7.1 Communicating with
Families. In
order to collaborate effectively with families, I find it necessary to periodically
send positive emails home to parents informing them of their students’ progress
while respecting cultural norms. In regards to the use of technology in this
way, Olmstead (2013)’s
study concluded that, “Most types of proactive involvement can be fostered
through the use of technology. The data revealed that both parents and teachers
perceived that technology is an effective tool” (p. 35-6). At my current internship, I accessed parent emails from student
information found on district’s LMS web-based grading system. This program
provided me with a guardian name, phone number and email address. When writing
emails to parents, as shown in Figure 1’s
template
letter, I identified key learning tasks to the parents that their
student was working on (i.e. fitness testing). I was able to provide parents
with their student’s specific results from the web-based physical education
program, WELNET Focused Fitness. Over the course of the semester, several of my
students have drastically improved their fitness scores. This is something that
parents should be aware of and their student should be receiving recognition
for their hard work. After sending emails to parents, I was not expecting a
response. However, several parents have emailed me back indicating that they
thought it was awesome that their student is doing so well in my class. Through
the use of sending positive emails home, I believe that I have been successful
at increasing constructive parent-teacher communication.
 |
| Figure 1. Example or Template Email Send Home to Parents |
Olmstead,
C. (2013). Using technology to increase parent involvement in schools. TechTrends, 57(6), 28-37.
