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The project I chose for Family and Community Engagement is to support the school in training the parents in Mastery Learning and Grading. The reason I chose this project is to support this particular group of stakeholders in the new instructional practice that the school community is engaging in. Like all other school initiatives, the role of stakeholders like parents is critical in determining the success of the program. This is because parents hold a special place in the role of educating students. Outside of the school campus, they have the most sway in student’s accomplishment. By providing knowledge of this new learning and grading system, parents can reinforce this new practice at home with students. For that reason, I chose to provide the training to the parents in Mastery Learning and Grading. In addition, I chose this project because of the infrastructure that was already in place to promote this project. At my school, we have community liaison members who help to connect the school to the parents and the community. In fact, the school regularly holds community events such as the Parent College to assist parents in supporting students in the school. As such, this infrastructure is already in place to facilitate the parent outreach effort. I would not have to create any new system to attract parent attendance. Instead I can rely on this asset that the school has laboriously created to continue providing new learning for the parents. Last but not least, I chose this project to support classroom teachers. Since our community has adopted this shift in learning and grading, teachers have had many responsibilities in attending training and revising their curriculum to align with this new practice. It is also incumbent upon them to communicate this shift to parents. For that reason, providing parents with Mastery Learning and Grading is an effective way in which I can provide support for classroom teachers.
I planned this project to last for at least throughout this academic year and the next. Since the structure of the Parent College is an hour-long meeting, I have to plan several sessions in order to cover all the materials in Mastery Learning and Grading. During the session, with the support of another out-of-the-classroom colleague, we provided a training similar to that which we gave to the teachers. We had to modify the training to suit the experience of the parents. There were things we omitted because they pertain to the instructional side of this shift which were not relevant to our attendees. On the other hand, there were things we supplemented because they were important to the parents. During the training, we provided several interactive activities to engage the parents in the learning. We also provide ample opportunities for parents to speak about their own experiences and their learning to ensure a captive audience. Since this training took place during distance learning, we also opted to provide the training via Zoom. So far, we have successfully completed one session and are planning for future events.
self-reflection
Through this project, I gained the first hand experience of working with parents and community members. I learned that, as learners, parents have very special needs that are drastically different from students. For that reason, I have to accommodate these needs in supporting their growth. For example, parents struggle much more in their use of distance learning technology than their children counterparts. This aspect can be taken for granted in students because they have been using technology in school much longer than their parents have. As such, I had to be cognizant of this need and be prepared to support them technologically during the training. Even though Zoom is becoming a household name for distance learning, many parents have not had much experience in using this platform. They will need very explicit guidance to use everyday video conference features such as using the chat or moving into a breakout room. On the other hand, parents are naturally motivated to learn and they bring their enthusiasm to the training in the form of active participation. They are never shy from sharing their own experience and opinion about a topic and are always eager to want to know more.
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