Collaboration with Colleagues
Collaboration matters when colleagues make practice visible, develop shared language, test ideas, and accept collective responsibility for what students experience.
The official Element
Element 6C: Teachers collaborate with colleagues in developing a common understanding of effective practices for students’ academic and social–emotional development. This common understanding informs teaching and supports practices that meet students’ diverse learning interests, strengths, and needs.
What this Element asks of an educator
Collaboration matters when colleagues make practice visible, develop shared language, test ideas, and accept collective responsibility for what students experience.
Read together, these indicators ask educators to make collaboration with colleagues visible in planning, teaching, student experience, and follow-through. The aim is not to display every indicator in every lesson, but to understand the full range of the Element and select a focused practice to develop with evidence.
Official Example Indicators—and an SDLA reading
The Commission presents Example Indicators as illustrations rather than a comprehensive or required checklist. Their sequence shows the breadth of this Element and gives teachers, mentors, and coaches a shared language for focused development.
Commit to making their practices more transparent by working…
Official indicator: Commit to making their practices more transparent by working with colleagues to set clear purposes, goals, and working agreements that support sharing their practices and that result in a safe and supportive environment.
Invite feedback from colleagues
Official indicator: Invite feedback from colleagues, mentors, and supervisors and, after considering that feedback, apply what they have learned to strengthen teaching effectiveness and student learning experiences.
Accept personal responsibility for upholding professional standards and improving…
Official indicator: Accept personal responsibility for upholding professional standards and improving student learning outcomes, and support colleagues in being similarly accountable.
Co-develop and sustain a community of practice that promotes…
Official indicator: Co-develop and sustain a community of practice that promotes professional growth and support around mutually agreed-upon student learning goals and outcomes.
Interact with peers
Official indicator: Interact with peers, administrators, learning specialists, counselors, paraeducators, and other staff members to develop their expertise in working with the diverse learning needs, interests, and strengths of all students.
Developing the practice
Name a precise growth problem
Turn a broad aspiration into one observable practice, an action, and evidence to revisit.
Learn with other people
Use students, families, colleagues, specialists, mentors, and community partners as sources of knowledge and feedback.
Protect trust and sustainability
Attend to ethics, equity, legal responsibilities, professional boundaries, follow-through, and personal well-being.
Evidence worth noticing
- a focused professional goal connected to student experience
- reflection records showing a decision, action, evidence, and revision
- collaboration artifacts documenting roles, feedback, and follow-through
- an ethical, equity, or workload decision with its reasoning and observed effect
Evidence caution: No single artifact proves accomplished practice. Interpret evidence in context, center student experience and learning, use multiple sources, and avoid collecting identifiable information that is not necessary.
A pinch of data integration and digital learning
Digital systems can organize information, improve access, coordinate work, or shorten a feedback loop. They are valuable only when the educator can explain the human decision they support, the information they require, and how privacy, accessibility, equity, and professional responsibility are protected.
Assessment TOSA job description
Consider a specialist role that can help teams turn evidence into shared instructional action.
Questions for reflection and coaching
- Where is collaboration with colleagues already visible in my practice, and what evidence supports that judgment?
- Which students experience the current approach differently from the way I intend?
- Which official indicator names the most important next area for growth?
- What is one affordable, manageable adjustment I can test, and what will I look for afterward?
- Whose perspective—student, family, colleague, specialist, or community partner—would improve the next decision?