Discuss the Importance of Communicating with Parents to Build a Strong Parent-Teacher Relationship.

week 3
Instructor Expertise

Case Study Explanation

This week in the case study you will get to meet the families of Mrs. Ashland’s students. You will see how Mrs. Ashland establishes relationships with these students. As you meet each family you will gain a little more insight into some of the factors that are contributing to each child’s academic and social needs.

Importance of Communicating with Parents to Build a Strong Parent-Teacher Relationship

As you will learn from reading the case study this week, one of the most important characteristics of an early childhood educator is being caring. For parents they know that their child’s teacher cares about their child’s development and progress when they have a positive and interactive relationship with their child’s teacher. “Close contact and regular communication between the home and the school in Early Childhood programs improve the way parents and educators work towards the goal of child development” (Bridgemohan, Wyk, & Staden, 2005, p. 60).

There are many things that you can do to build a strong relationship with the parents of your students. One of the most common things that teachers do is to send home a weekly newsletter to keep parents informed about what is going on in the classroom. While this is an effective strategy, we want to make sure that we mix up the way we communicate with parents so that they know we are putting forth great effort in our teaching. Another reason for using a variety of communication techniques is, “Every child and family is unique, and no one’s style of communication will meet everyone’s needs every time” (Reedy & McGrath, 2010, p. 353). Some alternative ideas for keeping your parents informed about your classroom are to send quick emails to parents with an anecdote about their child, establish a classroom website where parents can post comments, and to make a phone call home to let the parent know something positive their child did that day while in your care. There are many more ways that you can connect with parents including some great ones in the article Tips for Creating Strong Teacher-Parent Relationships (2011) by Sharon Taylor. In the first discussion forum of the week, you will have the chance to share your ideas about the importance of communicating with parents.

Conferencing

Along with the ideas mentioned above, another great option for connecting with parents is through conferences. Conferencing is one of the greatest ways to share information with your parents about how their child is doing. After all conferences provide the chance for you to collaborate and share with families about their child (Feeney, Moravcik, Nolte, & Christensen, 2010). Often times during parent teacher conferences the parents sit and listen to the information you have to share and nod along while you explain how their child is doing. Usually as you are wrapping up the conference you ask the parents if they have any questions about anything you shared or their child. Many times parents do have questions they want to ask, but they are unsure of how to ask them.

One strategy that can be effective in order to help parents feel more prepared for coming to a conference is to send home a list of questions for the parents to look over that they could ask you during their child’s conference. The questions would range from how their child is doing in a certain subject, to who their child’s closest friends are, to what their child likes to do the best during the day at school. Some parents may feel overwhelmed with receiving a large list of questions, so it can be helpful to suggest that they pick at least three questions off of the list to ask during their conference, but let them know they could ask as many as they wanted. By using this strategy it helps the parents to feel prepared and to come with meaningful questions that they can use in order to learn more about how to help their child be successful. While it is a simple idea, it can have a great impact on the quality of the conferences you will have with your students’ parents. You can also learn some great ideas for conferencing from watching the video Parent-Teacher Conference Time (2006).

Another Perspective on Building Relationships and Guiding Behavior in the Classroom

Creating positive relationships with your students and guiding them to be successful is one of your most important responsibilities as an early childhood educator. Chapter seven of your textbook, A Bridge to the Classroom and Early Care: A Capstone, has many ideas that are similar to a book titled Conscious Discipline by Dr. Becky Bailey. Our text defines classroom management as “an umbrella term for creating an environment that encourages positive interactions among children, caregivers, and teachers” (Krogh, 2013, p. 164). Conscious Discipline is an excellent program that does this by explaining how teachers can guide their students’ behavior by really focusing on teaching kids how to solve their problems through building relationships.

The seven key concepts of Conscious Discipline (Composure, Encouragement, Assertiveness, Choices, Positive Intent, Empathy, and Consequences) align with the ideas shared in our text. For example, our textbook mentions what to do when a child needs to calm down. If you follow Conscious Discipline, you would have a spot in your classroom called the Safe Place that is designed for that purpose. Another similarity comes when talking about conflict resolution, or how to handle challenging situations. Table 7.1 in our textbook discusses different ways to handle these situations. There is an entire chapter in Conscious Discipline which outlines a similar process to helping your students learn about how to deal with conflicts with other students. Finally the book has a wonderful section focusing on how to use consequences effectively which is one of the trickiest things for teachers. You can get an idea about the types of ideas shared in the book with the video below titled Using Logical Consequences – Conscious Discipline Skills, on Logical Consequences.

There are many more similarities, but if you found the ideas in our text to align with your beliefs about how you would like to manage your classroom, then you would probably find a lot of helpful ideas from Conscious Discipline as well.

What type of classroom management plan will you implement? In the second discussion forum of the week, you will have the opportunity to create a poster explaining what you will do.

Program Comprehensive Examination

This week you can take the Program Comprehensive Examination. You can take the exam anytime between now and Week 5 Day 7. Remember that you will need to purchase this exam, so if you have not already done so you will need to do this. Under the Program Comprehensive Examination link in the Week 3 tab, you can access information about how to purchase the exam, the exam FAQs, and a list of the topics and subjects covered on the exam. Hopefully the topics and subjects on the exam look familiar to you because you have been making connections between these topics and the case study in each of your weekly journals. Also, this exam takes approximately two hours to complete, so please plan ahead and make sure that you schedule sufficient time for completing the exam. Finally, as you are taking the exam, keep in mind that it is designed to test your learning throughout your degree program, not just information taught in this course. Be confident in the knowledge you have gained throughout your studies at Ashford. YOU CAN DO THIS!!!

Looking Ahead to Your ePortfolio

There is no written assignment this week, but you are encouraged to look ahead to the final project. For your final project for this course, you will be creating an ePortfolio. There are directions for setting up your ePortfolio under the Week 5 tab. Many of the artifacts that will be going into your ePortfolio will be from assignments and discussions in the course. If you want to get a jump start you can go ahead and create the shell for your ePortfolio so that in Week 5 you can start adding the content to it. Also, you can start to make adjustments to the assignments from the first two weeks of class that will need to be included in your ePortfolio based on the feedback you have received. If you have any questions or need help, please reach out!
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Critical Reflections/Application Opportunities
• What experiences do you recall about how your teachers developed relationships with your parents? How will these experiences guide what you do in your classroom?
• What strategies do you plan on using to develop strong relationships with your students’ parents?
• How will you prepare for the Program Comprehensive Exam so that you can demonstrate your knowledge of the field of Early Childhood Education?
“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
~ Carol Buchner

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Weekly Readings

Chapter 7: Guiding Children’s Behavior
• This chapter focuses on classroom management and how you can guide the behavior of the students that you are working with.
Chapter 8: A Positive Environment From Day One
• This chapter focuses on how you can create a positive classroom environment for your students and their families.
ECE 430: Week 3 case study: Families.
• In Case Study 3 you will meet the families of the six children in Mrs. Ashland’s classroom and learn about a little about them. Each child’s personality and development is explored further.

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Week Three Learning Activities

Points
Learning Activities
Due Date
4 Discussion: Week 3 Case Study Analysis

This discussion will focus on approaches building relationships with families and the Week 3 Case Study. You will need to reflect on the case study and discuss why it is important to build relationships with your students’ families. Make sure to use examples from the case study to explain how a strong relationship with a child’s parents can benefit their academic, social and behavioral development.

Peer Response: You will need to respond to at least two of your peers. When responding to your peers, make sure to connect with an idea they shared and share at least two reasons why it is important to connect with parents.When responding to your peers, make sure that you follow the guidelines listed in the Guided Response. If you do not address the Guided Response, you will not be able to earn full participation points.
Day 3, Thursday
Day 7, Monday
4 Discussion: Make and Take Classroom Poster

This discussion will focus on classroom management and student behavior. You will need to create a poster using either Microsoft word or another format. Make sure to address the behavioral expectations for the age of children you work with, how to encourage pro-social behavior, and ideas for guiding children with difficult behavior.

Peer Response: You will need to respond to at least two of your peers. When responding to your peers, you will need to provide them with feedback on their poster using the guiding questions shared in the course. When responding to your peers, make sure that you follow the guidelines listed in the Guided Response. If you do not address the Guided Response, you will not be able to earn full participation points. Day 3, Thursday
Day 7, Monday
3 Journal: Leadership, Professional Knowledge, and Ethical Practice

In this week’s journal you will reflect on the Program Comprehensive Exam topics of leadership, professional knowledge, and ethical practice. Please use the questions listed in the journal directions as a guide as you reflect on these topics from the Program Comprehensive Exam.
Day 7, Monday

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Additional Materials

Communicating with Parents

The Pennsylvania State Education Association. (n.d.). Parent Involvement Strategies. Retrieved from http://www.psea.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/Professional_Publications/Advisories/Advisories_Summaries/ParentInvolvementStrategies.pdf

Reading Is Fundamental (n.d.). Communicating with Parents and Caregivers. Retrieved from http://www.rif.org/us/literacy-resources/articles/1455.htm

Reading Rockets (n.d.). Building Parent-Teacher Relationships. Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/19308

Virginia Department of Education (n.d.). Professional Development Toolkit:Parent Communication. Retrieved from http://www.doe.virginia.gov/teaching/career_resources/prof_dev_toolkit/parent_communication/

ZERO TO THREE (n.d.). Effective Communication with Parents. Retrieved from http://www.zerotothree.org/early-care-education/family-friend-neighbor-care/effective-communication-with-parents.html

Guiding Children’s Behavior

Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (2010, May). Strategies to Guide Children’s Behaviour. Retrieved from https://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/earlychildhood/licensed/pn10strategiesbehaviour.pdf

Fairfax County Public Schools (2012, May 10). Positive Discipline: Guiding Children’s Behavior. Retrieved from http://www.fcps.edu/cco/fam/resources/publications/documents/PositiveDiscipline-ENGLISH-5-12.pdf

Healthy Child Manitoba (n.d.). Best Practices for Guiding Children’s Behaviour. Retrieved from http://www.gov.mb.ca/fs/childcare/pubs/behaviourguidancestragies_web.pdf

National Association for the Education of Young Children (n.d.). Planning for Positive Guidance: Powerful Interactions Make a Difference. Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/tyc/article/planning-for-positive-guidance
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References

Bailey, R. A. (2001). Conscious discipline: 7 basic skills for brain smart classroom management (Rev. ed.). Oviedo, Fla.: Loving Guidance.

Bridgemohan, R., Van Wyk, N., & Van Staden, C. (2005). Home-school communication in the early childhood development phase.Education, 126(1), 60.

CBS News (n.d.). Parent-Teacher Conference Time [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/parent-teacher-conference-time/

Feeney, S., Moravcik, E., Nolte, S., & Christensen, D. (2010). Who Am I in the Lives of Children?(8th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.

Heald, S. & Zaur, J. (2013). Early Childhood Education 430: Week 3, Families: Students. Ashford University, College of Education, San Diego, CA.

Krogh, S. (2013). A bridge to the classroom and early care: ECE capstone. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Loving Guidance. (2011). Using Logical Consequences- Conscious Clips. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KukQfLvgCk8&feature=relmfu

Reedy, C., & McGrath, W. (2010). Can you hear me now? Staff-parent communication in child care centres. Early Child Development & Care, 180(3), 347-357. doi:10.1080/03004430801908418

Taylor, S. (2011, August 26). Tips for Creating Strong Parent-Teacher Relationships. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/classroom_solutions/2011/08/tips-for-creating-strong-parent-teacher-relationships-parent-teacher-communication

Uribe, J. ( 2008, April 26). 100 Ways to Show Children You Care [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-q-o388Zhg