M4 U5 Activity 2: Communicating with Families
Project Description
Overview Families are an important aspect of your behavior management system. It is important to communicate effectively with students’ families and involve them in creating a system of support for your students. In this activity, you will plan for family engagement in your Learning Environment Plan.
Performance Outcomes
Candidates evaluate the role of families in managing the learning environment
What will you do?
In a conversation with your cohort in the Virtual Class or on the Discussion Forum, discuss the following questions:
What has been your experience with teacher-family communication as it relates to managing the learning environment?
From the resources, your research, and your experience, what are best practices and practices to avoid when building teacher-family relationships? What would you like to implement in your own learning environment plan?
What do you do when an angry parent confronts the teacher, especially in front of the class?
What are your responsibilities for reporting suspected child abuse?
Discuss with your cohort tools that you can use to communicate with parents on a regular basis. These can be technology tools or paper based tools, or a combination of the two.
Return to your Learning Environment Plan and complete the last section on ‘Communicating with Families’.
Report requirements
Cohort discussion on communication with families
Complete the ‘Communicating with Families’ section in your Learning Environment Plan
Notes Your work on this plan will provide support to you in Modules 7 and 8 as you begin your clinical practice. Incorporate any and all feedback from your instructor into a final plan that you can leverage to effectively manage the learning environment you teach for clinical practice.
(The above information was cited from the TEACH-NOW Teacher Preparation Certificate Program)
My Work
Tools for Regular Communication: What tools will you use to ensure that you regularly communicate students’ progress, achievements, and behaviors to families?
1. SeeSaw
I will use SeeSaw to send regular announcements and updates. Every week I will send an announcement that will review what was studied in the previous week. I will also use it to send important notes, for example, if students need to bring anything special with them to school. With young students this will be directed mainly at parents, and with higher grades for both students and parents. SeeSaw can also be used to send and receive private messages and so can be used to clarify information or follow up on any parent concerns.
2. Google Classroom
I will use Google Classroom to make a class blog and allow parents to have a virtual window into the classroom. I’ll also encourage parents to participate in the class blog by leaving comments. It’s a great way to show what’s going on in the classroom with some pictures. It allows for two-way communication, and it will also enable parents to share pictures of their child outside of class, for instance when completing project work at home.
3. Reach out with a messenger app like Zalo or Viber
For many parents, they find it easy to communicate via well-known chat apps, such as Zalo and Viber (two common instant messaging apps in my country).
Activity Resources
5 Ways to Foster Meaningful Connection
10 Ideas for Engaging Parents
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