Educational Research:
Engaging Parents in their Child’s Education through Effective Communications
One of the most important parts of my job as a second-grade teacher is the collaboration I have with the parents of my students. It is my job to build the school-home connection so that the I am on the same team as my student’s parents and we can both work together to best support their learning and growth. It’s hard to think about parent-teacher communication without thinking about the changes that have happened since the Covid-19 pandemic. After the world shut down and social distancing was enforced, many of the face-to-face interactions that took place with parents became virtual. Project Tomorrow published an insightful infographic that explored the parent-teacher communication statistics and preferences in 2020-2021, post the initial Covid-19 school closures.
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| Image Source: Project Tomorrow |
My Takeaways and Connections:
In my classroom, I primarily use email to communicate with parents. I have a website that I update with my weekly newsletter, but that link is sent home weekly to parents via email. I also schedule phone calls with parents as needed and check in about once a month with a phone call. Face-to-face meetings with parents happen twice per year during parent/teacher conferences. The exception to this is meeting face-to-face with parents for an IEP meeting or a progress meeting for our students who receive special education services. There have, however, been some changes since the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the Covid-19 school closures and social distancing mandates, parent/teacher conferences and special education meetings were held over Zoom. This new practice was appreciated by many parents, specifically parents who worked nights or had other children at home. The flexibility of being able to meet virtually relieved them of taking time off of work and/or finding additional childcare. During the 2021-2022 school year, after the mandated social distancing, my district gave parents the option to come in person for parent/teacher conferences or have it online. 100% of the families in my classroom chose to have their meeting take place virtually. I was surprised to see that according to Project Tomorrow’s research project, 73% of parents preferred a virtual meeting versus 81% whose preference was face-to-face. I am interested to see if the data from my classroom and my school district this year during parent/teacher conference time more accurately reflects those findings.
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| Image Source: Project Tomorrow |
Another takeaway for me was the only 58% of parents feel satisfied by the amount of teacher communication about individual student progress (Project Tomorrow, 2021). In 2020, I sent a survey to the parents in my classroom asking about my communication. I asked parents if they felt satisfied by the amount of communication they were receiving from me, as well as the modes of communication I was using (at that time Seesaw as used frequently for messaging families as well). Overwhelmingly, the parents in my classroom felt satisfied and only requested for more information on how they can practice with their student at home. This left me with some questions about the types of communication and the frequency of communication that the participants of the Project Tomorrow’s survey receive from their children’s teachers. I was also curious how similar my district’s expectations for communication are compared to other districts in our county, state, or region.
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| Image Source: Project Tomorrow |
The Importance of Educational Research:
As a teacher, it is so easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day of your own classroom. It is just as easy to start to feel like your school’s community is representative of all school communities. Educational research helps teachers and school leaders to take a step back and see things from a new perspective. It also brings to light issues, debates, and feelings that might actually be present in your school’s community without you knowing it. In addition, education is always evolving. Educational research helps teachers and school leaders stay up to date on trends and statistics that directly impact the students they work with. By taking time to read research and look at topics through a new lens, changes can be made that have a positive impact on students, teachers, school leaders, parents, and the school community as a whole.
References
Project Tomorrow. (2021). Engaging Parents in their Child’s Education through Effective Communications [Infographic]. Tomorrow.org. https://tomorrow.org/speakup/downloads/Engaging%20Parents%20in%20their%20Childs%20Education %20through%20Effective%20Communications.pdf
Hi Madeline,
ReplyDeleteYou bring up such a great point about how virtual options provide a sense of relief for some parents who might need to arrange childcare or might not be able to make the commute if they need to work. Personally, my office at Dominican University started offering virtual intake meetings and check-in's for students. This created a lot more flexibility for them, especially since a lot of students have flare-up's in their condition and may not be able to meet in person.
I also like how you sent a survey asking parents to give their thoughts about your communication with them. I wish I would have done that with my student's parents. I think it would've built our relationship more, especially since I did teaching remotely and did not have a chance to meet with any of the parents face-to-face. It was interesting how the infographic mentions that 40% of teachers text the parents. I did not text parents, but my mentor teacher did. I mainly used email since I did not want to share my cellphone number.
Thanks for your post and ideas about improving communication with parents!!
It's good that you asked your parents not only if your communication methods were working but also what else they needed from you in that area. Remember, the Speak Up Survey had over 50,000 stakeholders (parents included) that took their survey so as can be expected, there are a large number of different geographical areas covered and different experiences for everyone.
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ReplyDeleteHi Madeline. I agree that research has forced me to take a step back and see what is and is not happening in school districts outside my own. We have a large EL population, and parent support is key. With parent communication regarding student progress, most prefer coming to the school or receiving phone calls. The main reason for this preference is the availability of bilingual teachers and paraprofessionals at my school. Parent Square is the go-to platform that is used districtwide, and there is an option for parents to read messages in their native languages. Before the global shutdown, communication was through email or phone calls. The following school year, if parents could not meet face-to-face, they preferred using Google Meets instead of phone calls. Like you, I am curious about how parent communication has changed in my district from 2019 until now. Also, I used Smore in the past to create and send newsletters to my parents. I have not used it this year because of Parent Square, which is suitable for quick group messages but not great for creativity. I think I will go back to using Smore just for the newsletter component because it allows me to communicate more creatively with families.
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