The Importance of Parent Surveys for the new generation of Digital Natives

How can you use google forms or online surveys improve your culturally responsive pedagogy?

Communication is Key

Google forms or online surveys are great tools to begin building home school partnerships with families from the start of the school year. Online surveys and google forms are great assessment devices to get to know the families and children you will be teaching. You can find out about families through personally developed open ended questions, multiple choice questions and short answer questions. Getting data right away to begin assessing your families early in the school year is beneficial to you, your students and their families. This data will allow you to design your classroom in a way that meets the individual needs of your students and their families. Families will appreciate your effort in trying to get to know them and appreciate the inclusive and welcoming setting. I love the idea of communicating with parents through google forms or online surveys because it makes getting and receiving information to and from families a whole lot easier.

According to a survey I conducted, effective communication strategies are:

• Initiation: Teachers should initiate contact as soon as they know which students will be in their classroom for the school year. Contact can occur by means of an introductory phone call or a letter to the home introducing yourself to the parents and establishing expectations.
• Timeliness: Adults should make contact soon after a problem has been identified, so a timely solution can be found. Waiting too long can create new problems, possibly through the frustration of those involved.
• Consistency and frequency: Parents want frequent, ongoing feedback about how their children are performing with homework.
• Follow-through: Parents and teachers each want to see that the other will actually do what they say they will do.
• Clarity and usefulness of communication: Parents and teachers should have the information they need to help students, in a form and language that makes sense to them.

In a social constructivist classroom, it is important for teachers to form bridges with families. Making connections with families will provide families with important information related to their child’s development and create supportive learning environments. The article Funds of Knowledge states, “Many teachers care for their students, but unless they care enough to attempt to learn understand, and know their students’ political, historical, and personal situations (their funds of knowledge) then they are not taking the important steps to use what the students bring from their own backgrounds into the classroom” (Lopez, 2008, p. 35). The data from the surveys support families would like to have regular communication with their child's teacher.

Improving your pedagogy with increased collaboration!

How can you improve your pedagogy with increased collaboration?

Isolation can be a side effect of becoming a teacher. It is very easy to get caught in the trap of walking into a classroom, shutting the door, and tending to your own students. This is how many schools function, with educators sharing nothing more than a parking lot. Some people like it this way, but an effective teacher is someone who wants to grow in the profession. An effective teacher wants collaboration for themselves and their students. 

What is Collaboration?

Collaboration is a joint effort of multiple individuals or work groups to accomplish a task or project. Within an organization, collaboration typically involves the ability of two or more people to view and contribute to documents or other content over a network.

Collaboration is everything! You have to know how to do it though. I think many teachers have type A personalities making it tough to collaborate because of the desire to be in control. In our profession however, I think collaboration is what actually gets you through the school year. I have learned that delegating responsibilities is healthy and necessary to sustain your emotional and physical well being throughout the school year. Collaboration is useful and can enhance a students school experience. As a teacher you can also learn a wealth of knowledge from other educators to add to your pedagogy and increase your knowledge base! In a social constructivist classroom, teachers learn to teach collaborative learning methods that require learners to develop teamwork skills and to see individual learning as essentially related to the success of group learning. Collaborative learning highlights the contributions of individual group members, stresses the sharing of authority, and leads to dialog and consensus building on topics without a clear right and wrong answer. Group governance and group processing remain in the hands of the students (Panitz, 1997).

I conducted a teacher interview that revealed teachers today are in need of more collaboration in the classroom. One teacher said, "It would be amazing to have the opportunity to observe one another more frequently." Another teacher said, "Give more collaboration time between teachers within a team." A third teacher mentioned, "Centers teaching and collaboration between students should be happening more but takes a LOT of planning and forethought or it can truly be too chaotic." The patterns in the data reveal educators would like to learn from each other and believe planning together would result in more ideas being shared. Teachers believe this planning time with colleagues is essential to building a differentiated teaching model to address individual learning styles in the classroom. The data also shows teachers see that through collaboration teachers would understand what other educators are doing in their classrooms as well as learn what approaches other schools are taking.

Team Work Makes The Dream Work!

Blogging Can Be Done!

How can blogging promote collaboration between home and school?

Have you ever wanted to start your own blog as an educator to keep families informed about whats happening in your classroom? Well now you can, very easily I might add! Blogging is a sure fire way to keep families abreast of important events, provide details about what is happening in the classroom, what unit of study students are currently engaged in, and offer homework help. These are just a few ways blogging can make your classroom inclusive and accessible to families. I have learned during my research, Google has a useful feature called "Blogger" which allows you to start you're very own blog. You do not have to be as technologically savvy as you might think and more importantly it is free! Yes, I said free! I know many teachers have to be careful how they spend their teacher dollars so this is an awesome way to promote technology in your classroom without having to spend a ton of money. In order to prepare your blog as a teacher you would need to sign up for a gmail account as it is run through your e-mail address. You begin by choosing a domain name and then creating a name that is catchy to grab your families attention. I am still learning about all the functions of Blogger, but choosing a template that spoke to my style was easy and fun! If I were you I would start setting up my blog now to prepare yourself for the upcoming school year. Families will love the function of it and other teachers will think you are a rock star!