Facilitating Parent-Teacher Communications
Yesterday, we had one of those “set it straight” meetings with one of my children’s teachers. It’s not that something wrong was happening, but that we needed to better understand where each of us was coming from, how that affected teaching and learning in class for our child, and make sure we understood each other.
As educators, we can do so much to help parents and community understand what is happening…if we’re willing to communicate more. One way to accomplish that is to take advantage of social media tools. Wouldn’t it be tough to read a critique like this one…
That principal runs their twitter like they run their school. you listen to them but they don’t listen back.
Source: Online tweet, anonymized to protect the sender and receivers
Thanks to Amber Teamann (8amber8 on Twitter) for sharing this positive story about how blogs can facilitate parent-teacher communications:
When Sophie came home on the first day talking about the new kids she had met, we were able to check the blog to put faces to all of the new names thanks to first day pictures posted on the blog. Last week Sophie came home super excited about the “Insect Song” they sang in class.That night, we listened to the kids singing it from the front row. We have always appreciated the insight into our kids’ days that we get from weekly or monthly parent letters, but the immediacy and multi-media goodness of Mrs. Morrison’s regularly updated blog makes us feel like we are there for some of it. What more can a parent ask for?
How are you—as teacher, leader—using blogs to make learning more transparent in their classrooms so that parents can better understand what happens to their child?
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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure