Online Dilemmas: Summaries and Resources
Dilemma One: Proactive and Productive Communication with Parents and Families
Completed 12/2006
Dilemma Two: Assessment: Meaningful (or Messy?)
Completed 2/2007
Dilemma Three: Differentiated Instruction
Completed 5/2007
Dilemma Four: Classroom Management
Completed 6/2007
What is a Dilemma?
A Dilemma is a short, open-ended scenario that poses a question about a specific teaching issue. Mentees and mentors conduct online discussions offering possible solutions to a Dilemma. The nature and structure of a Dilemma invites a wide range of ideas, offers opportunities to exchange and contrast perceptionsóand motivates teachers to respond. Dilemmas are optional, and are designed to provide a way for mentees to have a quick, interesting, and useful way to participate in a professional conversation. The Dilemma is posted below along with a facilitator's summary of the discussion.
Dilemma One: Proactive and Productive Communication with Parents and Families (completed 12/2006)
Recently a parent confronted Alicia, a new classroom teacher, about her child's performance on a recent class project. Alicia felt attacked, though she's not sure that was the parent's intention. The experience reminded her to be proactive when preparing for conversations with parents. She wants to be both empathetic to their concerns, and assertive about her own classroom practices.
How would you suggest Alicia prepare for parent conferences in order to demonstrate her proficiency as an educator?
In summary of the recent discussion, four main themes have emerged from your input. We've included just a few key points that came up repeatedly, among many of your suggestions.
- Nurturing a genuine and enduring partnership with parents:
Actively listen with an open mind.
Begin with child's strengths.
Seek input from parents/families.
Find ways to show your genuine care for the child. - Proactive preparation:
Have an agenda for the conference.
Have up to date records and rubrics available.
A variety of student work ready to show.
Know how student is doing in other school situations. - Effective ways to present information:
Give positive information first, before voicing concerns.
Prepare for and recognize cultural differences.
Give background info about yourself first.
Share strategies you've tried, bring suggestions for how to help at home. - Follow-up:
Keep notes and send home "minutes".
Come up with a plan, in partnership with family.
Provide dates for a follow-up visit or call.
Invite families to visit the classroom, and suggest ways for them to be involved.
Keep a log of parent communication.
In our own experiences with parent conferencing our learnings have centered around some of these same themes: contacting parents early in the year whenever possible with positive input; inquiring pre-conference about their concerns and interests regarding their child's education; emphasizing and recognizing students' talents as well as their struggles in the classroom; providing evidence of students' performance (class work, attendance records, assessments. reference to academic standards, . . .).
We have posted some links that you may find helpful, resources directly relating to proactive parent communication. One link is associated with ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), a non-profit, non-partisan organization oriented to supporting educators. If you're looking for a professional organization that publishes an excellent journal, this is a good one.
- Costa, A.L. and Kallick, B., Eds. (1995). Making Parents Partners in Encouraging Intelligent Behavior (Chp. 5). Assessment in the Learning Organization: Shifting the Paradigm. ASCD: Alexandria, VA.
Multiage-Education.com. Nuts & Bolts: Communication with Parents.
Teachnology.com. Teaching Tips That Work Center: Parent Communication.
Seattle Public Schools STAR program. On Demand Information for New Teachers.
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First of all, with the snow days, conference days, and power outages, thank you all for participating in our discussion of working with parents.
Reviewing your honest comments and the situations you described, the following key points came up.
One of you reminded us that around 4th grade, we see a developmental stage in children, one where there is sometimes tension between parent hand holding and the child beginning to seek out his/her independence.
Some of the issues that you are dealing with, include family issues, single parent homes, parents who do not speak English, children who are caregivers, and parents who have a different opinion of their child than you have at this point.
You have learned that for some parents it is hard to acknowledge parenting errors. Sometimes parents excuse their children for things that you do not think should be acceptable at school in your classroom.
In your first year wisdom, you have learned to tap into what parents are saying. You told us that it helps to deal with the parents' "expertise" regarding their child.
In your discussions with parents, one of you suggested that a teacher always acknowledge the comments of parents by stating "thank you for sharing that with me." And when the topic gets too heated or goes too far back into the past, you have learned to divert the conversation and bring it back to the present in your classroom.
Some great tips were given in terms of seeking out school district or school building resources to help you. For example, try to get a district translator so that the student is not translating for the parents.
Remember to ask for the help of your school counselor during parent meetings. The school counselor can support you, the parent, and the child.
I will post another dilemma very soon. I appreciate all of your patience in getting this started and look forward to you joining in on our next discussion.
Scholastic Many Ways to Reach Parents
Scholastic Teacher Tips for Successful Parent-Teacher Conferences
Harvard Graduate School of Education Parent-Teacher Partnerships (MS Word)
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Peter asked a question that seemed to summarize all of your concerns: " I'd like to know if, though many of these students' circumstances are out of my control, is there anything I can do to get these students to succeed?"
My thoughts...
As a teacher, it's important to recognize what is in your control, what you can influence, and what you can't. As you know, intrinsic learning (learning for its own sake) and intrinsic motivation must come from within your student. But in order to continue to stimulate your student's intrinsic motivation, you can set up activities that are stimulating, engaging, and interesting. You can also set up a classroom environment conducive to learning where students feel safe to explore, investigate, experiment, and make mistakes. Failure is a normal part of life, it's how your students respond to that failure that can make a difference in their behavior in your classroom. You can encourage students merely to see failure as a stumbling block that they can learn and grow from rather than if they perceive it as a shut down mechanism.
One of the greatest joys of teaching is watching your kids persevere and discover their own potential. It could be something as simple as solving a problem, completing homework, providing input to their group, or feeling comfortable presenting to their classmates. Once they experience success and feel smart in your class over and over again, they begin to perceive themselves as successful. I love the quote, "The teacher is there to provide a climate which students can see their own strengths, believe in themselves, and become what they want to become." (Combs, 1962)
But what about the kids who continue to struggle? I wrote a brief description of each of your students and then described what you have tried so far to help them in parenthesis.
Bemmanuel seems mentally absent, un-ambitious, and lacks direction. He often needs to be prompted to engage in the classroom, many times responds with "I don't know," and has completed less than half his homework.
(. . . had the big picture talk with him, continuously give him daily prompts to get involved)
Cain often skips class, resists working in class individually or with group members, falls asleep in class, can do problems but gives up if they are remotely difficult, and may have an unstable family life.
(. . . called home which worked for the short term-father tries to get him to school on time, placed him in groups with someone who can help support him)
Jim doesn't do any homework, rarely does anything in class, but is smart and capable of learning the material. Occasionally he'll engage in off-task talking with students around him. He is a junior with only 5 credits and will be entering Job Corp at the end of the school year.
(. . . one-on-one talks, emailed and called home but no one responded)
Jeremy comes to class, but doesn't participate. He's also failing all of his classes.
(. . . emailed home but no one responded, spoke with him once individually about a test and he was able to explain the problems he missed correctly, spoke with assistant principal who suggested he might be trying to get back at his dad)
I know that it's frustrating to have kids that are struggling in your classes. The plus is that all of you are teachers who are taking the time to reflect on your students to see if there is anything you can do to help them. Since each student is an individual, it's impossible to find one right strategy to help them. So I put together a list of various strategies that you might try to help support them in your classroom. I hope I may have hit on something that you may not have tried yet.
I know you are super busy, but I also want to encourage you to provide any suggestions to one another. Feel free to post your suggestions on-line.
Thanks for reflecting on such a difficult issue. I hope something I've written below may help. Have a great break.
Suggestions
Learning disability
- Does student have an IEP?
- Does student have a potential learning disability and need to be tested?
- Look at the cumulative file. Sometimes this will give the teacher a broader perspective about the students' past schooling. Sometimes you find that the student recently exited Special Ed or ELL but doesn't have any support.
Access to learning
- Can they see the board from where they are sitting?
- Are there basic concepts/skills they are missing which are hindering from being able to attempt the problems?
- Are they ESL? If so, are you providing them with literacy strategies?/li>
- Are you teaching all students literacy strategies?
- Is organization an issue?
- Have they learned strategies for accessing a problem?
- Do they know when they should take notes and when they don't need to? Many students need to be told when to take notes.
Getting to know them
- Are they involved in extra curricular activities you can attend? Once a week, have them jot down one thing that is going on in their lives on the back of an assignment they will be turning in.
- Have them in at lunch and find out how you can better support them. Do they find your math class difficult, boring, both, or other?
- Find out what motivates them. If they want, have them reflect on their lives in their unit portfolios.
- Do they know you? Do you share pieces of your life with them? What role(s) have you chosen as their teacher?
- Has this student been successful in any other class or with any other teacher? Email all of the teachers this particular student has and try to organize a group effort. If the student is getting it from all classes, may be more impactful. Talk to a teacher that has had some success with that student - what did they do that helped him/her?
- Find another teacher who has a planning period during your class. Ask them to sub for you for 1/2 of your class while you conference individually with the struggling students. Offer to return this favor to the teacher that helped you out. In fact, try to make this a regular occurrence. If you can't find a teacher, ask the assistant principals or principal.
Status issues
- Have they written about their past experiences in math classes, working in groups, working alone? You can learn a lot about status issues this way.
- Can you identify at least two of their math "smartnesses"?
- Have you assigned competency to the student?li/>
- Have you done an exercise where they id how they are "smart" in math?
- Have them reflect on their math "smartnesses" in their portfolios
- Do students feel respected and valued in your classroom? Is there a high level of trust? Do they feel safe to make mistakes?
Content
- After a group worthy activity, have them identify additional math "smartnesses" that were used during the activity and add to list you started with. Then have them individually id and describe which smartness they used to help contribute during the activity.
- Regardless of the curriculum, are you doing group worthy activities?
- Is material relevant to their lives? Can you make any connections to everyday life?
Parent(s) or guardian
- Have you called home to find out how you can better support their child?
- Have you had a parent/student conference?
- If this is a common pattern in all of this student's classes, ask the counselor to set up a parent/(all)teacher/counselor meeting and include the student in the meeting. Find out from the student how his/her teachers can better help him/her succeed in class.
Small group class activity
- Why learn math? Why is this class important to you? What does perseverance mean? How do you respond to failure? How do you respond to success?(debrief round robin or sit in a circle and discuss)
Other
- Have you thought about an individual attendance or behavior or grade contract?