Dhagat 1

Sandeep Dhagat
Professor Suk
EDUC 230-01 Education Field Experience
Fall 2017
Rationale Statement-Standard #10

Standard Ten: Leadership and Collaboration

The teacher seeks appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for student
learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, and community
members to ensure learner growth, and to advance the profession (NJ Professional Standards for
Teachers, 2014, p. 13).

Artifact: Welcome Letter

Date of Completion: December 10th, 2017 (Fall 2017)
Course Completed in: EDUC-230 Education Field Experience

Rationale Statement:
This artifact is a welcome letter directed to the parent(s)/guardian of the student who will be
joining my class. The welcome letter is meant to establish a line of communication between teacher and
parent, inform the student about expectations for the school year, introduce myself to the family, and
suggest supplies needed for the class. In addition, I highlight the need for the family to review both the
lab safety and lab consent form that schools typically ask teachers to document. The artifact evidence
my ability to work collaboratively with learners and their families to establish mutual expectations
and ongoing communication to support learner development and achievement (NJ Professional
Standards for Teachers 10.i.4, 2014, p. 13). For example, I made sure to let parents and students feel
comfortable about emailing me with questions or concerns before the year. Also, I specifically included a
section about respecting familys beliefs moral and ethical concerns regarding experiments involving
animals. I wanted to make sure parents understood I respected their decisions and would work with
them to help their son or daughter learn the content in an alternative fashion if needed.
During high school, I never once received a letter from a teacher before the school year started.
Typically, on the first day of school, teachers would send us home with generalized forms regarding the
course syllabus and classroom rules for families to look over, but there was never any personalized item
for parents specifically. I also recall that my biology and AP biology teachers never forewarned students
about animal dissections, and never provided an alternative assignment other than watching other
students perform the lab. For those reasons, I wanted to author a letter that would be both personalized
for the specific child (which is why I left areas in the document meant to be inserted with the students
name), and genuine about forming a mutual relationship. In addition, I wanted to offer my own
perspective and experience with dissections in order to ease students potential fears or concerns about
doing it. I remember that animal dissections were stressful for many students in freshman year biology,
even for those who were not vegetarian, vegan, or religiously required to observe non-violence
principles. There is a myth out there that being a scientist in the life sciences field requires you to violate
genuinely held beliefs about nonviolence and animal cruelty, which is not the case. In all my years of
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being a science student, taking science classes and doing research, I have never once harmed an animal
or performed a dissection, yet I still have the content knowledge to engage in those research activities.
I would use this in my professional future as an actual template for my welcome letter to
parents. I believe that even in high school, both parents and students, would appreciate a letter from a
teacher. It shows that they have a genuine interest in their childs success, are open to communication
and feedback from families, and establishes a solid foundation for starting the first day of class. I would
probably change aspects of the letter from year to year as situations change or legal requirements
change. In the future I would also consider writing two separate letters: one for students and another
one for parents. Lastly, I would use this artifact to emphasize to parents that I support their values and
beliefs. This extends not only to dissections and animal experimentation, but also to more controversial
issues like evolutionary theory.

Reference

Professional Development in New Jersey. (2014, August 4). Retrieved from New Jersey State Department
of Education:
http://www.state.nj.us/education/profdev/profstand/teacherstandardscrosswalk.pdf