Creating Meaningful Communication WIth Parents

With parent-teacher conferences in full swing this week, it is natural to be thinking about how effective our communication really is with the parents of our students. I am a parent of four children, ages 3 – 23. As my older children transitioned from elementary school into middle school, I found myself feeling left out in many ways. I was THE parent who helped to plan, fund, and participate in every holiday bash or class party, drove children or shared a bus on field trips, and stood on the sidelines of every field day with water and snacks. I was very accustomed to have a face-to-face relationship with my children’s teachers, and it was this open relationship that made me feel more comfortable about turning over my babies to another person for 8+ hours per day.

 

Needless to say that I was more than shocked when I was no longer needed or wanted to participate in many of the middle school and high school events that I had formerly been a part of in elementary school. I had been demoted. This transition can be difficult for many parents to deal with, and often results in a significant lack of parental involvement because they just aren’t sure where they fit into their child’s education any more. I think that is why it is even more important to maintain a consistent foundation for communication with parents in alternate ways.

 

“But WHAT works?”

I recently read an article written by Tom Whitby, entitled, “Home to School Connections: Educating Parents About Education.” Mr. Whitby is concerned that while best practices in the classroom are changing to meet the needs of 21^st century teachers and students; parent-teacher communication is not changing and parents are being left behind the cultural shift. He talks about the many new ideas that teachers are incorporating into their curriculum: such as how teachers can no longer be judged by the amount of homework assigned or that content expertise should no longer be a limitation on students education. Although I am not completely on board with the lack of homework issued in today’s classrooms, I do agree that many of the changes being implemented are very positive and if teachers could find more effective ways to include parents, there would be less opposition and more support for what we are attempting to accomplish.

 

Mr. Whitby also discusses several technology-based methods of communication that can help bridge the gap between hands on parent participation in the classroom and parent support from home. Apps like Remind, specialized webpages where parents can view grades and even uploaded student portfolios, as well as some social media sites can be very useful in creating a situation where parents feel like they can be involved and often.

 

One of the most important things that I plan to do in my classroom is to provide opportunities for communication with both students and parents outside of the classroom. This can be a time to discuss difficult concepts when individual attention is needed, update on make-up work and exams, and discuss problems and successes that occur with parents and students. One way that I plan to implement this is by staying after school for one hour on every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for unscheduled appointments. This wouldn’t take much of my personal time and if no one stops by, I can use this time to plan or return emails, and other housekeeping tasks that I would have to do anyway. 

 

Teacher Hub suggests the site, Snapschool.com. This site contains a link for a program called Upraised Learning, where parents have access to student information, parent resources, activities that parents can discuss and complete with their students, and have instant communication with educators. Although I believe this site does have a fee, I am curious of what free sites might be out there that are similar to this one. Any suggestions? How do you plan to communicate with your students and parents?

 

 

References:

Upraised Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.upraised.org

eachHUB | K-12 News, Lessons & Shared ResourcesBy Teachers, For Teachers. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.teachhub.com/

Whitby, T. (2001, September 17). Educating Parents About Education | Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/educating-parents-about-education-tom-whitby

 

Pepping up the Dreaded In-service Days: Creating Engaging and Meaningful Teacher In-service Workshops

                                   

 

Our district recently held one of several teacher in-service days; intended to promote better teaching, provide educators and staff with support regarding state and district requirements for students and teachers, as well as to increase awareness of the most up-to-date teaching methods and classroom procedures. In theory, this sounds like a brilliant idea. When I think about the many ways that this allotted time could be valuable beyond measure, I have to ask why any good teacher wouldn’t want to participate. However, the unfortunate truth, at least from what I have experienced within my district, is that the majority of teachers and staff find these required gatherings less than adequate and certainly not pleasurable. The most significant impact of these meetings is certainly observable over the days following an in-service, as the events are retold by frustrated teacher. Those staff lounge water coolers inevitably get an earful from just about every unhappy participant.

1.      The in-services are not applicable to the audience. This is due to one of two reasons:

·         The presentation is geared to the wrong grade range, i.e. presenting strategies that would work well in a middle school to high school teachers.

·         The information presented is not current with today’s changing classrooms or simply does not address the problems that teachers at a particular school are experiencing.

     2.      The teachers feel as though they are treated like children instead of mutually the invested  educators that they are.

Just as our classroom lessons should be designed specifically with our students’ needs in mind, the in-services that we attend should also focus on our local issues, questions, and interests as educators. This blog is not about bashing any particular school district for a poorly designed in-service, so I it is irrelevant why teachers in my district are unhappy with this activity. Instead, what I would like to know is how these meetings can be made more meaningful and engaging in the future. What other districts are pulling it off and how are they doing this? As educators and staff, what information would best help you?

In larger districts like my own, I think that introducing the work-shop experience into the in-services could be a great way for teachers to interact interdepartmentally as well as with teachers from other schools. If we focused more on being a community with a single goal in mind and are given the opportunity to participate in planning the in-services, more teachers and staff members would appreciate and even eagerly participate this ritual as an important part of teacher education.

                In their article, Characteristics of Success in High School In-service Education, William Patton and Leo Anglin describe experiences from several different high schools who participated in a study on ways to improve the in-service experience. One such school created a central theme in which to guide the in-services. “Nothing will be done to you—only with you,” became the foundation of both the planning processes and the in-service sessions. According to Patton and Anglin, teachers were encouraged to participate directly alongside university personnel in the formal planning sessions. The purpose of this collaboration was to create accountability among those in charge of planning and encourage educator/personnel partnerships. This project was based on a model developed by John Elliott, a British educator, in 1976. The major features of the approach were:

1.      Focusing on practical problems defined by the teachers

2.      Developing collaborative relations between teachers and outsiders

            As a pre-student teacher, I am very comfortable with collaborative working environments and actually enjoy having that interaction. Of course, not very person that I work with is a perfect personality match, but when our focus is on our students and not on each other, we are able to put our differences aside and create something better than either one of us could have thought up on our own. So, when I consider the inadequacy of my local in-service sessions, I have to ask how we have missed an idea that is more than 30 years old, and what we can do about it. Please comment with any suggestions, ideas, or thoughts on your own local in-services. I’d like to know what makes them work or what you think would make them work better.

To view Patton and Anglin’s journal article, please click on the following link:

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40365055?uid=3739672&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104590915127