Entry Slip Title: Effective
Parent Communication
Artifacts: September
letter, newsletters.
Context: These artifacts
are evidence of the ways in which I communicated effectively with
my students’ families. During my student teaching experience,
I was able to communicate with parents and families through weekly
newsletters. These newsletters served as communication bridges
among families, students and me. Included in the newsletter were
the activities we participated in, important upcoming dates, and
other pertinent information that I felt families needed to know.
UW GOALS AND TARGETS:
Goal 3: Creating a positive learning environment
Learning Target 3A: Communication Strategies
Through my weekly newsletters, I created ways
in which families and I communicated effectively. These provided
families insight
into what their child’s school experience was like throughout
each school week. Additionally, through my September letter,
I outlined my personal classroom management beliefs and communicated
these with my students’ families.
Goal 4: Professional Commitment
Learning Target 4B: Community Relationships
The following artifacts
illustrate the way in which I was able to communicate weekly
with my students’ families. Through
these newsletters, I fostered professional relationships with
parents/ guardians to support their child’s development
and growth.
Reflection
Parents play a central role in children’s
lives. As a teacher, I am highly aware of the role that children’s
lives at home contribute to their participation in the classroom.
Based on my experience in various elementary school environments,
I believe that there are many issues that I will be facing throughout
my career as an educator. All of these issues not only impact my
overall classroom, but impact individual students as well. As an
educator, one of my vital responsibilities is to identify and resolve
these particular issues to the best of my ability. However, I must
take into consideration that there may be some issues outside of
the school environment that greatly impact my students. In any
case, my role as a teacher should be to resolve these issues or
work with these issues to the best of my ability so that all my
students are given the best positive and learning environment.
One of the most common issues I have experienced
is cultural differences. Students’ families have a great
impact on how they behave in the classroom. As I have mentioned
above, I believe that parents
and families can be positive influences on children’s behaviors
in school. One of the ways in which we, as teachers, can encourage
families to influence their children’s behavior in a positive
way is to build trust with our students’ parents. Through
constant and inviting communication, parents can feel more comfortable
to become more active in their child’s life in school.
Our
classrooms are comprised of a diverse group of students, stemming
from unique family backgrounds. One of my first roles
as a teacher
is to communicate with students’ families and to create
a relationship with them. I must build trust among parents
and work
with them to support their children’s education both
at school and home. Margolis and Brannigan (1986) suggest various
strategies
and behaviors that educators can use to initiate trust-building
with parents including listening to parents empathetically,
working
with parents by involving them in the classroom, and also letting
these parents’ voices be heard.
One of the ways to create
this relationship is through constant communication. During
this summer, I plan to write an introductory
letter that will serve as an initial contact with my students’ parents
that will be similar to the one that I have included as part
of my portfolio (please see parent letter). Jones and Jones
(2002)
suggest that these letters serve as a foundation for creating
a relationship with students’ families and that they
will help initiate conversation between families and their
child’s
teacher. I also will send out a letter during the first week
of school describing classroom norms and behavior consequences.
Moreover,
I will continue to foster this communication by creating opportunities
in which families can become involved with the classroom community.
One way I plan to do this is send weekly newsletters that keep
parents and families updated on what we are doing at school.
I believe that if parents understand what is occurring in the
classroom
they will have fewer concerns about their child’s schooling.
During
my student teaching, I was able to write weekly newsletters
to my students’ parents
(please see enclosed artifacts titled Newsletter 1, 2, or 3) that included
the activities students were participating in, upcoming events
and other important
information.
I have included a few samples
of these newsletters in my portfolio. These newsletters were given to students
and their families as part of the Thursday packet my school put together.
Parents were able to become aware of their children’s
lives, and also feel like they were part of the school community.
By increasing communication between school
and home, families are encouraged to take an active role in their child’s
school experience. Through my efforts to communicate regularly with parents,
parents are thus encouraged to communicate from home to school as well.
