have learnt about
working as a team and the proposal and put it into practice as a newly graduate
teacher.
REFERENCES
Barfield, A. (2016). Collaboration. ELT Journal, 70(2), 222-224.

doi:10.1093/elt/ccv074
Durlak, J. A. (2008). Why program implementation is important. Journal of

Prevention and Intervention in the Community, 17(2), 5-18.
doi:10.1300/J005v17n02_02
Engelbrecht, L., Spolander, G., Martin, L., Strydom, M., Adaikalam, F., Marjanen, P.,
…Tani, P. (2016). Reflections on a process model for international
research collaboration in social work. International Social Work, 59(4),
438-451. doi:10.1177/0020872814531305
Killion, J. (2015). High-quality collaboration benefits teachers and students.

Journal of Staff Development, 36(5), 62-64. Retrieved from https://search-
proquest-
com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/1732758357?accountid=36155&rfr_id
=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo
Rosendaal, B., & Bijlsma-Frankema, K. (2015). Knowledge sharing within teams:

Enaling and constraining factors. Knowledge Management Research &
Practice, 13(3), 235-247. doi:10.1057/kmrp.2013.45
Zoom. (2018). Zoom video conferencing. Retrieved from

https://www.zoom.us/?zcid=1383&gclid=Cj0KCQjwvLLZBRDrARIsADU6
ojC3CabqFN4sXnOBAOCpsi35QCXjovf2zP1GtqNxvoGsuF5lN8hBErsaAp-
2EALw_wcB

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CONTEMPORARY TEACHER LEADERSHIP – ASSIGNMENT 2 CRITICAL REFLECTION

Being a successful teacher does not always involve physically teaching in a

Within the assignment, teamwork was attained to effectively create a program. It

However, teamwork and collaboration do not always work effectively. A

As part of the group presentation we created a project-based learning program.

Barfield, A. (2016). Collaboration. ELT Journal, 70(2), 222-224.

Durlak, J. A. (2008). Why program implementation is important. Journal of

Killion, J. (2015). High-quality collaboration benefits teachers and students.

Rosendaal, B., & Bijlsma-Frankema, K. (2015). Knowledge sharing within teams:

Zoom. (2018). Zoom video conferencing. Retrieved from

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