Standard+10

** Teachers are connected with other teachers and the community. **
 * Standard 10 **

The teacher fosters relationships with school colleagues, parents, and agencies in the larger community to support pupil learning and well being and acts with integrity, fairness and in an ethical manner.

** Evidence 10: **

** Rationale 10: ** My study with ePals was designed to help students develop relationships and collaborate with students outside of our school. ePals is a global network that gives students opportunities to communicate with peers other than the ones in their own classroom. It offers chances to learn about different cultures and parts of the world. My study was designed to examine if using ePals increased student engagement. Using ePals to communicate with students in a different culture helped teach students about their peers across the world and emphasized email etiquette as well as information and project sharing to educate eachother about two very different governments and cultures. At the same time, students used the relationships they developed to learn that certain aspects of culture may be universal, and that peers in different countries may be quite similar. Students began to realize that education does not come just from things in a classroom, but from interacting with the larger community and even other parts of the world.

Overall, using ePals has been very beneficial to my students, who say that using ePals has been interesting and they enjoy communicating with an ePal. We have worked vey hard on email etiquette and how to communicate with someone from a different culture who primarily speaks a different language. We’ve discussed some aspects of language barriers and the fact that they are helping students to become more proficient in English.

This experience has been very valuable to me as a teacher. ePals has been a completely new teaching method, different than any other approach I have ever taken with social studies. It has helped me move past my comfort zone into the unknown, only to be very pleased with the results. There were a few hurdles to tackle and deal with, such as the lack of control over response time for the students in the other classroom. However, I feel strongly that the hurdles have not outweighed the results.

** KSD **

** 10.K.1 The teacher understands schools as organizations within the larger community context and understands the operations of the relevant aspects of the system(s) within which she/he works. **

Planning, communicating, and working with a teacher in another county to set up collaborations for our students has been an effective way to bring global perspective to students. It was beneficial for me to learn from another teacher in another culture. Using ePals has helped students think in a more global perspective.

** 10.S.2 The teacher makes links with the learners’ other environments on behalf of students, by consulting with parents, counselors, teachers of other classes and activities within the schools, and professionals in other community agencies. **

Since starting this project, I have worked not only with students but have had contact with all my students’ parents. Parents all had to read about the ePals project and sign permission slips. I have also worked closely with our district technology director, another social studies teacher at my school, and another teacher in Poland, so I have had to use many resources outside my school.

** 10.D.5 The teacher is willing to work with other professionals to improve the overall learning environment for students. **

As stated above, I’ve worked with our technology director, another social studies teacher, and a teacher and class in Poland to create a collaboration project to improve learning for my students.