Communication is vital to the success of a student’s education. “Communication can be described as the process where people exchange thoughts or ideas with one another. The benefits of fostering such relationships enable students to freely discuss thoughts and ideas and create an open environment in which questions can be asked without the risk of being judged or humiliated.” (Hanifan, O. 2022). There are many different types of communication channels that happen in an education setting.
Embedded Files
Here are a few avenues of communication:
Student - Teacher
Student - Parent
Teacher - Parent
Student - Stakeholders (Community members also)
Teacher - Stakeholders
Teacher - Colleagues
All of these avenues of communications are wonderful, but we must help our students to be able to not only communicate with these groups, but also initiate communication. Teachers can work with students at school on ways to initiate communication with their parents, community members, and even peers. This type of "coaching" can help studetns develop life long skills of initiating conversations with others. This could be in a collaborative setting, a work environment with colleagues or a boss, or with their future teachers to communicate confusions or misconceptions they may have in order to seek help and clarity.
It is often said that it takes a village to raise a child. To help a student be successful, it is important to have open communication between the teacher, parents/guardians, and student. “Parents and teachers have a common goal: to facilitate the best educational experience possible for students. When parents and teachers communicate with one another, they are able to work together towards this common goal. Technologies like texting and e-mails have made communication between home and school more efficient, and improved in both quantity and quality.” (Gooch, C. (2022)).
Coaching Learning to Initiate Communication
Coaching Learning to Initiate Communication
Student Led Conferences:
Students can be their biggest advocate, but also their biggest critic. A teacher can play an important role in coaching learners to communicate with all stakeholders. As teachers prepare for conferences, they can have students pick examples of work to share with their parents and others. They can pick products they are proud of and feel that it is their best work and pick one example of a product that could improve or has room to grow. After the student picks their work, the teacher can sit with the student and have them write in their pre-conference sheet about why they chose these examples to share.
During parent conferences, students can lead with their work they feel proud of. This will help students to initiate communication with teachers and parents to share with them about their school work. "Preparation for a conference creates an authentic purpose for good organizational and communication skills. The structure builds students’ sense of responsibility and accountability for their own learning, and it helps to hone their understanding of what it means to meet learning targets." (EL Education, 2023). Sometimes the student may not be able to attend. If the student is unable to attend, the teacher can present the pre-conference sheet with the parents to show what their child has chosen as their best work and their growth work examples.
Questions for Guests and Partners:
Our fifth grade yearlong project has been full of communication between the students and stakeholders. once a month, our community partner, Club Car, will come in to work with the students on their accessory. If you would like more information about our yearlong project, go to the the Learner Agency page of this portfolio to understand what our students are designing. In order to help them get ready for their visits and collaboration time with the Club Car team, our students first brainstorm different types of questions they want to ask the team members to help them with designing their accessory.
To the right you can see pictures of students collaborating and commicating with their community partner. These students work hard to really utilize their time with their community partner to make sure they are getting the most out of each session. Students show them journal sketches, ideas, measurements, and more. The community partners work with them to help improve their designs. Students ask the community partner questions that they wrote prior to the collaboration session that the teacher helped in developing.
Communicating Curricula
Communicating Curricula
Teacher Website:
A teacher can be the most beneficial resource for parents to use as they are helping their student study at home. Instruction is ever evolving to continue to meet our students needs and sometimes our "new ways" of teaching don't make sense to parents. A teacher can build a website that can provide parents with videos, class slides, and other resources to help them understand the "new ways" so they can help their student at home. To the right is a link to my teacher created webpage that contains links and resources for multiple subjects. I created this to help my parents with resources they could use with their student at home.
Click image for Mrs. Dachenhausen's Resource Page.
Mar 14-17.pdfNewsletters:
Ever hear, "I didn't know they had a test!" This was a problem we were having when our students were just using their agendas to write down due dates, test dates, and other things. We took a school wide initiative to become better communicators with our parents/guardians and stakeholders. This led to our weekly newsletters. As you can see to the left, this is an example of a newsletter that is emailed out weekly to our parents. It contains tons of information for our parents and stakeholders. We want to make sure everyone is aware of what is going on each week in the subject areas.
Model and Nurture Effective Communication
Model and Nurture Effective Communication
Curriculum Nights:
Being a Title 1 School, we love to get our parents and community involved in the learning experiences of our students. We love to have curriculum nights to help parents with resources of how they can help their student at home. Recently we had a STEM Night where our students helped lead their parents in their grade level STEM activity. The student took their parent/guardian around and led them in completing the STEM task given. We also have other curriculum nights to promote reading strategies and math strategies for families to use at home to help their student(s).
Spirit Nights:
At least once a month, we a spirit night or an event at school to build relationships with our students, parents, and community members. Sometimes they are out at restaurants or dessert places and other times we host them at school. These nights are to get all stakeholders involved in having a fun time to build those relationships. We want families to know that we do care very much about their child's success academically, but we also want to connect not just on the academics. As teachers it does take all stakeholders to help a student be successfull and we want all stakeholders to know that their relationship with their student and their school is valued and important.
References
EL Education. (2023). Leaders of Their Own Learning: Chapter 5: Student-Led Conferences. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://eleducation.org/resources/chapter-5-student-led-conferences#:~:text=A%20student%2Dled%20conference%20is,discusses%20progress%20with%20family%20members
Gooch, C. (2022). Teamwork: Parents and Teachers Working Together. Retrieved from https://www.aspirehealthcorp.com/2016/08/teamwork-parents-and-teachers-working-together/
Hanifan, O. (2022, January 10). 5 Ways to Establish Effective Communication in the Classroom. Retrieved from https://www.mentimeter.com/blog/interactive-classrooms/5-ways-to-establish-effective-communication-in-the-classroom
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