Interacting and Communicating with Families

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Interacting and Communicating with Families

Learning to interact and communicate with my students’ families in a healthy manner is one of the most important and beneficial activities I can implement and model which will significantly and positively impact my students’ learning.  Having families involved makes my teaching so much more meaningful and important in my students’ eyes. 

Pop Back to School/Open House

At the beginning of each year, my campus holds two central parent interactions.  We have a Pop Back to School the Friday afternoon prior to the start of school on Monday.  This allows parents and students to meet their teachers and see their classrooms so that they are more comfortable with their surroundings as they start the school year.  It also allows teachers to hand out questionnaires to parents which they will be responsible for filling out and returning.  These questionnaires contain items as simple as how their child will be transported to and from school to significant academic and behavioral details which will offer me essential insight into their child’s needs.  During the 2^nd week of school, we invite families to attend evening Open Houses, where they hear in detail what will occur in their child’s classrooms and what expectations students and parents can anticipate for the year.  These events provide a large quantity of information to both parent and students, including communication channels available between teachers and families.  It also offers a time for families to ask questions or receive clarification on what to expect.  It opens healthy, critical, two-way communication between families and teachers.

I started this year as a Student Teacher in 6^th grade and thus participated in both the Pop Back to School and Open House.  Students in 6^th grade rotate classes individually so that they have five different core class teachers and each student has a unique schedule to follow.  I love how our 6^th grade teachers conduct their Open House together in the cafeteria.  Each teacher takes a turn speaking about their core subject plus presents a portion of the overall team’s student academic and behavioral guidelines to all parents of 6^th graders.  In this way, families get to view the 6^th grade teachers as a cohesive team working together for the benefit of all students, and they also get the opportunity to observe each of their child’s teachers present their material.

Understanding my students’ backgrounds as quickly as possible is also critical so that I can make connections between home life and school life for each student within my classroom.  Students will come to me each year with different backgrounds and with unique needs.  The information I gather from parent questionnaires and student activities within the first several weeks of school will offer me an in-depth look into each child’s characteristics and guides me in how to best reach this child in order to increase his or her learning capacity.  This information also will tell me how best to reach and interact with each of my student’s families.

Communication Avenues

With today’s technology, there are so many avenues open to teachers to communicate with students and their families.  At our campus, teachers use Remind messages weekly as needed.  The 6^th grade team sends these messages out as a team, while the 5^th grade team sends them out per teacher. Remind is not only an effective way to inform families about homework, upcoming tests, and posted grades, but it can also be used as a way to promote family participation in their child’s learning.  Messages such as, “Ask your student about  . . . (insert a specific learning occurring in the classroom),” or “Ask your student to show you their Candy Bar Density Lab from today’s learning.”  This offers information parents can use to start conversations with their child about their specific classroom learning.

 

Our campus participates in Thursday tweets each week where teachers use Twitter to send out a quick explanation and photo of some interactive, classroom activity that has occurred that week.  This is an effective and imaginative way to consistently share classroom happening with families.

Classroom and/or team websites are used commonly among our campus.  These websites include links to online textbooks, educational apps, homework assignments/sheets, class and grade level calendars, classroom happenings, and even photos.  Email is a popular method of regular communication as well, predominantly between teachers and parents.  Teachers use this for more in-depth, current classroom information plus individual student progress.  Our district uses Skyward as our grading system and all students in 6^th grade and above have access to their own account while guardians have access to family accounts, showing all of their family’s students.

Hand-written notes to parents are an amazingly personal way to impact families. Taking the time to write a personal letter to parents, bragging on their student’s learning, attitude, and character traits, is a wonderful and effective way to capture a family’s trust and help them understand that you want the best for their child and that you see their child as an individual.   In addition, making a call to parents to simply connect with a parent and ask questions about their student near the beginning of the year can facilitate a positive relationship so that, if there comes a time when a call needs to be made due to a problem of some sort, a relationship has already been started.  Parents are much more willing to hear about their child’s struggles if they know a teacher sees the positives of their child as well.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

When done well, parent-teacher conferences can be some of the most fruitful communication exchanges between teachers and parents.  Teachers must state upfront that they view their relationship with their students’ parents as a collaborative one in order to bring about the most positive learning outcome for each individual student.  Prior to a parent-teacher conference, a teacher should confer with their entire grade-level team and any other teacher or staff member who can contribute information about the specific student on which the meeting is occurring.  Any academic performance data, student work examples, written documentation or pictures regarding student behavior, as well as the input from each teacher of what they experience with that student during class, must be examined and prepared for each conference.  It is also best to invite to the conference as many teachers who come in daily contact with that student.  During the conference, it is best to start out with positive feedback of the student before delving into any challenging information about the student.  The parents should, of course, already be aware of the reason the conference is occurring due to a phone call from the teacher when they invited the parents or when the parent contacted them for a conference.  Starting with the strengths of a student helps keep the meeting positive and focuses the participants on working together to bring a solution to whatever is occurring with that child’s learning.  Teachers must also ensure that they openly ask for parent input and then truly listen to their responses.

I’ve had the benefit of watching both our 5^th and 6^th grade teams conduct parent conferences.  It always amazes me how open parents are to helping their student improve once the team honestly discusses what they are seeing in their classroom.  At first, parents are often on edge and prepared to be defensive, but once they hear the whole story of their student and see how much the team wants what’s best for the child, they quickly relax and move into a solution/problem-solving mode.  You can actually see and feel the change in the parent(s) during the conference.  I have found these meetings are most effective when the majority of the team is present.  If it’s just one teacher, the parent has the luxury of chalking it up to just this one teacher that their child doesn’t perform for, but when they are presented with classroom scenarios from all their child’s teachers, it’s pretty impossible to deny that there is an issue that needs to be discussed and solved for the child’s best outcome.  I love seeing this shared communication between parents and teachers.  It’s truly a blessing for the student’s long-term learning.

Engaging Families in the Education Process

It is imperative for teachers to invite parents to participate in their child’s activities throughout the year.  These opportunities may be as simple as requesting that parents sign all subject reviews and tests, whether the student received a good or poor grade.  This helps parents celebrate their child’s successes as well as be aware of their child’s struggles.  Invitations to specific learning activities are also critical.  Parents can be invited to help with such activities as social studies festivals, science labs, math-related occupation speeches, class parties, field trips, tutorial help, computer labs, after school programs, father “watch dog” opportunities, PTO/PTA happenings, fundraisers, library aids, copying help, even overnight camps.  There are a variety of ways to include families in the learning process, whether they participate from their home or at the school.  A teacher’s imagination is the only limit to how parents can get more involved in their child’s education.

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