Making communication clear, concise and explicit means that everyone understands your intentions. When we make our communication explicit, we create a process that is less likely to result in problems that stem from communication failures. While we may still need to navigate through language barriers, we need to be thoughtful in our consideration of how we provide expectations for communication and connectivity between students/ teachers/ parents. Parents/ guardians then understand our intentions and the direction in which we are going.
Providing parents with support about what “at home” learning looks like is important as we pivot to the “new normal” of online learning. Parents may have unrealistic expectations for their students so it is paramount that educators provide them with a clear understanding of what communication between home and school will look like.
Provided below are a selection of resources that I found particularly interesting to assist educators in supporting families with expectations of communication.
http://www.kathleenamorris.com/2019/01/15/communicate-parents-2019/
Kathleen Morris talks about the 8 ways parents are teachers can communication in 2020. She outlines lots of great examples of ways to connect with lots of links and resources to explore. Such communication tools include: radio or podcasting, videos, email, social media, voice tools, communication apps and in person. This blog was particularly helpful and she provides a wealth of examples for educators to draw from.
https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/the-role-of-parents
This site would be a helpful tool for teachers to share with parents so they have a better understanding of the role that they play in their child’s development and learning (while both at home and at school). This site provides lots of suggestions and ideas for parents to support at home learning as well as provides a break down for milestones by topic including: social skills, emotions and self-awareness, literacy and math, just to name a few. The site focuses on the important role that parents play in their child’s learning and development.
https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/7-ways-to-improve-parental-involvement-in-the-classroom/
7 Ways to Improve Parental Involvement
I found this helpful as a tool to guide teachers in improving parental involvement in the classroom, but also thought it could be used to guide home/ school communication. In order to establish meaningful communication, relationships need to be built. Getting parents involved in student learning is more crucial then ever as we continue to embark on online learning. These 7 ideas to improve parental involvement can be found here:
https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/7-ways-to-improve-parental-involvement-in-the-classroom/
Charts, Tracking Sheets, Contracts:
This website provides numerous samples of charts, tracking forms and contracts designed primarily for parents, however there were a few good examples of parent contracts that could be used to facilitate conversations between teachers and parents about what the expectations are for their involvement with at home learning. Teachers may find the section on goal descriptions useful as new goals may need to be established to work on from home.
https://www.parentcoachplan.com/parenting_contract.php
A few additional sites to explore that focus on effective communication strategies and supports to guide meaningful conversations between educators and parents can be found below:
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/building-parent-teacher-relationships
http://sarahteachingportfolio.weebly.com/effective-communication.html
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