Chapter 11 page 241
the classroom. Elementary school teachers can extend invitations to parents to read with individual
children, play math games with small groups, or give a guest talk about their job or an interesting
hobby. At the secondary level, parents can lend expertise to projects (e.g., an parent who works as an
urban planner can talk with students working on an urban planning project about how professional
planners go about their job) or to club activities (e.g., lending expertise to the garden club).
Have students help develop a class website or a class newspaper. This will help keep parents up to date
on classroom or school happenings with input from the students.
When teachers use these and similar strategies, they enhance their chances of developing
cooperative relationships with their students’ parents. Because these interactions focus on positive
messages, it is easier for you to contact parents and gain their cooperation when problematic situations
arise as well. When parents have had positive interactions about their children with you, they will be less
likely to react negatively when you ask their help with a problem with their child. It is important to be
aware that some parents will be more involved than other parents. This is normal, and it doesn’t mean that
your plans to involve parents is flawed. But you do want to develop a plan that engages as many parents as
possible.
Problem 11.3 Evaluating Teaching: Parent-teacher conferences
A website provides tips from teachers on how to handle parent-teacher conferences. Below are three of
these tips. How would you evaluate these contributions from teachers? Which teacher’s tips are most
useful? Which are least? What else could you add to strengthen the advice?
Teacher #1: I take the "sandwich" approach. I start with something positive, continue with the
things that the child needs to work on, and I finish with something positive. I also have his or her
portfolio with me the day of the conference.
Teacher #2: It is extremely important to start with a positive statement about the student and
to point out any positive experiences that child has had to date.... I like to make sure that, as the
parent ends the conference, I review two or three main things the student must do to become an even
better student and ask that the parent contact me in a couple of weeks to see if there has been an
improvement.
Teacher #3: I write notes about the child before the conference and put them into two
categories; Glows and Grows. This helps me to stay focused on the child and their strengths and needs
both academically and behaviorally.
Response: All of these teachers agree on the importance of saying positive things about the student;
Teacher #1 and Teacher #2 sensibly emphasize starting the conference with positive statements about
the student. Teacher #2 introduces strategies of goal-setting and monitoring, to promote learning by
every student; this is strongly in line with goals of promoting self-regulated learning and enhancing
motivation through goal-setting. One could also include the students in the goal setting. One teacher
notes that she includes the child at the parent-teacher conferences so that all together they “make a
home-school plan that everyone can buy into. The child is now aware that parents and teachers are
talking the same language and there is more commitment on all sides.” Through these meetings, all can
agree on goals that then all can monitor and work toward. If teachers regularly communicate goals and
standards to parents via a website or newsletters, then parents will be in a better position to evaluate
how well their children are doing.
Source: http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4195.