Communication with Parents and Guardians

December 2, 2011 Erin.Grewar Assessment, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning About Your Students

A Piece of the Pie – An Accurate Reflection of Personal Contribution in Group Work

Having recently completed a group work assignment with classes, I always find it difficult to really know who did what. This is in spite of ongoing classroom observations and checking in with me daily with regards to their progress. What I devised to find out what went on behind the scenes was something I give out to each group at the end of the assignment. Equipped with a circular graphic resembling a pie, each group must come to a consensus. In addition to dividing the pieces of the pie according to each person’s contribution, I also ask that each piece be assigned a percentage value as well as a brief outline of the tasks completed by the group members. So people don’t get defensive, I explain that this is a way to reward someone’s efforts of which I might not be aware.

After having reached a consensus together as a group, they all sign off once they are in complete agreement with the information submitted. At the end, I am left with a wealth of information – a visual representation that speaks volumes, a sometimes startling insight and an accurate portrayal of who did what. I was really surprised by their serious approach and how involved they were in their negotiations. As mentioned before, some of the findings were surprising (the extent of one student’s work vs. the lack of another’s). More importantly, I keep them after the fact because a single image represents a lot and comes in handy in future discussions with the student or during parent interviews.

December 2, 2011 Erin.Grewar Communication with Parents and Guardians

When Parents Get an A+ on Their Kid’s Assignments

I was recently talking to a colleague over lunch about some purely spectacular geography projects submitted by the most unlikely candidates. Some had subheadings dreamed up by a team of marketing execs while others rivalled last month’s feature article in National Geographic in terms of in-depth analysis and startling facts. What made them all the more surprising was that some of the projects belonged to students who normally functioned at a level 1. It was obvious that the parents had been extensively involved in the project and was made all the more evident when one called in to get some additional feedback.

We talked a lot about how to grade such an assignment and how it’s an awkward situation if one actually confronts the parent. One way to avoid the problem entirely is to break the project down into components (pre-research, graphic organizers, rough drafts, etc) all of which are graded and completed in class. That way, you can assume it is actually the students’ work and that there is not a miraculous transformation into a Nobel Prize-winning final copy. Although I was quick to condemn the many negative implications of the parents’ involvement, when I actually started to think about it, I remembered a few of my own school projects where my parents were definitely a part of the process. Without doing my actually work, they nonetheless made it a more enriching experience by taking me to museums, art galleries and the Science Centre to compliment my research. Thinking back to my own experiences made it less clear cut in my mind. Obviously it’s not ethical for the parents to actually be doing the work but at the same time, is it wrong for them to participate constructively from the sidelines to provide a more enriching and complimentary experience for their children?

November 23, 2011November 25, 2011 Carmen.Oliveira Assessment, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Diverse Learning Needs, Interviews, Learning About Your Students

Parent/Teacher Interviews: Connecting, Celebrating, Planning, Supporting

Samantha’s experience with parent/teacher interviews was powerful and resonated with my view of the important partnership we share with our students’ care-givers.

This year I structured my interviews in order to connect, celebrate, plan, and support both students and parents. In each interview I made sure to:

CONNECT: Catching up with parents after our Curriculum Night was a nice way to begin our interview. With each one I tried to express how grateful I was for their involvement in their child’s life and encouraged them to share how things were going outside of school (homework, clubs, sports, hobbies, etc.). I also had parents share their thoughts and feelings about their child’s progress.

CELEBRATE: We celebrated their child’s strengths, progress, and special or important accomplishments thus far.

PLAN: Based on the child’s progress, their strengths, and needs, we created a “next steps” by choosing one or two goals and deciding on some strategies we (student, parent, and teacher) could use to help the child accomplish each goal.

SUPPORT: I offered some resources and advice for both parents and students that could be used to support the plan we decided to put into action.

I had one of the most successful interview experiences of my career which was spectacular! However, when all is said and done, it’s the unexpected moments that empower and inspire me most. I’d like to share one such moment that solidified my belief that we can be agents of change to our students in ways we might not have imagined.

I have a student in my class who spent a great deal of time in the principal’s office during his previous six years at the school. “Good luck” was the response I got when teachers saw the name on my class list (a reaction which is one of my greatest pet peeves). This of course, only sparked my interest and motivation to bring about positive change. The funny thing is that it took very little effort to witness a complete turn-around in behaviour, focus, and attitude toward learning! I attributed it to a structured but engaging classroom environment, a lot of positive feedback, and regularly connecting with his mom with respect to his work and behaviour. During our interview I had the pleasure of sharing and celebrating all the progress and success the student had demonstrated and together, we planned our next steps/goals. At one point, the student’s mother hugged him tightly and filled his face with kisses. She began to tear up and said, “You can’t imagine what it is for a mother to continuously hear negative comments and be called into the school every other day to deal with problems. Since the beginning of this year, he comes home happy to show me his agenda with all the positive notes you write. He believes you like him and is eager to be his best self. At home, he is an amazing kid. I hardly recognize him. I cannot begin to thank you enough.” I quickly reminded her of the factors I attributed to his progress. “I really do feel that he’s more mature and ready for a change”. But she nodded in disagreement and said, “He believes you really like him. That’s all it took.”

Needless to say, as exhausting as interviews are, hearing that from his mom completely made my day.

November 23, 2011November 25, 2011 Roz.Geridis Assessment, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning in a Real Life Context, Planning, Professional Learning and Growth

Combined Grade Planning

Like Alison’s Blog on Meaningful Connections, I too have a combined grade (5/6) and have to find common curriculum connections within both grades. I recently have been able to attend a multi day board workshop on planning Science and Social Studies for a combined grade classrooms. After one session, I volunteered to take on the challenge of becoming a Demo Classroom to discuss my planning process with a group of colleagues and have my class lesson as a demo to allow the opportunity for my colleagues to see how the planning is implemented.

Although I was a little nervous to find the connections, the experience to have one on one time with a board instructional leader was very valuable to my professional learning. I also was able to take the new skills learned and implement them to other areas of the curriculum. The main idea is to find connections between the each grade’s curriculum. Sometimes it is a research skill or an investigation, I also have found connections in the big ideas or concepts in the overall expectations. Remembering Science and Social Studies curriculum are related to topics, you look to find ways to teach the skills and tools needed in combined lessons to allow students to complete some individual or grade group work related to each student’s grade topic.

I also look for ways to combine expectations within my lessons. For example, one lesson I took the kids out for a community walk. While the grade 5s looked for (and took pictures of) areas of concern within the community, the grade 6s went into a Sobey’s, looked for imported food and recorded the data on a chart (country of export and what the product was). The grade 6 students were encouraged to find products from a variety of countries. We then took the information gathered for both grades; the grade 5s selected one area of concern and wrote a letter to City Hall describing the location, what the concern was, and how to fix the concern. The grade 6s completed a research project (in pairs) of a country from the list developed in Sobey’s which Canada imports products from.

Another combined lesson was looking at Immigration and how it affects Canadian Trade. I used the Frayer Model defining immigration, what it looks like, what it doesn’t look like, and examples of how it affects Canada’s trade. I need to highlight, I am just short of 2/3 of the class having an IEP with the range from gifted to learning disabilities. All the students did great on all of these activities and one reason was the activities were connected to their community and their families. Giving the students real life context really does help to engage and make the connections for their learning.

With the many needs in my class and teaching lessons combined, I was worried the students might not have understood the concepts. When I used an exit card for assessment (or assess in any other way) the students have shown me their understanding of the new knowledge and their ability to learn and apply new concepts in a very busy classroom. There are many ways to connect combined curriculum but you do have to think outside the box and sometimes away from the resources provided by your school. I do still look at the resources and team plan with my colleagues. But when I team plan, I take the time to find connections ahead of time so I am ready to expand the team planning ideas into both grades.

November 20, 2011November 21, 2011 Sangeeta.McAuley Building Inclusion, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Professional Learning and Growth, Wellness

Are We Open?

Reading Samantha’s post about interviews and Tina’s post about co-teaching brings to mind a recurring theme I feel I’m living: teaching is about being open to partnerships.

There are many different ways we can show we are open and they may be as simple as:

-keeping our classroom door open to welcome others

-walking our students outside at the end of the day and talking with parents

-trying a new idea that someone shares with us

-taking time to listen to stories from our students, their family members, or our colleagues

-letting our students take the lead by sharing their ideas and insights

-asking questions when we are unsure

Through these examples and more, we can gain so much information about our students, our school community and most of all, ourselves.

It may be that my perspective is different, given that I haven’t had my own class for the last 6 years, but I like to think that being “new” allows me to see things in another light and I, for one, am glad to be in this position!

November 18, 2011 Samantha.Perrin Communication with Parents and Guardians, Interviews, Report Cards

Parent Teacher Interviews

Parent teacher interviews are definitely one of the things that I love about my job.

To date, I have spent 7 hours a day, for 53 consecutive days (excluding weekends and P.A. days) with these little young people and during parent teacher interviews, I get to speak at depth (at greater depth than telephone interviews and letters home) with the people who spend all that other time with them, and share all of the students’ gains and struggles that we have had in class.

Parent teacher interviews allow me to look at each student as the unique individuals that they are. Often in my teaching, I am focussed on my teaching practices, getting the students to a ‘Level 4’ and looking at what they are not doing, and what I need to do to get them where I want them to be. This is an expected aspect of teaching, but meeting with the parents provides me with perspective and reassurance of how much we have already accomplished together.

I am finding that Grade 1 is a very rewarding grade to teach. I am amazed at the progress my students have made. ‘Johnny didn’t want to write at all in September and is now writing consonant sounds?’ That’s a big gain.’ Liza didn’t seem to understand at all when we were learning our word families, and is now printing initial and final sounds during her spelling tests…even though she got one out of ten words correct?’… ‘That’s a lot of progress for someone I was concerned about when I first did my diagnostic tests at the beginning of the year’…’ Oh, and she was born a month and a half premature?’ That makes sense of my developmental concerns that I had that were not mentioned in her file. Let’s monitor that and look into what other resources are available to us.’ ‘Aiden still is having hard time remembering his homework and to hand in letters. Let’s set up more routine at home so that this doesn’t continue to be a problem once grade 6 and big assignments roll around. ‘

Through parent-teacher interviews I also get deeper insights than what were communicated to me through my parent correspondence at the beginning of the year. Parents going through a difficult time, resulting in misbehaviours in the class?, You are seeing the same inattention at home?’ Let’s both monitor it and see if we need to speak with a professional in the future… ‘. Meeting with parents provides me with perspective of what is going on in my students’ lives and that the time that I spend working with them, pushing them to their best IS working. I get to realise how much of a positive impact I am actually having on my students. It’s easy during the day-to-day to feel a little bit frustrated that despite my best efforts to deliver an engaging, memorable lesson, all students don’t seem to carry it over to their work. But after meeting with the parents, and after reflecting on where the students were when they arrived in my classroom (and speaking to the parents about where they were before); looking at where they are now, I realise that each and every one of my students have made gains. Not exclusively academic, but behaviourally and also with respect to their ability to follow routines, socially, and also with their engagement and love of school.

Having parent-teacher interviews affirms the work that I am doing with my students in the classroom, and it also makes me hopeful about the behaviours that we need to correct at school. It serves as a distinct reminder of what I need to revisit or refocus on at school. When teaching a younger grade level teachers have the opportunity (with the cooperation of parents) to instil good habits and practices in young students that will serve them well in life. To me, this is a very optimistic, and rewarding feeling that can easily fall by the wayside when running around gathering materials, resources, integrating and staying on top of student progress… all of it. Parent teacher interviews remind me of how much my students and I have accomplished through our hard work.

As a small aside I would also like to share an encounter that I had with another teacher on the night of parent-teacher interviews: A teacher and I were chatting in the staff room, and she shared that an exasperated student looked at her and said “teachers have it so easy, they don’t have to do all the hard work… it’s us (the students) that do!”. We laughed knowing that three times the hard work goes into our preparations for their tasks, and yet in their smaller worlds, their work IS the hard work. The bottom line from that conversation is that we have ALL worked hard. The conversation also gave me some perspective,… maybe that I need to reward my students’ hard work a little more often: free time, a movie, some extra DPA outside,… after all, each and every one of us are all working hard and all work and no play isn’t good for any one of us. Another one of my goals this year will be to make a greater effort to celebrate my students’ successes.

My tip to fellow beginning teachers out there is to try to be less anxious about parent-teacher interviews, and use that valuable time to reflect on how well you actually know your students, how much you have learned from your parent-teacher meeting and how much you have accomplished in 53 days. Remember to save the good representations of the students’ work, their struggles and their gains, and what you’ve both accomplished, and your ability to speak to it will often speak for itself.

November 14, 2011November 14, 2011 Alison.Board Assessment, Classroom Layouts, Communication Tools, Report Cards

Co-constructing Before Assessing

Back in September, I allotted time to establish the many routines in the classroom. For the grade one’s in the class, most of their learning consisted of new routines. As the children were more comfortable with the expectations in the classroom, we then focused on their work. Then, by the end of October it was already time to gather assessments and start planning for the Progress Reports.

I realized that the students needed to know what they were being assessed on and what the success criteria for achievement would be. We started by co-constucting the criteria for Level 4 on such things as writing a letter, a procedure, or a recount. We added sticky notes to our anchor charts with reminders. The children then assisted in the selection of their best piece using the success criteria as their guide.

We also reviewed the Learning Skills together. Reviewing Responsibility coincided well with our focus on students demonstrating Responsibility with the TDSB Character Education Traits. We created a “My Responsibilities” corner in the classroom to provide a reference area for the students who need support or visual checkpoints to assist with their self-regulation and determine what their responsibilities are. The area includes a schedule for the day, the job chart with names attached on clothespins, our TRIBES agreements, the TDSB Character Traits, a list of tasks that can be done if their work is finished, and an inspiration chart for independent inquiry work.

I have found that this corner of the room is frequented more than I had planned. It assists the children with their self-regulation in the classroom, as there are times throughout the day that some children have completed their work before others. These students are able to refer to the “My Responsibilities” corner independently, and the result is less need for direct classroom management. It also benefits the children’s development of their learning skills and supports their understanding of the assessment of their learning skills.

November 9, 2011 Erin.Grewar Assessment, Building Inclusion, Diverse Learning Needs, Learning About Your Students

Connecting Through Mini-Conferences

In my last blog, I talked about trying to get students to meaningfully assess how and what they learned. As a crucial follow-up, I make sure to spend some one-on-one time with every student to discuss their progress throughout the term. As a rotary teacher who sees three classes of 30 plus students a day for 42 minutes (a full-time teacher would then see approx 180), I find that it’s challenging to establish a personal relationship with each one of them. Ensuring that I build in the time to sit down and talk to each one of them is a must. I plan around an activity (usually French skits) where students are focused, self-directed and engaged to minimize interruptions with questions. Over the course of the week, I spend between 3 to 5 minutes (not nearly enough I know), where we have each other’s undivided atttention talking about their results for the term, their strong points as students and concrete, realistic steps they could take to improve. Finally, it is also a great opportunity to just shoot the breeze. It’s been my experience that students respond more positively to this individual attention and it allows them to more fully appreciate and understand their mark on their report card. Most importantly, it allows for each of you to connect on a personal level.

October 24, 2011October 24, 2011 Erin.Grewar Assessment, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Diverse Learning Needs

“Targeting” Reflection Through Self-Assessment

As reporting time is fast approaching, I’ve always found it vital that students not only have an idea of where they stand (based on marked assignments) but that they understand how they got there. You would think that with criteria fully explained through various assessment tools and ongoing feedback, students would have a clear idea of their progress. However, I’ve noticed that sometimes they tend to exclusively focus on the mark. Instead of always receiving feedback from the teacher, what is sometimes equally, if not occasionally more productive, is to provide an opportunity to analyze themselves as learners.

I find that using the “Bullseye-Hit or Miss?” questionnaire (see attachment ErinSelf-assment term 1), is effective since the concept of the bullseye in graphic form is engaging on a visual level. I’ve also discovered that for both the students and myself, it communicates a clear perspective without them being subjected to in-depth “reflecting”. Before returning it to me, I give them a chance to compare and discuss with a friend. Getting input from a partner they feel comfortable with tends to result in a more insightful action plan in the final part of the questionnaire. Once collected, I hang on to these to use in out one-on-one student conferences. More on that in my next blog.

October 19, 2011October 19, 2011 Alison.Board Building Inclusion, Classroom Management, Communication Tools, Communication with Parents and Guardians, Interviews

Staying Connected

Similarly to Tina and Roz, I use different means of communication to stay connected with families throughout the year, mostly our classroom website, face-to-face contact, and agendas. It is difficult to limit yourself to one tool to suit the needs of all families. At the beginning of the year I send a paper newsletter and ask for email addresses to invite families to view our classroom website and receive updates from our weekly blog. This is a big hit in the community where I teach, as many parents like to get reminders on their mobile phones or sync our class calendar to their personal calendar. Most of the emails I receive are simple questions that require a simple and quick response, such as setting up interview times or confirming ad due date. Like Roz, if the request is something more delicate, I often call the parent and discuss the concern over the phone or set up a time to meet in person.

Since I teach a grade one and two class, I walk them each day to the outside door to meet their parents or sitters. The parents that I see daily or weekly can easily approach me with a quick question or I can provide an update without having to make time for the phone or computer. For example, I have a grade one student who has arrived in September with no English language. One or two days a week, her mother may ask me about something we have done in class that her daughter is trying to understand and has told her mother at home. With the mother there as the translator, we achieve quite a lot in a few minutes. These quick discussions are easier, more casual, and provide positive support for the student’s learning on a consistent basis (in addition to the support she receives in the classroom), which connects her learning to her home and family.

At my school, every student from grade one to six purchases an agenda in September. At first, I thought this was taking a step backward on my path to improve parent communication with the use of technology. Now, I realize it is just one more means of communication – not only between me and the parents, but it supports communication between the students and their parents when they refer to it together at home. I decided that if the children are all buying the agendas in my class, then we would make good use of them. So, when the students get settled at entry they first open their agenda and find the day’s date. We do quick math skills, talk about health and wellness while evaluating our feelings and assessing our exercise and eating habits for the week, in addition we use the calendar in the agendas rather than a shared calendar, and the students write reminders to themselves. I do not sign the agendas daily, but I do a quick walk around to either read, respond, or initiate a comment as needed. It has also helped with classroom management during the transition from entry to the time we meet together for our gathering circle. The children have learned to explore their agendas (agenda work), if my attention is focused on addressing a student concern or speaking to a parent at the classroom door.

Although keeping up a few forms of communication sounds like juggling balls in the air (and it sometimes is), it is the best way to meet the needs and include all families. By ensuring that you have communicated with parents about any concerns, your face-to-face communication during scheduled interviews will be easier for you and the parents!