Home/School
Connecting home and school is important as parents should be involved in their children's work, and should be learning at home too. Sometimes working from home can be difficult since we are comfortable at home. That is where we wind down, so it can be hard to focus. It's essential to be creative and think of ways to incorporate both home and school to refrain from low student performance.
For example, recently, I attended some workshops online that were long. Specifically, the DASA workshop I attended was seven hours long. Now, seven hours is already a long time but not trying to learn in the comfort of your own home can be difficult. The activities have to be engaging to keep everyone attentive to the lesson. Luckily, I had a great teacher for the workshop who constantly broke us out into breakrooms. We even had additional assignments we had to do before the class to present on the day of. Homework or any kind of work given should be more interactive “Homework is often seen as a solitary practice where students finish a few pages, read for a few minutes, and then get on with their life outside of school” (Dell’Angelo, 2014). It's beneficial to incorporate interactive ways to complete work. As educators we have to keep in mind the assignments we create and if the lesson we present gets through to the students. Same with parents, as they should be just as aware of their children's work and make it interactive if they see a loss of focus.
“For some students, school is the best part of their day because it offers an escape from their life at home”. (Provenzano,2014). We have to always consider the student's life outside of school and how some look forward to school. As teachers, were more than a person who hands out curriculum, we are the student's support system we are their future. We need to show interest in both school and outside-of-school topics. For example, attending extra-curriculum activities. When I was in middle/high school one thing I always enjoyed was the after-school activities. When teachers show up for students' additional interest outside of class it makes a difference in their lives. Another way to connect home and school is to be available is having office hours available for your students. Whether it is to study, talk or even relax and draw, having this opens a bigger door for students and allows them to get closer to their teacher and school. You'd be surprised at how many students will take advantage of the open office hours or open conversations at the end of class.
In addition, technology plays a big role in connecting home and school. Having ways to keep parents in the loop about what's happening in their child's classroom. “We now have many different ways for communicating quickly and more effectively with parents” (Provenzano,2016). The best way to encourage and increase parent engagement is through technology and strong communication. For example, regularly sending emails is a great way to keep parents aware of what's going on in the school and their classrooms. Emails are a good way to keep parents informed and can attach useful information or curriculum to the emails. Another good way to keep parents informed is Remind, which is a helpful tool/app to allow teachers to send text messages to those who signed up. This is also good for the parents who aren't actively on their emails. Remind also allows you to attach PDFs so parents can see important documents. Not only does this benefit the parents, but it benefits the students in the long run too.
“When we educate the parents we educate the community” is a quote that was said by Patricia Lopez in the Putting Parents to Work in the Classroom video. That encourages parents to be more involved as well as become parent mentors. Three hundred parents graduated from public schools and are still learning English, and work in the classrooms as parent mentors. Having these mentors improve the student's confidence and skills. Not to mention it provides more attention to the students who have a range of needs. This program is great and motivates parents to be involved and help children become successful. A total of two-thousand parents have enrolled and completed the program, and have changed the lives and outcomes of students.
I recently attended a Board of Education meeting in Amityville. I was so surprised at the outcome of the meeting and honestly wasn't expecting so much tension within the room. However, it did start great as there was an immense amount of gratitude shown to the Board of Education due to a college tour that was given to high school students to prepare for college. It escalated quite quickly after that as parents started to approach the stand upset about not being informed on certain things. One parent talked about not being informed of the start date of a program. Her daughter called to get picked up when mom was baffled because she had gotten the notice of the program started that day not the next. There was no clear communication with the start date of the program. Luckily, mom was able to pick her up but what is she wasn’t available. It's important to enforce communication with the parents and find ways to inform the parents. Seeing the parents upset firsthand was eye-opening and sad to see that they failed to correctly inform the parents of an after-school program. We need to be aware of these mistakes and focus on them not happening again. Parents' involvement in the school is more important than one might think, and I hope this spreads awareness of home and school.
References
Aguilar, E. (2011, September 23). 20 Tips for Developing Positive Relationships with Parents. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-tips-developing-positive-relationships-parents-elena-aguilar
Borovoy, A.E. (2012, November 2). 5-Minute Film Festival: Parent-Teacher Partnerships. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/film-festival-parent-teacher-partnerships
Dell'Angelo, T. (2014, September 15). The Beginners’ Guide to Connecting Home and School. Edutopia.
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/beginners-guide-connecting-home-school-tabitha-dellangelo
Family Engagement: Resource Roundup (2010, July 14). Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/home-school-connections-resources
NBC Today Show: Education Nation-Putting Parents to Work in the Classroom. https://youtu.be/ubo6L0qQv6Q
Provenzano, N (2016, August 30) Tech-Enhanced Parent Engagement. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/tech-enhanced-parent-engagement-nicholas-provenzano
Hello Cyann! I really enjoyed reading your blog post this week and hearing your thoughts about the critical issue of home and school connection. I think this module really emphasized the importance of how necessary it is for parents to play a role in their child’s education. I liked many of the mentions you had on how to foster parent involvement. I think sending regular emails is a great measure because they can be little updates that have important information. I like the idea of setting up a Remind because it is very easy to use from personal experience. It also benefits those who do not have an email and those who do not regularly check it. It is extremely important to keep parents informed because that will ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to the child's education. It is beneficial for the child to keep learning engaging so that they are interested in furthering their education and that can be achieved through interactive assignments that can also be completed at home. I think student-teacher connections are extremely valuable, and so I like how you included that it is beneficial for teachers to take part in something a student is interested in. I also included that in my blog this week. This little gesture like attending a sporting event can make a huge difference and enhance how the student performs in a classroom setting, as they will make an effort to be more interested in the teacher's material. It is all about finding the correct balance. Overall, I think you had a great and informative post this week! I look forward to returning to your blog and hearing your thoughts on next week's topic. Good luck on your finals!
ReplyDelete